Check flight status

[nime5ter]

**COMMAND XML UPDATED 28-JAN-2015** (some update notes further down in this thread)

This command group uses the RoboBrowser plugin and regular expressions (RegEx) to find and announce updated flight status info from Google.

- Initial response provides basic flight status data. "On-time - departs in 37 minutes" type of thing.
- "More flight info" provides details about arrival and departure times. (VC will automatically ask you if you want to hear this information after providing flight status info. This can of course be changed.)
- You can also ask if there is any gate information available.
- NEW as of 2015-Jan: you can ask to be updated on flight status later in the day (in 1h, 2h, at departure time, at arrival time, dinner time etc.).

The attached airlines.xml payload xml file lists some common airlines. Edit to your own needs.

Both the payload files: airlines.xml and flight_updatetime.xml go in your payloads folder.

[jitterjames]

One thing that might be nice would be if we could save the search parameters so later we could just say:  "Check that flight again".  or "Give me a flight update" without having to remember the flight number each time.

Also, Google is notorious for changing things up every couple of days so this probably won't work for very long before it needs adjustment.  If anyone knows of a flight status api or website with a search feature like this other than google it would be great to know about it.

[Haddood]

I use this web site for few years now ... it is very reliable

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do

[nime5ter]

OK, I've finally gotten around to updating (and improving, imho) the broken command xml for checking flight status info.

I have modified the first post in this thread with the new command xml. It's a command group (VcGrp_google flight status.xml). As always, you can download the file, then drag the file into your command tree.

As before, you'll need to enable the RoboB plugin.

In this new version, flight status data is scraped and then stored in a map table. It should be fairly easy to edit the commands to change how the information is provided, once you've experimented a bit. You can also add more data to the map (I don't bother with airport codes, but you might want these).

I think this version of the command should have a longer shelf-life than my first attempt. If you have any questions, let me know.

[Haddood]

thanks for sharing will try it tonight ...

I tried to work the command from the website I mentioned ... but lack of time and weak knowledge of RegEx at the time took the project to dead-end

[nime5ter]

I also gave the Flight Stats site a whirl before reverting back to the Google method.

I can't remember the details now, but I think there were some idiosyncrasies on the site that made it not very scrape-friendly.

[nime5ter]

I've updated the first post with a new version of the flight status commands (VcGroup_google flight status.xml), and also added a new payload xml file (flight_updatetime.xml).

The updates:

1) Google changed slightly, so some of the regex matches were off by one. This required some minor changes to the Scrape command.

2) I added some new commands so that you can now ask to be automatically updated on the status of a particular flight periodically throughout the day. This will trigger an event at the time(s) specified, recheck the flight status online, and announce the update for you. If you want to use the GgCal version of the command, make sure the Python plugin and GgCal plugin are enabled.

3) Both payload xml files should go in your payloads folder. In the previous version, I'd lazily kept the airlines xml in the main VC folder, but the new version of the command group now expects that file and the new payload xml file to be in your payloads folder.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

Enjoy.