Version 1.2, by Sam Deane.

(C) 2008 Elegant Chaos. All your rights are belong to us.

Introduction

This is my first attempt at a Dashboard widget, so it is still a little rough around the edges.

It displays live train indicator information for the UK train system.

Please send feedback to liveupdatewidget at elegantchaos.com.

Data Disclaimer

The data displayed by the widget is taken (in real time) from the Live Departure Boards website: http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/.

They own this data, not us, and we make no claims about its accuracy. Don't blame us if you miss your train!

The widget simply acts like a web browser and accesses the relevant web page, then displays the data in a more compact format. If they ever change the format of the web page, the widget will probably break!

Download

You can download the latest version of the widget from http://www.elegantchaos.com/downloads/liveupdate-latest.zip" title="Download liveupdate-latest.zip">here.

Instructions

To use the widget, simply unzip it and double click on the "Live Updates" file. This will launch the normal widget installation process.

Unless you are lucky enough to live near us, you'll need to teach the widget about your local stations.

To do this, visit the http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/">Live Departure Boards website and find out what the 3-letter code for each station is, then add it to the list of stations the widget knows about.

For example, if you want to know about departures from Aberystwyth, visit the page and enter "Aberystwyth" into the popup. You will see that the associated station code is "AYW".

Now click on the info (i) icon on the widget to reveal the configuration panel.

Click on the small "+" button to add a new location. Enter "Aberystwyth" into the first box, and "AYW" into the second one.

Click back into the first box (this is a workaround for a bug, and ensures that the change to the code is recorded. It shouldn't be necessary and will be fixed in a future version!).

Click "Done".

The widget should now be showing departures from Aberystwyth.

Known Issues

Errors

The widget isn't very good at handling errors currently.

If it displays a red "undefined" at the righthand side, that generally means that the website returned something unexpected.

A future version will attempt to make more sense of the particular error, and show a more meaningful message.

Change History

v1.2

Fixed bug which didn't deal well with stations that don't list the platform.

Altered the widget icon.

v1.1

If you click on a train time, it toggle to show the number of minutes remaining. Should be a preference for this really, but I haven't done one yet.

Fixed display error when the website returned "No report" for the scheduled time.

v1.0

First public version.