Feedback from Toney MInter

The new look and feel of the PST is a great improvement. I think that proposers will like it much better than the previous version. There are still some things that need to be ironed out, however, before it is released.

The things that definitely need fixing are:

• fix the bug in the GBT resources, spigot card - the number of frequencies is independent of the number of bits used
• default of "save" rather than "cancel" when hitting the enter key
• allowing negative source velocities
• updating resources, sources, etc. screens after "save" rather than having to go to a different screen and back to see the entered and saved information
• Ned/Simbad search does not work
• getting the print button to work so you can review the proposal before submission

Comments are below. Those with a "*" at the beginning are what I think should be high priority items.

o General

* I would get logged out without warning or notification. Is this the old 30 minute rule? In some instances this would occur 5-10 minutes after I had just logged back in. Some warning before this happens or for when this might happen would be beneficial.

Where do you change your user preferences (the old settings tab entries)? Mine where changed and I wanted to put them back the way I wanted them but I could not find where to do this. I am talking about things such as the default for which telescope a new proposal should be for.

* Entering text for a new source group name and hitting enter does not create the new source group. You have to enter the text and then the save button. This applies to many other fields as well. It is common practice that entering the text and hitting enter is the same as entering text and hitting save, etc. (the current default seems to be "cancel" rather than "save"). This will probably be found to be quite annoying by many proposers.

The flyover help is no longer available.

There is no link, etc. to know where the help documents/manual are located.

* The PST manual will need extensive changes before the release.

* The print button does not work and there is no other means of seeing a general overview of the proposal before you submit the proposal.

o Proposals Tab

When searching using status=draft, the PST should probably ignore all other fields as they are not relevant.

Year should go ahead of trimester in the search. I can remember what year a proposal was in much faster than what trimester it was in.

What is legacy ID and why would I need to know it?

o Proposal Editing

It took me several minutes to figure out how to edit a draft proposal once I was on the cover sheet. Also once editing the cover sheet it is easy to overlook the save etc. It would be more obvious if the edit/save/print etc. buttons were highlighted to attract your attention.

There was no way to cancel an edit of a cover sheet.

* The add author search misses many people who should be in the data base - people I now have submitted proposals in the past. After trying this for about 10 minutes I realized that the search was case sensitive. It would be worthwhile make the search case-insensitive.

o Resources

* When using the "GBT Spectrometer Spigot system" you get errors saying that you have to enter more frequencies. The number of frequencies asked for is always equal to the number of bits requested. This is incorrect. The number of frequencies and the number of bits are not dependent on each other. This is a bug from January 2007 and will be the third time that it has been fixed.

For "Other" backends there should have a comment field. The proposer should enter relevant information in the comment field, besides the frequencies. The use of number of spectral windows should be dropped from the other backends resources.

There are many issues with allowing illegal modes in the GBT resources. These are all known and existed in the prior versions of the PST. A requirements document is currently being written and will be done late this fall.

o Sessions

* If we absolutely must enter min start lst, max end lst, and min elevation then they should have default values. Many proposals/proposers will not have restrictions on these values for GBT proposals. It would be best if we had default values.

When I create a session and hit save I was sent back to the login page.

o Student Support

I do not understand the "less than cap" and "cap of 3000 USD" buttons. Their meaning needs to be very clear.

* When you hit save you go back to a screen which suggests that no student support has been added. I had to go to a different tab and then back to the student support tab to see what was there. This behavior is not very desirable.

Sometimes I get the following errors from a save:

Proposal administrators can view, approve, print and email proposals here Error java.lang.RuntimeException: org.hibernate.exception.ConstraintViolationException: could not insert: [data.StudentSupport]

o Sources

Although there is a warning that Simbad searches can take some time, it would be good to put some indication on the screen to show that the PST is working on getting an answer. Many impatient people will likely be using the PST.

When you start a new search, the result of the old search is shown. This is annoying if the first search did not turn up the object due to a slight mis-spelling. You have to pay very careful attention to see if the new search is done or if you are looking at the result of the old search.

* The simbad search does not work entirely correctly. I entered "PSR B0329+54" into the PST and it did not return any matches. Going directly to the simbad web page and this same search using the "identifier query" gives the expected result. I even tried searching with an exact identifier from simbad, "PSR J0332+5434" and the PST search said it could not be found. Searches on "M 87" and "W 31" also failed in the PST but are successful with simbad. Even the sources in the "for example" do not work for the ned/simbad search. I am left with the impression that the simbad/ned search is definitely broken.

* I tried using the Add button to add a source. I entered the information for the save and hit the save button. The source then does not show up in the source group list. I have to actually leave the sources page and then return to it to see the source I added.

* Again, hitting enter in any of the fields for entering information for a source causes the PST to "go back" without using any of the information that has been entered.

* I tried to update the position and velocity of a source already in a source group. I entered the information and then hit save. The source group then redisplayed and did not have the new information. Where did it go? Apparently you have to edit just one field at a time and then save and then you can change source information.

If you put a source in the wrong source group how do you move it from the wrong source group to the correct source group?

* You cannot enter negative velocities for a source, they always show up as the previous value. For example if the previous source velocity is 100 km/s and I change it to -25 km/s and hit save the resulting source group information shows 100 km/s again.

If you make a source group, logout of the PST and then log back into the PST before you add a source, you loose the source group.

* I specified the source group name in the file to import sources from. This was ignored and the sources were put in the group under which the import button was hit. This looses a critical function of the importing source lists that proposers previously have asked for.

I tried to import a source list and got the following errors: HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:411) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:364) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:709) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802) org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.OpenSessionInViewFilter.doFilterInternal(OpenSessionInViewFilter.java:183) org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:77) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:264) org.acegisecurity.intercept.web.FilterSecurityInterceptor.invoke(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:107) org.acegisecurity.intercept.web.FilterSecurityInterceptor.doFilter(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:72) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.ExceptionTranslationFilter.doFilter(ExceptionTranslationFilter.java:110) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.providers.anonymous.AnonymousProcessingFilter.doFilter(AnonymousProcessingFilter.java:125) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.rememberme.RememberMeProcessingFilter.doFilter(RememberMeProcessingFilter.java:142) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.wrapper.SecurityContextHolderAwareRequestFilter.doFilter(SecurityContextHolderAwareRequestFilter.java:81) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.AbstractProcessingFilter.doFilter(AbstractProcessingFilter.java:217) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.logout.LogoutFilter.doFilter(LogoutFilter.java:106) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.context.HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.doFilter(HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.java:229) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:148) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterToBeanProxy.doFilter(FilterToBeanProxy.java:98)

root cause

java.lang.NullPointerException utils.Utils.importNodeAndInsert(Utils.java:371) view.ProposalSources.performActions(ProposalSources.java:436) view.ProposalSources.createPage(ProposalSources.java:204) view.ProposalSources.render(ProposalSources.java:56) view.AbstractView.handleDefault(AbstractView.java:76) mvc.AbstractXmlcView.renderMergedOutputModel(AbstractXmlcView.java:20) org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:247) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1103) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:840) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:754) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:399) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:364) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:709) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802) org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.OpenSessionInViewFilter.doFilterInternal(OpenSessionInViewFilter.java:183) org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:77) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:264) org.acegisecurity.intercept.web.FilterSecurityInterceptor.invoke(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:107) org.acegisecurity.intercept.web.FilterSecurityInterceptor.doFilter(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:72) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.ExceptionTranslationFilter.doFilter(ExceptionTranslationFilter.java:110) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.providers.anonymous.AnonymousProcessingFilter.doFilter(AnonymousProcessingFilter.java:125) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.rememberme.RememberMeProcessingFilter.doFilter(RememberMeProcessingFilter.java:142) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.wrapper.SecurityContextHolderAwareRequestFilter.doFilter(SecurityContextHolderAwareRequestFilter.java:81) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.AbstractProcessingFilter.doFilter(AbstractProcessingFilter.java:217) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.ui.logout.LogoutFilter.doFilter(LogoutFilter.java:106) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.context.HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.doFilter(HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.java:229) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:274) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterChainProxy.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:148) org.acegisecurity.util.FilterToBeanProxy.doFilter(FilterToBeanProxy.java:98)

note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/5.5.15 logs. Apache Tomcat/5.5.15

-- DanaBalser - 02 Nov 2007