How To
With Version 3 there are many improvements and a vast change in the User Interface (and hopefully the user experience). The How To Guide should provide answers to all your questions about using the site.
1. General Overview
2. Adding a Site
3. Adding a Skirmish Date
4. Personal Preferences
5. General use of the map
5.1. Viewing Details
5.2. Editing a Site
5.3. Sending info via SMS / Email
5.4. Other Features
6. Finding Skirmish dates
General Overview
The new Airbana interface allows you immediate access to 7 main options. The buttons at the top right of the page allow you to add a skirmish date, add a site or change your personal preferences. Underneath those buttons are the 4 ‘views’ which are Skirmish Dates, Retailer Map, Skirmish Map and List View.
The buttons are discussed in detail later on in the How-to so for now we’ll concentrate on the main interface. You can move around the map by clicking and dragging with your mouse or using the icons in the top left of the Map section. Opposite the Map Zoom controls on the right hand side you’ll find additional interfaces that allow you to choose between a normal map view and a satellite photo view.
Clicking on the Skirmish Dates section will allow you to view all the Skirmish events that are happening over the next 7 days and where they are happening. Adding Skirmish Dates and expanding the date range is discussed later. The Retailer Map allows you to locate Airsoft Retailers around the country and use the Airbana database to find out more about them such as the latest prices, email address etc. Likewise the Skirmish Map allows you to locate Skirmish sites around the country, get directions from your location, edit the info, add to the Wiki and then once you’ve added or found the information you are after you can either send it to yourself by email or SMS!
Adding a Site
One of the principal features of Airbana is the ability for anyone in the community to quickly let everyone else know about a new site that has started, to find out what features it offers and how to get there! Adding a site is extremely easy now since we’ve done away with Registering and logging in. Simply click the ‘Add a Site’ button and you will be presented with the following pop-up.
You will see that along with all the information regarding the site itself there is now also a section that is commonly called a Captcha. This allows us to filter out those annoying bots that try and abuse these Wiki style Applications.
If you fail to enter the Captcha correctly you will see the following message:
If however you are successful you will see this instead:
Thats it! Done!
Adding a Skirmish Date
Adding a Skirmish date is even easier than adding a site! Simply select the site that is holding the event, choose the date it is happening, choose if it is a MilSim or not, add the name of the event (Night Game / AI500!), a brief description, choose if there are any special rules, declare the Age limit (if there is one) and let people know if they should pre-book. As with the Add Site feature you will need to enter the Captcha code. 
A successful addition of a Skirmish Date will result in the following dialog:
Personal Preferences
Because Airbana has done away with registering and logging in a new issue appeared - people don’t want to have to enter their mobile number every time they request an SMS likewise with an email address etc. Airbana now uses Cookies to store this information, cookies are stored on your computer and can be cleared at any time. Airbana stores a hashed version of your mobile number if you utilise the SMS system this is to prevent abuse of the SMS system. Airbana will never send you unsolicited messages or provide your information to third parties.
To access these options simply click the Personal Settings button and you will be presented with the following dialog:
Pressing the green button will save your details to a local cookie. It will last for 1 year before automatically expiring.
General use of the map
Navigating the map is quite straight forward, you can drag around the map using your mouse and zoom with the mouse wheel. If required there are scroll and zoom controls on the top left side of the map section which will allow you to do the same. On the right of the map section there are 3 buttons, Map View is the default and offers the clearest view, Satellite view allows you to get Satellite photography of the area in question and hybrid view is naturally a mix of the two.
Viewing Details
Clicking any of the ‘map pins’ on the site will present you with the basic information about a site including the postal address, email and the features available at that site.
For example in the image on the left you can see that this site is a member of both UKARA and the UKASGB, it is a woodland site that has an on-site shop with repairs, it also allows the use of explosives and features battery charging facilities. At the bottom of the pop-up dialog is a ‘Get Directions to Here’ link which will generate a route map from wherever you specify.
On the left is the full map key detailing all the possible icons you will see throughout Airbana. The icons on the right are usually only seen in the list view but it is possible they will crop up within the map areas too.
Clicking the ‘Full Details’ link will launch another pop-up that will pull all the details from the database including the Wiki entry, Airbana prices and the details pulled from the Skirmish website using XML RPC. Because there is so much information you’ll notice a scroll bar has appeared rather than expand the pop-up this is becuase the new UI is designed to fit into even the smallest resolutions.
Editing a Site
One of the most popular features of Airbana is the ability to change information as required. To do this simply click on one of the map pins then click the ‘Public Edit Allowed’ link. This will result in the pop-up shown below. To date site edits haven’t been attacked by automated bots so there is no need for a captcha. Make the required changes and then save them. Simple as that!
Sending info via SMS / Email
Having all this information is on a website is all well and good but its no use if you’ve got no way to take it with you. Airbana’s SMS feature allows you to send the pertinent informtation straight to your mobile. Make sure you’ve specified your mobile number in the ‘Personal Settings’ section and then click ‘Send this to your phone’ or if you are in the List view the Envelope icon. If you have been successful you will see the image below on the left. If you have sent too many SMS’s in a 24 hour period you will see the image below on the right.
Other Features
We’ve briefly touched on the Price and Wiki features of the site so I’ll discuss them in a bit more depth now.
The Pricing section of Airbana is twofold. You can add prices directly to the Airbana database and if required edit or delete them at a later date. The other prices can be pulled directly from the Skirmish site using Airban’s XMLRPC features. In the image below you can see the prices pop-up, in this case there are no prices in the Airbana database but some prices have been acquired via XMLRPC.
Whilst the entire Airbana site aspires to be ‘Wiki like’ the Wiki section allows ‘freestyle’ input allowing prose, links and HTML. It is supposed to be for general descriptions and whatever else is required.
Finding Skirmish dates
Earlier on in this How-to we covered adding Skirmish dates to the database, now we’ll cover finding these events and where they are! Clicking on the ‘Event Dates’ link will show you all events for the next 7 days and where they are being held.
At the bottom of the page you can see the Date range the map is showing, to expand the range simply click one of the calenader icons to choose a past date or future date.
Clicking on one of the ‘Map Pins’ on the map will show the details for the Event in question. If the date range encompesses multiple events these are listed one after another in the pop-up in ascending date order.
So there you have it! Hope you enjoy the new version of Airbana. Please provide any feedback to Gareth AT airbana.co.uk