Topic: WeatherLink widget

[anchorageweather]

Does anyone know of a widget (yahoo, vista, etc) that shows PWS weather that does not use WD's clientraw files?  I use WeatherLink and thought maybe I could use a widget that uses some WeatherLink info that could be downloaded from my site.

[ncpilot]

Seems as good a place as any to ask if WeatherLink can output a file in the same format as clientraw.txt? I already know Weatherlink can output a delimited file... just curious if it can emulate clientraw.txt?

Searched here and in WD forum, didn't find any answers...

Figured it's a related question...?

[PSJohn]

Does anyone know of a widget (yahoo, vista, etc) that shows PWS weather that does not use WD's clientraw files?

sorry, I don't know of one, I've been searching for something like this for awhile now.

Do you know of one that pulls from clientraw? If not, I'm surprised that someone hasn't developed a widget that would pull directly from a PWS yet.

[saratogaWX]

Sadly, WeatherLink's minimum upload period is 1 minute, so updates at less than that period aren't available with the native package  

That said, if 1 minute is ok for your 'real-time', then you can create a .htx file that has comma or space delimited <!--WeatherLinkTags--> in it, and an AJAX script can be modified to use that as a source.

I'd recommend you use Anole's weather graphic tags list as the starting point, which looks like this as a .htx file

Code: [Select]

<!--stationTime-->,<!--stationDate-->,<!--outsideTemp-->,<!--outsideHeatIndex-->,<!--windChill-->, <!--outsideHumidity-->,<!--outsideDewPt-->,<!--barometer-->,<!--BarTrend-->,<!--windSpeed-->,<!--windDirection-->,<!--dailyRain-->

Best regards,
Ken

[ncpilot]

Oh yeah, I didn't even think of the upload frequency limitation with regard to "real time"...

I was trying to think of a way to use Weather Display Live without the main WD package...

Just trying to put off the spiral of software acquisition--if I got WD, then I'd have to get VirtualVP, etc.......    Then I'd be forced to get a lightning detection system, etc.......

[saratogaWX]

It's ok... you can ease into the weather addiction  

I'd strongly recommend getting VirtualVP and Weather-Display -- for < $100, you can really open up what you can do with your website (realtime AJAX, etc).

I still run a mix of WeatherLink and WeatherDisplay -- WeatherDisplay for everything except the NOAA-climate reports, and last-3-day graphs which are done by WeatherLink.

After you do that, then the yearning for 'better radar' may send you to GRLevel3 with AllisonHouse feeds.

After that, maybe a Boltek/NexStorm/WASP2 may enter the horizon.

All fun (and with the exception of the Boltek), mostly a < $200 at a whack, so a fairly easy habit to feed

Best regards,
Ken

[ncpilot]

Oh... and on top of all that, I'd have to get a real web host... I'm still trying to get away with my free Earthlink...

I can help spend other people's money too!  

[anchorageweather]

Do you know of one that pulls from clientraw? If not, I'm surprised that someone hasn't developed a widget that would pull directly from a PWS yet.

Yahoo Widget:
http://www.wetlaufer.com/wx/wd_widget.php

Vista Widget:
http://weather.cobbnz.com/weather/VistaGadget.aspx

Both use clientraw (I think).  I don't have WD so I haven't looked into it too much  

[anchorageweather]

Sadly, WeatherLink's minimum upload period is 1 minute, so updates at less than that period aren't available with the native package  

That said, if 1 minute is ok for your 'real-time', then you can create a .htx file that has comma or space delimited <!--WeatherLinkTags--> in it, and an AJAX script can be modified to use that as a source.

I'd recommend you use Anole's weather graphic tags list as the starting point, which looks like this as a .htx file

Code: [Select]

<!--stationTime-->,<!--stationDate-->,<!--outsideTemp-->,<!--outsideHeatIndex-->,<!--windChill-->, <!--outsideHumidity-->,<!--outsideDewPt-->,<!--barometer-->,<!--BarTrend-->,<!--windSpeed-->,<!--windDirection-->,<!--dailyRain-->

Best regards,
Ken

Hmmmm..... emulate the WD clientraw file?!? Very interesting....

How could I find how the clientraw file is constructed (info order, etc) if I don't have WD?

[saratogaWX]

The clientraw.txt file is a simple space-delimited text file with the format described in a 'clientrawdescription.txt' in the Weather-Display main directory.  

There are actually several of these space-delimited files:

clientraw.txt  (updated frequently, like every 5 seconds)
clientrawdaily.txt (updated once a day)
clientrawextra.txt (updated about every 5 minutes) and
clientrawhourly.txt (updated once an hour).

The files other than clientraw.txt contain information on history and records for various weather variables.

You can see the contents of a current WD set of files thanks to Krelvinaz's very useful Clientraw Parser ( http://www.tnetweather.com/wd-parser.php ) .. you can use my site ( http://saratoga-weather.org/ ) as the URL to take a look at the current values.


The Vista WD gadget cited above uses clientraw.txt, clientrawextra.txt for it's displays.

The Weather-Display Live Flash control uses clientraw.txt, clientrawdaily.txt and clientrawextra.txt for it's displays.

The Yahoo widget uses only clientraw.txt (as far as I know), so it's the only one that might be 'bent' to use a different datafile format and display stuff from WeatherLink.

With all that in mind, I recommend you get VirtualVP and Weather-Display to get the real-time info you'd like to have for your website

Best regards,
Ken

[anchorageweather]

The clientraw.txt file is a simple space-delimited text file with the format described in a 'clientrawdescription.txt' in the Weather-Display main directory.  

There are actually several of these space-delimited files:

clientraw.txt  (updated frequently, like every 5 seconds)
clientrawdaily.txt (updated once a day)
clientrawextra.txt (updated about every 5 minutes) and
clientrawhourly.txt (updated once an hour).

The files other than clientraw.txt contain information on history and records for various weather variables.

You can see the contents of a current WD set of files thanks to Krelvinaz's very useful Clientraw Parser ( http://www.tnetweather.com/wd-parser.php ) .. you can use my site ( http://saratoga-weather.org/ ) as the URL to take a look at the current values.



Best regards,
Ken

Ken:

As always, thanks for the info!  

[Anole]

I use a php script that I wrote to parse the clientraw and clientrawextra files and do all the unit conversions for current and a good portion of the historical data. It's not very polished but I can make it available to anyone interested in getting an idea of how to work with the files. It's not all inclusive like Kevin's since I wrote it with specific data points from the files in mind and ignored all the others. But it does give you the capability of choosing precision and unit conversion and might serve as a nice reference to build your own.

[anchorageweather]

I use a php script that I wrote to parse the clientraw and clientrawextra files and do all the unit conversions for current and a good portion of the historical data. It's not very polished but I can make it available to anyone interested in getting an idea of how to work with the files. It's not all inclusive like Kevin's since I wrote it with specific data points from the files in mind and ignored all the others. But it does give you the capability of choosing precision and unit conversion and might serve as a nice reference to build your own.

I would love to see it  

[PSJohn]

Do you know of one that pulls from clientraw? If not, I'm surprised that someone hasn't developed a widget that would pull directly from a PWS yet.

Yahoo Widget:
http://www.wetlaufer.com/wx/wd_widget.php

Vista Widget:
http://weather.cobbnz.com/weather/VistaGadget.aspx

Both use clientraw (I think).  I don't have WD so I haven't looked into it too much  

Thank you for these links, I didn't know they existed!

[Anole]

I would love to see it  

And here it is:

http://scripts.anolecomputer.com/download.shtml

clientrawparser_2.0

I took a bit of time this morning to write up a README to help with understanding what the script is doing. Keep in mind that I wrote this for my own personal use and therefore it:

a) does not output every variable in clientraw.txt and clientrawextra.txt
b) only outputs in US units (mph, inHg, etc.)

A comprehensive list of what data is parsed and the units for each is in the README.txt. If there is enough interest I might do something to make it more "universal".

I also included a test.php file which you can use to see if the script is working and what it includes.

[anchorageweather]

I would love to see it  

And here it is:

http://scripts.anolecomputer.com/download.shtml

clientrawparser_2.0

I took a bit of time this morning to write up a README to help with understanding what the script is doing. Keep in mind that I wrote this for my own personal use and therefore it:

a) does not output every variable in clientraw.txt and clientrawextra.txt
b) only outputs in US units (mph, inHg, etc.)

A comprehensive list of what data is parsed and the units for each is in the README.txt. If there is enough interest I might do something to make it more "universal".

I also included a test.php file which you can use to see if the script is working and what it includes.

Thanks!