Topic: Hidden Weather Tags?

[Bushman]

Anyone know of any unpublished WL weather tags?  I'd especially like the ones for alarm condition and battery.  Battery status for a remote site would be nice to report.

[Bushman]

Got an email from Davis tech support.  No such "hidden tags", at least for battery voltage.  So I am gonna write my own. 

[chief-david]

I am still waiting for someone to make tags for the special warnings like

"raining cats and dogs" and "Kite Flying weather"

I would need html- our school server does not do php

[Bushman]

<!--ForecastStr-->  gives you the current forecast string.    There's a list of the 100+ strings too.

[offroadjosh]

what is a tag? and how would you use it?


Josh

[Bushman]

Weather tags are codes you can use to pull weather readings into your web pages.  If you look at a sample Davis template you will see tags that are  used to generate the HTML pages.

For example, create an HTML doc with !--ForecastStr--> and save it as an HTX file.  At  upload time, the software substitues the current forecast string (ie. "Raining cats and dogs") as a text value into your HTM file.

[d_l]

Bushman, is "Raining cats and dogs" a forecast or a warning? 

When i went through a bin file, I noticed that there was a group of phrases that might be considered warnings, e.g., LOW BATTERY ON STATION X, HIGH WIND WARNING, etc. and a group of phrases that are the regular forecasts.  Will that forecast tag display those warnings or is their a special warning tag?  I don't use WL for making web pages so I've not studied the various tags.

[chief-david]

This was the post on catchy forecasts

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=1924.msg17495#msg17495

[offroadjosh]

Weather tags are codes you can use to pull weather readings into your web pages.  If you look at a sample Davis template you will see tags that are  used to generate the HTML pages.

For example, create an HTML doc with !--ForecastStr--> and save it as an HTX file.  At  upload time, the software substitues the current forecast string (ie. "Raining cats and dogs") as a text value into your HTM file.

well thanks.. but i am realllly bad with computers lol so maybe weather tags arn't meant for me

[Bushman]

So how are you going to get your weather data onto the Net?

BTW, how's the Bierstube? 

[Cienega32]

I am still waiting for someone to make tags for the special warnings like

"raining cats and dogs" and "Kite Flying weather"

I would need html- our school server does not do php

The one that I ended up hacking together is php so I guess it doesn't help you any. An htx file read by WeatherLink every minute and converted to php and only relates to the rain.

The original script was 'anchorageweather's' great little script that gave nice precision time reads since the last rain fall. Being new to php, I used his script as a starting point to see "how things work". I didn't want all that in regards to the time function. I just wanted a simple midnite day-rollover and something that showed how hard it was raining at the moment. Love that "cats & dogs" thing, you know.

Anyway, here's what I came up with and it does "exactly" what I want it to do:

Code: [Select]

<?php
$myFile = "./scripts/lastrainday.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
$lastrainday = fread($fh, 20);
fclose($fh);

$now = mktime(); 
$dailyrain = <!--dailyRain-->;
$rainrate = <!--rainRate-->;
$newstarttime = mktime(0,0,1);

if (($lastrainday < $newstarttime) and ($dailyrain > 0))
   {
    $runningseconds = 0;
    $myFile = "./scripts/lastrainday.txt";
    $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
    $newrainday = $newstarttime;
    fwrite($fh, $newrainday);
    fclose($fh);
   }
else
   {
    $runningseconds = ($now - $lastrainday);
   }

$runningdays = floor(($runningseconds/86399));

if ($rainrate > 0 && $rainrate< .07) echo "THERE'S A SOFT RAIN FALLING";
elseif ($rainrate >= .07 && $rainrate <.75) echo "IT'S RAINING RIGHT NOW!";
elseif ($rainrate >= .75 && $rainrate <1.75) echo "IT'S RAINING HARD RIGHT NOW!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 1.75 && $rainrate <2.50) echo "IT'S RAINING CATS & DOGS!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 2.50 && $rainrate <4.50) echo "IT'S POURING BUCKETS OF RAIN!!!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 4.50) echo "QUICK!!! SOMEBODY BUILD AN ARK!";
elseif ($dailyrain > 0) echo "IT RAINED TODAY!"; 
elseif ($runningdays == 1) 
{echo $runningdays." day since rain was last recorded:&nbsp; ".date('M d',$lastrainday);}
// {echo "IT RAINED YESTERDAY";
else
{echo $runningdays." days since rain was last recorded:&nbsp; ".date('M d',$lastrainday);}

?>



[Cienega32]

I'll post the version with all my comments and ramblings (I think it's the same one):
Also help for the last rain time data file

Code: [Select]

<?php
// Based on anchorageweather's (www.eetee.us/station) precision-time
// "DaysWithouRain" script.
//
// Modified for basic "days since last rain" usage.
// "Days since" increment based on midnite.
//
// Added WeatherLink rain rate tag usage for text output.
// during different levels of rain "Cats & dogs",etc.
// Requires an WL upload interval of one minute to be fun.
// Also used for "It rained today!" display. 
//
// For first time usage: find last day it rained and convert
// it to a Unix timestamp. (www.onlineconversion.com/unix_time.htm)
// Save that value to a file called "lastrainday.txt"
// WeatherLink runs the htx file and saves to php.

$myFile = "./scripts/lastrainday.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
$lastrainday = fread($fh, 20);
fclose($fh);

$now = mktime(); 
$dailyrain = <!--dailyRain-->;
$rainrate = <!--rainRate-->;

// Get current date and time but reset time to 1 second after midnite
// as will be found in lastrainday.txt

$newstarttime = mktime(0,0,1);

// Save today's start time to text file ONLY if it rained
// AND if $lastrainday is older than today's $newstarttime
// Avoids rewriting file unless a new day AND rained
if (($lastrainday < $newstarttime) and ($dailyrain > 0))
   {
    $runningseconds = 0;
    $myFile = "./scripts/lastrainday.txt";
    $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
    $newrainday = $newstarttime;
    fwrite($fh, $newrainday);
    fclose($fh);
   }
else
   {
    $runningseconds = ($now - $lastrainday);
   }

$runningdays = floor(($runningseconds/86399));

// I wanted to see the Davis console's "IT'S RAINING CATS & DOGS!" on my site.
// The rain rate values used here were acquired by using the tried and true
// scientific method of standing outside... in the rain... like an idiot...
// Change the values or the responses to suit. 

if ($rainrate > 0 && $rainrate< .07) echo "THERE'S A SOFT RAIN FALLING";
elseif ($rainrate >= .07 && $rainrate <.75) echo "IT'S RAINING RIGHT NOW!";
elseif ($rainrate >= .75 && $rainrate <1.75) echo "IT'S RAINING HARD RIGHT NOW!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 1.75 && $rainrate <2.50) echo "IT'S RAINING CATS & DOGS!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 2.50 && $rainrate <4.50) echo "IT'S POURING BUCKETS OF RAIN!!!";
elseif ($rainrate >= 4.50) echo "QUICK!!! SOMEBODY BUILD AN ARK!";
elseif ($dailyrain > 0) echo "IT RAINED TODAY!"; 

// Prevents the silly looking "1 dayS..." response and displays month and day of last rain
elseif ($runningdays == 1) 
{echo $runningdays." day since rain was last recorded:&nbsp; ".date('M d',$lastrainday);}
// Optional...
// {echo "IT RAINED YESTERDAY";
else
{echo $runningdays." days since rain was last recorded:&nbsp; ".date('M d',$lastrainday);}
// I hope others enjoy it! - Cienega32 - www.EastMesaWeather.com
?>



[jruys]

Here is an html version for rain strings that you could use.  It uses javascript to decide which rain string to use.  Once you see the concept you could apply it to other strings like Kite Flying Weather or what not.  All you would have to do is figure out what values you want to use.

Code: [Select]

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <title>Rain Rate Strings</title>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
        function GetRainRateString()
        {
            var rainRate = document.getElementById("currentRainRate").innerHTML;
            var rainRateString = "";
           
            if (rainRate > 0 && rainRate < 0.07)
            {
                rainRateString = "THERE'S A SOFT RAIN FALLING";
            }
            else if (rainRate >= 0.07 && rainRate < 0.75)
            {
                rainRateString = "IT'S RAINING RIGHT NOW!";
            }
            else if (rainRate >= 0.75 && rainRate < 1.75)
            {
                rainRateString = "IT'S RAINING HARD RIGHT NOW!";
            }
            else if (rainRate >= 1.75 && rainRate < 2.50)
            {
                rainRateString = "IT'S RAINING CATS & DOGS!";
            }
            else if (rainRate >= 2.50 && rainRate < 4.50)
            {
                rainRateString = "IT'S POURING BUCKETS OF RAIN!!!";
            }
            else if (rainRate >= 4.50)
            {
                rainRateString = "QUICK!!! SOMEBODY BUILD AN ARK!";
            }
           
            document.getElementById("rainRateString").innerHTML = rainRateString;
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body onload="GetRainRateString();">
    <div id="currentRainRate"><!--rainRate--></div>
    <div id="rainRateString">&nbsp;</div>
</body>
</html>

[Bushman]

Kewl!  Thanks!!!

BTW, for you JS guys out there, what would be the easiest way (Using Weatherlink SW) to read a value from a .txt file and use it in a WL webpage?  I'm looking at /DIV, .JS since I cannot seem to get a SSI INCLUDE to work at .htx --> .htm conversion time.

[jruys]

There are some ways read a text file with an xmlHttp object  (search for xmlHttp.responseText to get some examples).  That said, your text file would need to have http access, since javascript can not access local files (something about a security issue;)).  Here is one example on how to use the xmlHttp object http://www.rodsdot.com/ee/readFileClientSide.asp.

[Bushman]

Criminy.  I'm glad you posted that!    Way past my  skill level.  I should  have paid attention in the Dot.com boom. 

[Cienega32]

Yeah, that's good stuff but I got a headache just looking at it! Way past my "comfort zone"!