Hi Gary,

Yeah, I have to update the "how to" page for that.  Here's a trick Mark taught me...try just using the registration and not filling in the date.  It will automatically pull up the last photo in the database and if there are multiple options for airports, or even aircraft, those will drop down for you automatically too, then you can select from those.  That's one of the tweaker things we're working on.  I've been using the autofill exclusively and it really does save a lot of time!  Once you use it a bit it becomes really easy!

One thing I did notice was that one of your DC-9  photos was labeled as "first" in database, but it really wasn't.  I thought maybe you tried the autofill and nothing came up, and when I clicked on your registration, nothing came up for me either.  I knew that couldn't have been right so I clicked on the serial number in your upload and a bunch of shots came up.  Since the registration you entered was correct, I knew there had to be something else wrong, so I checked the registration again, and it turns out there was a space at the beginning of the registration.  Say that this is the box where you put the registration:  [N12345].  Yours was like this [ N12345].  (See the space in front of the "N"?)  That's what made the search not find it.  So, that's one thing to keep an eye out for.  This is nothing new though, it's always been like that.

Like I said though, when using the autofill, just enter the registration and hit "enter."  If it's in the base it will come up.  Don't use the date box or airport box until you are really familiar with how the autofill works (in fact, I may have to label those two boxes as "for advanced users.")  I had a lot of questions about it too at first, but I've since learned how it works and only use them on occasion.  If it gets to be too problematic, we might even consider removing them altogether.  Best advice for now is just to ignore those two boxes and only use the registration one.

Here...try this.  Without actually uploading a photo, go to the upload page and enter N36207 in the registration box.  Now hit "enter" on your keyboard.

If it's in the database, this is what you should see:

Autofill:

Aircraft registration nr. [N36207]
Airport code [___] Data found!

Date of picture [Unknown],[__],[____]

Multiple autofill options found, please select the correct value

No, yes, well, kinda!  Let's see...how can I explain this?  😛

Say you wanted to upload NXX123, a shot that you took at CAK.  You enter NXX123 in the registration box, and put CAK in the airport box, and hit enter.  The database says "Sorry, no data found!", yet you know for certain that shots of that plane DO exist in the database?  Why is it telling me "no data", what gives?  What the autofill is looking for in this case is a photo of NXX123 specifically at CAK , but the only photos in the database are from CLE, so it won't pick it up.

If you enter ONLY the registration, NXX123, it will say "data found!", and give you options of where it was taken.  It will also fill in the registration/ type/ serial information below.  Now, since there are no existing photos of NXX123 at CAK in the database, you will have to fill that part in yourself.  However, the next time you upload a photo of NXX123 at CAK, the information will be in the dropdown menu and you can choose it from there.  Alternatively, since you already know there's a photo of NXX123 at CAK in there, you could (in this case) enter the airport in the box above.  It's just much easier to do it with the registration only though.

Making any sense for ya?

Glad it helped!    Once you get the hang of it let me know how it goes!