The acars data travels from your acars software to the `phpvms_acarsdata` table. This is then read by phpvms and is output in JSON format to SITEURL/action.php/acars/data.
Then in lib/js/acarsmap.js this is loaded into the map using a JS AJAX call: https://github.com/nabeelio/phpvms_v2/blob/master/lib/js/acarsmap.js#L216
Through a few more calls, this function is loaded as the time specified in the bottom of the acarsmap.php file (or specific to the template file you are using):
refreshTime: 20000,
Where 20000 is in milliseconds, therefore giving a 20 second refresh rate. Now every 20 seconds, the map (and table) will update using the populateMap() function here https://github.com/nabeelio/phpvms_v2/blob/master/lib/js/acarsmap.js#L141 as specified in the previous AJAX call.
I haven't tried this myself, but I would think you would be able to just change this line https://github.com/nabeelio/phpvms_v2/blob/master/lib/js/acarsmap.js#L147 to
if (data.length == 0) {
$("#acars_map_table").hide(); // Or .css("display", "none");
return false;
}
$("#acars_map_table").show(); // or .css("display", "block");
And then in acarsmap.php add an id to the table, change this
<script type="text/html" id="acars_map_bubble">
<table width="250px">
to this
<script type="text/html" id="acars_map_bubble">
<table width="250px" id="acars_map_table">
And you would have to give the id to the table on the dashboard template as well.
Hope you have some luck with this.