Audio Surveys under beta testing

16 Jun 2018

Hi Nature Mappers,

We're testing a new feature called "Surveys" at the moment - this feature is only in beta (i.e. very unpolished at this stage and needs more refinement).

The feature was built primarily for FrogWatch ACT to support the recording of frog calls by someone doing a survey in a single location that may observe many different species while standing in the same spot. But the same feature could be used for recording bird surveys as well.

I'd love your help to beta test the new capability, so that we can further refine it and help shape it from here.

The new FrogWatch ACT site isn't live yet, but we are playing with Frog surveys over there:
https://frogwatch-act.naturemapr.org/

And on CNM I've made a new test "Bird Survey" to play around with. You'll notice the new "Bird Survey" option in the "Add a Sighting" menu. Here's one I created earlier:
https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Survey/798

Please feel free to comment on the survey and provide your constructive feedback so that we can make these new features really awesome.

Thanks a lot

Aaron.

13 comments

AaronClausen wrote:

17 Jun 2018

You can now filter the various sighting lists by a new "audio view mode". Example: https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Species/15084?ViewMode=Audio

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Congratulations and well done Aaron. Since you've been dreaming of this for about three years it is great to have it implemented.
I guess you have a lot of work to do to finish this off. I wonder how it applies to the Chocolate Lily page? They don't make a lot of noise! See:
https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Species/4619?ViewMode=Audio

AaronClausen wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Thanks heaps Michael for all the support and ongoing assistance in fine tuning these new features! We can't build this stuff without your invaluable assistance.

Yes I am really excited and happy to finally have a basic version of this up and running. I've wanted to do it for ages. Yes we still need to do heaps more fine tuning and general polishing, there are a lot of gaps. It is also only currently supported for sightings that exist as part of a survey, so I also need to turn it on for individual sightings.

Having audio impacts heaps of the underlying system including import and export tools and also the performance of the platform. So I'm just keen to chip away at it and listen to everyone's feedback so that we eventually get it really nicely humming along.

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

18 Jun 2018

My pleasure Aaron.
I figured this would be a very complex improvement to our system. But it adds another dimension to our coverage. I look forward to the final product developing over the coming weeks.

MattM wrote:

18 Jun 2018

I'm excited. Just noticed the audio icon next to swamp wallabies.

Seeing as it's still unpolished, could I suggest maybe changing the headset icon to a microphone? It's more widely used. Although it might be too similar to the "announcements" icon...

AaronClausen wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Matt, thanks heaps for the feedback. OK that's done, is this better?
https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Species/15084

Illilanga wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Very excited! I finally get to put up my Eastern Koel recording. ;)

https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Survey/800

A suggestion for you Aaron. Could the date not be in the American format? I know I'll make errors otherwise if I don't double check. ;) Maybe a drop down calendar/time?

Illilanga wrote:

18 Jun 2018

BTW the audio doesn't play on my Safari browser (11.1.1) on the Mac. Is it Flash or something else? I have Flash turned off.

AaronClausen wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Great feedback Sandra! And super cool survey!!!!! Love it.

I noticed that too but on iPhone Safari. Apple are funny, they also don't yet support HTML5 date or time pickers. They are currently the most lagging, non-compliant web browser out there. I'll see if I can find a workaround etc.

CathB wrote:

18 Jun 2018

Works fine with Firefox on the PC, but not on iPhone.

AaronClausen wrote:

18 Jun 2018

It's just looking like Apple are lagging in this area:
https://debuggerdotbreak.judahgabriel.com/2016/12/13/its-almost-2017-and-html5-audio-is-still-broken-on-ios/

I'll have a play with some different formats this coming week and see if we can get Safari to play the files..

AaronClausen wrote:

19 Jun 2018

Ok Apple/Safari bug now resolved! You should be able to play the files successfully in Safari now guys. It's working on my iPhone. Thanks to Jeremy for the speedy assistance to get this resolved.

AaronClausen wrote:

20 Jul 2018

Guys just a quick update, I've removed audio clips from displaying on sighting pages if they were uploaded at the survey level. This is to avoid confusion of hearing say a long clip that contains many species and then you play it on an Indian Myna sighting and wonder which part of the clip was the Indian Myna! More to come...

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