How To
Posted by Gareth Llewellyn, underThe How To Guide should provide answers to all your questions about using the site.
5. General use of the map
5.1. Viewing Details
5.2. Editing a Site
5.3. SMS Messages Sent Through The Website
5.4. SMS Messages Sent to Airbana’s Shortcode
7. Other Features
7.1. Individual Link To A Site
7.2. Custom Link For Zoomed / Panned Position
7.3. Live / Static Prices
7.5. Wiki Sections
General Overview
The new Airbana interface allows you immediate access to 5 main options. The menu at the top right of the page allow you to Navigate Home, Filter the Map for either Airsoft Skirmish Sites, Airsoft Retailers, Airsoft Events or display a list. Add additional information to Airbana such as adding a skirmish date or adding a site. The new version of Airbana also includes more ways for you to Interact with Airbana and the Interact menu option allows you to visit the API, Site Button and Airbana cache parts of the Airbana Network. Finally you can change your personal preferences.
Once you’ve chosen a particular map from the filter list you can move around 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.
The Airsoft Events Map 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 world 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! Simply click the ‘Add a Site’ menu option within the ‘Add to Airbana’ menu and you will be presented with the following pop-up.
If you know the GPS Co-ordinates (or Post (zip) Code) then you can bypass this step (Click the text ‘Or Click here to add your own’) If not then use the map by panning and zooming to the where your site is and then right click on the location. This will take you onto step 2.
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. The ReCaptcha application not only keeps Airbana safe from abuse but also helps digitise old books!
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! Your new site will be instantly accessible through the Airbana Map site, the API and will be announced on the Airbana Twitter Feed.
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:
Your event will instantly be available through the Airbana Map site, the API, the Calendar, the Skirmish Dates Facebook Application and will be announced on the AirbanaEvents Twitter Feed.
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 address, phone number.
The blue text under these details allow you to see this sites Wiki, Display prices from this site, Flag it as inactive, Get a Live Weather forecast for the next 4 days, send all the info as an SMS or get the Individual Link to just this site. Below the blue text will be a series of icons that depict the features this site has. For example in the image on the left you can see that this site is an Urban site, has an on-site shop 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 Detailed Info Tab will present you with a few more options; Clicking the ‘View all details of this site’ 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.
If a YouTube video has been added the next line will read “Watch a Video from this Site” and clicking this will launch Airbana’s YouTube viewer:
You can change the video at any time by clicking the word [Change]. If a video hasn’t been added you will be invited to add one. Doing so (or clicking the Change button) will present the following dialog:
Simply paste the URL (from your address bar) for the video in question and it will added to this site for other people to view!
Check for upcoming dates will launch a popup that shows you this sites upcoming events for the next 7 days:
You can share this event info with other people through Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. I’ll be adding Tweetmeme’s retweet button soon too.
Clicking the Add An Event Date text will launch the same window we discussed earlier. Clicking “Update this Sites Info” will launch the Edit Site Dialog which will allow you to change any and all information about this site. All edits are recorded and can be accessed via the ‘View Edit History’ link.
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 ‘Detailed Info’ tab then click the ‘Update this Sites info’ link. This will result in the pop-up shown below. Make your changes, answer the Captcha and click the arrow. Simple as that!
SMS Messages Sent Through The Website
Having all this information 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 information 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 click 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.
Receiving SMS’s sent from the Airbana Website (by clicking the ‘Send as SMS’ link) is FREE and we will never send you unsolicited texts or pass your number on to any 3rd parties.
SMS Messages Sent to Airbana’s Shortcode
THIS IS A UK ONLY FEATURE So you can browse the site whilst at home and you can prepare by pre-emptively sending yourself a text but what if you’re already on your way to the Skirmish site? Version 4 of Airbana will feature the ability to send an SMS to 83010 with the text “AIRBANA” followed by either a site name or a postcode and Airbana will do its best to find a match and send it back to you.
AIRBANA RG20HP
AIRBANA ambush lasham
Using this feature does incur a cost(Texts are charged at 25p plus one standard network rate text) but this goes directly to Airbana’s SMS provider to cover the costs of the service they are providing to us. Airbana is a non-profit project!
If you would like to register a complaint regarding the Airbana SMS service please call 0871 3096879 and leave a message or email me at the address below. In the event of a complaint Airbana will stop any further texts being sent to your phone and investigate your complaint accordingly.
If you have any other queries regarding this service please email Gareth@airbana.co.uk or visit http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/output/for-the-public.aspx
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 then click “Find Events”
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.
The Airbana Events Broadcaster will tweet the next 7 days worth of Skirmishes every Monday morning (9am GMT). These links will take you to a page specifically for that event.
Other Features
Individual Link To A Site
I hope you find Airbana useful and want to share the information you’ve found. To this end Airbana supports various ways to share links. In the List view click the Map Icon 
or in the Map view click the ‘Link to this Site’ text. This will take you to a URL that is specific to the site you’ve chosen, at a nice close zoom level and auto opens the info bubble. e.g;
http://www.airsoftmap.net/Skirmish/Airbana+Datacenter
Custom Link For Zoomed / Panned Position
If such a concise location is of no use to you then you might to Pan and Zoom to somewhere in particular without linking to a specfic site. The Airbana ‘link to this view’ feature allows you to do this. Zoom to where you want to share and then click the ‘link to this view’ text at the bottom right of the page (highlighted below) this will present a popup with a link created just for you! Share it, link to it, visit it do whatever.
Live / Static Prices
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.
Wiki Sections
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.
Other Projects
Airbana is committed to assiting the Airsoft Community in any way it can. To this end additional projects will be brought online to help out. Check out http://blog.airbana.net/other-projects/
There are lots of other little featues within Airbana’s Airsoft Maps that I’m sure you’ll find and utilise.
So there you have it! Hope you enjoy the new version of Airbana. Please provide any feedback to Gareth AT airbana.net
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