News for Package ‘metScanR’

Tutorial: https://jaroberti.github.io/metScanR/tutorials/intro.html

Github Page: https://github.com/jaroberti/metScanR

2017-01-18 metScanR v0.0.1 (initial release)

• Database included with package source.
• Database contains ~13,000 environmental monitoring stations among 11 different networks located within the U.S. and parts of Canada
• Functions include siteFinder and mapSiteFinder

2017-05-18 metScanR v1.0.0 (major release)

• Database removed from package source and stored on Github at https://github.com/jaroberti/metScanR/raw/master/data/. Most recent version of database is automatically accessed whenever ‘metScanR’ package is loaded to R environment.
• Database updated to include ~107,000 environmental monitoring stations among 18 different networks, worldwide
• Converted siteFinder into wrapper function to call newly added functions:
  • getNearby
  • getElevation
  • getDates
  • getNetwork
  • getVars
  • getCountry
  • getId
• Created terms database using n-gram approach to merge similar terms and elements used among various networks in database. This database is used on the backend when searching for measured variables
• Output from functions is now in list format. Initial release output in data.frame format. Changed to list format for space efficiency.
• Removed ‘minimum radius’ requirement when searching for nearby stations
• Depracated ‘NEON.site’, ‘Lat’, and ‘Lon’ parameters and replaced with ‘siteID’, ‘lat’ and ‘lon’. Functions and parameters in this package will follow a camelCase naming struncture
• Added .onLoad and .onAttach functions to access, download, save, and load the updated metScanR database to local environment.
• Added Robert Lee as co-author

2017-11-01 metScanR v1.1.0 (minor release)

• Removed obsolete dependencies - CRAN NOTE post Major Release v1.0.0
• Replaced numerous NULL initializations with missing() within functions
• North American Deposition Program (NADP) network added to database; site- and element-level metadata added
• Ameriflux network added to database; site-level metadata only
• toupper() function added to getId() and getNetwork() functions to account for Ameriflux, AMon, AirMon, and AMNet networks
• more robust logic added to getVars() function to remedy disconnect between traceability and master terms databases
• added new function, getStation() that returns metadata for user entered site(s)
• Moved NRCS to getNetwork() function and moved all NRCS sub-networks, e.g., SCAN, SNOTEL, etc., to getID() function. This better fits the framework of umbrella organizations (network) and individual sub-networks, such as SCAN.
• USGS and BOR stations have been detached from NRCS umbrella and are now independent networks

2017-11-06 metScanR v1.1.1 (Bug fix)

• Fixed bug in mapSiteFinder(). Passing metadata with only 1 idType, e.g., “Ameriflux”, caused error when calling function within mapSiteFinder().
  
• Implemented tests for mapSiteFinder() using testthat package.
• Altered .onLoad() and .onAttach files to auto-download external database each time upon startup.
• Fixed bug in getDates(). There was an error in the paste0 portion of the Error message.

2018-03-19 metScanR v1.2.0 (minor release)

• The metScanR package now comes with a small database, one that comprises ~5,300 environmental monitoring stations. The full database contains >100,000 stations and can be downloaded via the updateDatabase() function. Running this function will update the local version of the database with the most up-to-date database stored at https://github.com/jaroberti/metScanR.
  
• Added getTerritory() function. This function returns metadata for stations within a territory or US state.
• Added logic to check for internet connection and updates to external database. If user is already running the most current version of database locally the R package will not download database. If the user is running an outdated version, R will ping the external database and download it locally.
• Added new parameters: startVarsDate and endVarsDate to getVars() function. see ?getVars for more information
• Added new parameter: limit to mapSiteFinder which users can adjust if they wish to plot thousands of environmental stations. This was previously capped at 10,000 stations
• Bug fix for siteFinder() code when internally calling any metScanR function allowing multiple inputs, e.g., getVars(), getCountry().
• Deprecated elevThresh in getElevation() and replaced with elevMin and elevMax

2019-01-29 metScanR v1.2.1 (patch)

• updateDatabase() now checks the search path before updating. this properly detaches metScanR if loaded.
• minor code change to getvars()

2019-02-01 metScanR v1.2.2 (patch)

• Found a copy-paste error in getNetwork(), which ultimately affected siteFinder() code
• Reverted back to original mapSiteFinder() leaflet background and switched from RColorBrewer to matlab package for color scheme in mapSiteFinder(). RColorBrewer has a max limit of colors, which resulted in an error if many different networks are plotted.
  
• Created many new tests in our testthat function
• Created unit tests to compliment testthat tests

2019-10-14 metScanR v1.2.3 (patch)

• Removed previous leaflet map, which is now obsolete. Changed leaflet map to CartoDB.
• Deprecated mapSiteFinder() function. Replaced with mapResults()