Objectives

  • Keep activeattackdata.org (Research Ring’s public Active Attack Data site) accurate and current with each annual data version
  • Umbrella card for the three-repo pipeline: DATA_aa (build) → PROJ_activeattack_graphics (figures) → PROJ_activeattack_website (Quarto site, GitHub Pages)
  • Near term: verify and tidy after Hunter’s v2025 update (2026-09-08/09); later: visual overhaul of the site for the December 2026 ALERRT conference

Team & Dependencies

Name Role Affiliation Waiting on Peter?
Hunter Martaindale Co-maintainer; did the v2025 data update and pipeline fixes (Windows) ALERRT / Texas State No
Jack Cox Former contributor (fact-sheet tab, 2025) — no longer at ALERRT — No

This Week

  • DONE 2026-09-09: clones current; weapon-plot arrow colour + dropped zero-count points fixed; toolbar icons hidden on all four widgets; deployed and verified live — see docs/logs/2026-09-09_weapon-plot-and-toolbar-fixes.md
  • DONE 2026-09-09 (Hunter): 2025 victim memorial roster added, scroll regenerated, deployed
  • Ask Peter for explicit approval to (a) untrack output/*_files/ + .DS_Store in graphics and (b) remove the defunct Shiny app (PROJ_activeattack_app: local folder + GitHub repo)
  • Tell Hunter about the two fixes and the ggiraph 0.9.1 (Mac) vs 0.9.6 (his) drift; agree on pinning

Upcoming Milestones

  • Fall 2026 (TBD): visual overhaul of the site — scope with Hunter; must land before the ALERRT conference, December 2026
  • Annual: v2026 data refresh (~mid-year, after FBI active-shooter report cycle); bump version <- "2026" in DATA_aa (2 scripts), graphics 0_packages.R, website 0_set_up.R + 1_visuals.qmd + 2_victims.qmd

Start Here Next Session

  • Run git -C <repo> status -sb in all three repos; if behind, git pull --ff-only (Hunter pushes directly to main)
  • Then work the OPEN items in Notes below; nothing user-visible is currently wrong on the live site
  • Never render 1_visuals.qmd/2_victims.qmd locally without the sibling repos checked out beside this one; the update functions copy from ../DATA_aa and ../PROJ_activeattack_graphics
  • Push requires Peter’s explicit approval; deploy is automatic on push to main

Notes

  • Pipeline coupling: relative ../ paths + md5 checksum copies (copy_ifelse_checksums). All three repos must sit as siblings under ~/Documents/GitHub/. Website data/ and www/ are committed so GitHub Actions renders without the feeders (update calls are skipped when GITHUB_ACTIONS == "true")
  • Deploy: .github/workflows/publish.yml on push to main → gh-pages; CNAME activeattackdata.org. Runner pins R 4.2.0 while renv.lock was written under R 4.3.3 and Peter’s Mac runs 4.5.1 — works today, fragile if the lock is regenerated
  • Only the website has an renv.lock; DATA_aa and graphics have none. Hunter renders with ggiraph 0.9.6 (Windows), Peter with 0.9.1 (Mac, R 4.5.1, ggplot2 4.0.3) — both work, bytes differ. opts_toolbar(saveaspng=FALSE) alone no longer hides download/fullscreen in ggiraph ≥ 0.9; use hidden = c("selection","zoom","misc") (now applied to all four widgets)
  • OPEN (graphics repo): output/*_files/ dirs are saveWidget staging leftovers, tracked since 2024-11, now holding both ggiraph 0.8.10 and 0.9.4 libs (~2 MB) plus a tracked output/.DS_Store. Widgets themselves are fully self-contained. Fix: save_girafe_widget() deletes the sibling dir; untrack + gitignore (deletion → approval)
  • OPEN (v2025): fact-sheet numbers in 1_visuals.qmd are hand-typed, not computed from the data; now 2 decimals where v2024 used 1. Fact sheet is a static data/aa_fact_sheet_2025.pdf; aa_fact_sheet_template.docx and unversioned aa_data_wide_codebook.docx are orphaned, as are the v2023/v2024 data copies in data/ and bivar_kill_yr.png/bivar_kill_year.html in www/
  • zip_coords_completed.csv lives under input/events/2023/ on purpose — cumulative non-ZCTA lookup, do not re-point at {version}; code_events.R now warns on any event that fails to geocode
  • Site policy: never name attackers (Don’t Name Them); Remembrance page lists victims only
  • TO-DO (needs Peter’s explicit approval, not done): PROJ_activeattack_app (Shiny predecessor, last commit 2024-10-21) is defunct — remove local folder and GitHub repo ALERRT-Research/PROJ_activeattack_app
  • Sibling project: Research Ring Website (PROJ_researchring_website) — index.qmd now links to alerrtresearch.org
  • Full orientation (pipeline, Hunter’s v2025 changes, fix items, env fragility): docs/logs/2026-09-09_registration-and-v2025-orientation.md; today’s fixes: docs/logs/2026-09-09_weapon-plot-and-toolbar-fixes.md