Web UI

The web UI is a browser-based control panel for imo-vmdb. It lets you initialise the database, import and process observation data, and download results as CSV files — all from a browser, without using a terminal.

Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser to access the control panel. For instructions on how to start the server, see Command Line Interface (Python) or Setup (Docker).

Important

The Web UI is opt-in. Starting the server without further options serves only the REST API (see REST API). To enable the Web UI, pass --enable-webui on the command line, or set IMO_VMDB_WEBSERVER_ENABLE_WEBUI=true in the environment, or enable_webui = true in the [webserver] section of your config file.

Note

When the server starts, Flask prints the following message:

WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production
deployment. Use a production WSGI server instead.

This is expected behaviour. The warning refers to deployments on a public server; it does not apply to local use on your own computer. You can safely ignore it.

Control panel

The control panel consists of four action cards.

Init Database

Creates the database schema from scratch. Run this once before the first import.

Warning

All existing data in the database will be permanently deleted. A confirmation dialog is shown before the operation starts.

Import CSV

Upload one or more CSV files from your computer. The files are validated record by record; invalid records are rejected and a report is written to the log.

Three options are available:

  • Delete existing imported data — removes all previously imported raw data before the new import begins. Useful when re-importing a file you have already imported, without having to run Cleanup first. (CLI equivalent: -d)

  • Permissive mode — accepts certain records that would otherwise be rejected, issuing a warning instead of an error. (CLI equivalent: -p — see Command Line Interface for a full description)

  • Attempt repair on errors — tries to automatically correct certain malformed values before validation. (CLI equivalent: -r — see Command Line Interface for a full description)

For the expected file format and column names, see CSV files.

Normalize

Processes all imported records and enriches each observation with computed astronomical data: solar longitude, radiant position, sun and moon position and illumination. Run this after every import.

Cleanup

Removes the raw imported data from the database. The normalized results are preserved. Run this after normalization is complete to free up space.

Downloads

A Downloads section below the action cards provides direct links to export all tables as CSV files.

Enabling Export for re-import changes the Showers and Radiants download links to export the original reference file format. These files can be edited and re-imported with Import CSV. Without this option, all tables are exported in the database column format (see Field Reference).

Log output

All operations stream their log output live to the log area at the bottom of the page. While a job is running, all action buttons are disabled to prevent concurrent database access.

Three buttons are available above the log area:

  • Copy — copies the entire log to the clipboard

  • Download — saves the log as a .log file with a timestamp

  • Clear — clears the log area