Topic: Meteotemplate - new free website template

[Skyview]

And also, maybe in the future there will be other people with similar problems with the server and now we know how to solve it.

I see an FAQ coming soon 

[PaulMy]

And I thought I was the only one with unique webserver issues...
Well done Jachym,
 
p.s. all plugins added, including fireDanger
 
Enjoy,
Paul
www.komokaweather.com/j-template/index.php

[Jáchym]

No Paul, you were definitely not the only one, in fact I would rather say people where everything worked without making at least tiny change in the config.php, are an exception This however is nothing I can influence, some people for example have security restrictions for fetching content from external sources (causes problems with getting forecast from external source), others have restrictions in terms of writing files to the server (causes problems with caching) etc. But so far I have been able to find a fix in all cases and Javier was the last one where I really had to read a lot about servers to fix this.

The problem is I have never worked with servers, I use external webhosting and so I never really cared about this stuff, which is why it sometimes takes me time to get it right. The only person right now, who is still having problems, is Brian from WD He wanted to test it as well, but sou far we are still having problems with getting the MySQL working.


And yes FAQ is something I definitely want to do and in fact something I even wanted to be included at first release, just didnt get to writing it yet It will then be part of the wiki.

[Michaelpt]

hi

I don't if you could help me

I've just signed up for the  Registrationi at http://www.aerisweather.com/

I signeed in on the webpage, what is the next procedure to get the secret code and the ID
cannot find this step-by-step process to get the code
Appreciate any pointers

Thank you

[Jáchym]

Sure.

At the top:
Login -> At the top Account -> Apps tab -> New application -> fill in whatever you like and you will get your ID and Secret code

[kcidwx]

My daughter who is in elementary school really likes your weather template. I gave her a test directory on my website and she's going to try and make this template work with her weather station. This should get quite interesting. Although she does know more about PHP than I do. I expect to hear loud screams of frustration and banging on the computer at any moment now. 

You are inspiring the young ones already.

[Jáchym]

I expect to hear loud screams of frustration and banging on the computer at any moment now. 

Well hopefully not, I tried to do my best to make it as easy to set up as possible 

[kcidwx]

I expect to hear loud screams of frustration and banging on the computer at any moment now. 

Well hopefully not, I tried to do my best to make it as easy to set up as possible 

This will be a good test. If a 10 year old can do it, well....  I was just reading some of the docs and I don't think it's going to work for her because she uses WeatherView32 for her weather software. So unless there's some easy way to make that happen I don't see her being able to use the template. Cumulus for some reason doesn't support the weather station so I think that leaves Weather Display for options.

[Jáchym]

I already have a script for wview,  it was supposed to be part of next update but I could copy the instructions here and attach just this one update file here already now.  I will put it all together and try to finish it within tomorrow so that she doesn't have to wait for next major update

[kcidwx]

I don't think wview is the same thing. This is what she's using.

WeatherView32

[Jáchym]

I see... well, does the SW generate some kind of a text file with the current conditions that it would then upload to the server?

[Jáchym]

I don't think wview is the same thing. This is what she's using.

WeatherView32

There is hardly any documentation on their website, but from what Ive read there it seems like the Pro version should be ok. What weather station model do you have?

[kcidwx]

It's a Davis Weather Monitor II. Here's the file the software uploads to the server. It doesn't open correctly in notepad.

[Jáchym]

Hmm... Im not really sure how to use this, I wasnt able to open it in any software

[nitrx]

It's a Davis Weather Monitor II. Here's the file the software uploads to the server. It doesn't open correctly in notepad.

Wel I tried this to open with notepad++ it seems a binary file , very uncommon for weatherdata

[Jáchym]

That is the exact same SW I tried and I also tried opening it as a binary in PHP, but I get just a sequence of nonsense characters.... is it possible to generate something more usable?

[kcidwx]

I installed the trial version of WeatherView32 on my PC to see if I can figure something else out and I don't see any other options for uploading a data file. This is the software she wanted to use but I think it's highly proprietary.

As far as the template goes, I created the MySQL database for her and left the rest up to her to figure out. She did get the template to work but she's getting an error message at the top.

Warning: fread() [function.fread]: Length parameter must be greater than 0 in /template/header.php on line 58

[Jáchym]

Hi,

the fread is probably due to wrong settings in the config, which can be fixed relatively easily, but the problem is that it is not much worth if you are unable to set up the database updates. I looked at the SW you downloaded, it can do what you would need, but only in the Pro version.

Can you post here what PWS model you have?

[kcidwx]

She has the Pro version. The PWS is a Davis Weather Monitor II.

[Jáchym]

Seems like it should be possible:

http://www.weatherview32.com/ftp_report_upload_window.html

[Jáchym]

OK but I see that this probably does not update very often

And Steve doesnt seem to be very helpful either...
http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2360

Hmmm I will try to see what other options there are. But I did get an idea. If we are unable to find any other solution then I guess I could try making a script that would get data from WU. In other words it would not go directly, but the SW you have can upload to WU and then I would scrap data from there, how often can you update WU?

[kcidwx]

WU updates can be every 2.5 seconds but she is updating every 5 minutes. We don't have a very fast internet connection so I told her to turn off Rapid Fire. Once you turn that off the quickest update time is 5 minutes.

She tried pretty much all the weather software out there last winter and her first pick was Cumulus but then she found out it didn't work with the Weather Monitor II. 

[Jáchym]

Guess what, 5 minutes is the recommended interval for my template

OK, so my guess of how it could work is this:

1. You would set your SW to update with WU every 5 minutes.
2. I would make a script, which would get data from WU and save to database.
3. You would set up CRON job to run the update script every 5 minutes so that every 5 minutes your data is saved to db.

Right now theoretically I think it should work, but I currently do not have a script that would allow updates from WU, so I will have to make one - which should not be that difficult, I will use some of my already existing update scripts for WD or Cumulus and adjust it for WU, but it probably will take me some time and I will also have to test it. I will try to make something usable within tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes. Basiaclly it would then work by you providing just your WU ID and it would do what I outlined in the steps above. As I said, theoretically it should work, but I cannot promise it will.

[Jáchym]

The upcoming new version will include several new ways of updating the database:
- Weather Display (already supported)
- Cumulus (already supported)
- Meteobridge (already supported)
- WView (new in next version)
- Meteohub (new in next version)
- Weather Underground (new in next version)

So if your daughter will be able to send data to WU in 5 min intervals, you will simply use the WU script and set a CRON job based on the instructions in the wiki. I hope the next version will be available soon, but it will contain many new things and functions apart from this, so it will still take some time to be ready.

However, the template also supports importing history data from WU, so if your daughter already started (or will start) sending data there now, it can then all be imported into the db retrospectively and you wont lose that data.

[kcidwx]

Awesome! Thanks! We'll wait for the next update. I think she's been on WU since late 2013.