NEWS.md
In IceSat2R: ICESat-2 Altimeter Data using R

I fixed an error case on Windows OS related to time_specific_orbits() function (midnight time was missing, i.e. "00:00:00" from one of the observations)
I updated a test case that failed in the Github Action for Windows and Mac OSX
I fixed broken URLs

I updated the vignettes of the "IceSat2R" package due to errors in the "r-oldrel-macos" CRAN versions

I adjusted the "IceSat-2_Virtual_File_System_Orbits_PDF.Rmd" and "IceSat-2_Virtual_File_System_Orbits_HTML.Rmd" vignettes to fix the "Error in CPL_write_ogr(obj, dsn, layer, driver, as.character(dataset_options),: Feature creation failed." error
I renamed the Dockerfiles and I added a separate Dockerfile for the IceSatR package because the docker image didn't work due to similar naming with the binder image. I also added (in the Dockerfiles) the "awscli" installation which is required for the vignettes. The ".github/workflows/docker_image.yml" file was adjusted as well.
I updated the documentation to account for the migration of OpenAltimetry to EarthData (https://openaltimetry.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/). The new OpenAltimetry API Endpoints are available in the following weblink: https://openaltimetry.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/data/openapi/swagger-ui/index.html
I updated the getTracks() function
I fixed a bug in the vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt() function
I modified the "beamName" argument in both the "get_level3a_data()" and "get_atlas_data()" functions to get as input either NULL (data will be returned for all beams) or a character vector of one or more beams. The previous version of the function could take either NULL or a single beam name.
I updated the "photonConfidence" which now can take a character vector as input. The available options are 'na', 'noise', 'buffer', 'low', 'medium', 'high'
I added the *download_file()" function so that the user can adjust the "timeout" parameter using the "options()" settings. The default is now 120 compared to 60 initially.

I fixed a typo error in the documentation of the get_level3a_data() function
I've included the boolean parameter 'download_zip' to the 'vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt()' function. It might be useful if the previous default parameter ( 'download_zip = FALSE' ) gives a warning or error.
I've modified an exception in the 'vsi_kml_from_zip()' function in case the 'sf::gdal_utils(util = 'info')' function returns an empty character vector ( besides the existing one '(info_url == "")' ). I also converted a message to a warning.
I've modified the 'vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt()' function because it gave an error for 'RGT_cycle_4'
I've updated the documentation of the 'vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt' function

I fixed an error related to the latest_orbits() function

I've added the switch_full() and switch_abb() internal functions which allow to process the dates of the downloaded files without taking into account the user's system locale (see issue: https://github.com/mlampros/IceSat2R/issues/3)
I've updated the documentation by adding more details to each exported function
I've added more tests that can be executed using testthat::test_local() or testthat::test_file() (see the section R package tests of the README.md file)
I added the ne_10m_glaciated_areas.rda and RGT_cycle_14.rda files in the data directory and I removed the ne_10m_glaciated_areas.RDS and RGT_cycle_14.RDS files from the inst directory
I've added the verify_RGTs() function
I modified / updated the Vignettes, Example sections and the JOSS paper taking into account all previously mentioned changes
I updated the README.md file
I modified all files of the R package to make the ICESat-2 naming consistent (see issue https://github.com/mlampros/IceSat2R/issues/8)
I've modified the "IceSat-2_Atlas_products.Rmd" Vignette files (.html and .pdf versions) to fix an issue related to the "vertical" Coordinate Reference System (CRS) of the Copernicus DEM (see issue: https://github.com/mlampros/IceSat2R/issues/7)
I fixed a bug in the time_specific_orbits() function, as there was a case where only 'RGT' and 'Date_time' was returned, so I had to include the other 2 columns ('DOY', 'Cycle') by using NA's
I modified and added a test case for the time_specific_orbits() function to catch an error case related to issue 9

I've added the 'IceSat2R.R' file with required dependencies
I've added an exception in the time_specific_orbits() function to remove internally processed sub-lists that do not have a 'description' (I expect that all '.kml' file sublists are of type 'POINT')
I've fixed a few minor issues in the vignettes
I've added the 'available_nominal_orbits()', 'vsi_kml_from_zip()', 'vsi_nominal_orbits_wkt()', 'vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt()' and 'latest_orbits()' functions
I've added the 'IceSat-2_Virtual_File_System_Orbits_PDF.Rmd' third vignette