After the overwhelming interest shown in my Live Departure Boards sidebar gadget for Vista hobby/demo project (thanks for all your comments so far), I grabbed a couple of hours this weekend to implement some bug fixes as follows:
- Departures are now shown immediately when the sidebar starts up (previously there was a 60 second delay if you restarted the machine or the sidebar).
- If there is only one selection to make in the settings page (e.g. you type "KGX" as the "Start station"), it will become the selected option to avoid having to click to select it. (thanks for spotting that, Graham!).
- Better visual communication - hovering over a departure highlights it and indicates you can click to get the flyout.
- Some minor cosmetic and stylesheet changes (e.g. the rows in the flyout are a fixed height rather than expanding to fill the flyout).
- All buses (e.g. Railair buses and Rail replacement services) and ferrys (e.g. Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier Head) are now displayed correctly. (as part of this change, the gadget should be a lot more robust to any changes to the Live Departure Boards website).
- If the platform is known for a particular departure, it will be displayed alongside the time of departure.
- Codebase has been refactored a little in an effort to make it more maintainable.
To get the updated gadget, click on this link. Link removed pending negotiations with National Rail.