Beta test: AJAX/PHP Saratoga templates for VWS, Cumulus, WeatherLink, WD

[ke9lz]

Hi Ken,  Wow!  I wasn't expecting you to add it.  Thanks for taking the time to do it up!  I have been cleaning things up a bit on it this evening and will give it a try yet before I go to bed.

Thanks again!

Steve

[ke9lz]

Hi Ken,  Works like a champ!  I really appreciate you doing that for me!  Thanks for all you do for us that are lacking the skill!

Steve

[saratogaWX]

You're welcome, Steve .. I'll incorporate it into an update for the WL, Cumulus and VWS plugins.

Best regards,
Ken

[LeomaTNWX]

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /virtual/users/e16105-17163/web/VWStags.php on line 1834

Is the above just bad data from VWS? I have gotten this twice. The first time was line 919.

Thanks
Mark

[saratogaWX]

Sounds like an incomplete or aborted file upload is causing the problem .. are you using VWS's FTP or another FTP software?

[LeomaTNWX]

Fling is doing the uploading now. Do I need to use VWS?

[saratogaWX]

No, using Fling is fine (it's what I use too).  The problem may arise if Fling is uploading the VWStags.php file, but not quite finished at the time the webpage is loaded.  I don't see a setting in Fling that would 'upload-as-temp-file-and-rename' (like WeatherDisplay has), but then again, VWS FTP doesn't seem to have that option either

[LeomaTNWX]

Ok. Thanks for looking into it for me.

[jay_hoehn]

Ken,

I am getting this character  over the thermometer on the summary page.  Any idea why that would be?  I tried changing line 382 in thermometer.php to &deg with no luck.

Thanks,

Jay

[saratogaWX]

Yes, you need to use an ASCII editor (not UTF-8) editor to edit the thermometer.php script.  The GD library only uses ASCII (or ISO-8859-1 encoding), and the degree sign must be the single character as in the distribution zip:

Code:

    $cnt = '°' . $UOM;

Using a UTF editor, will change that to something that GD cannot display.  You can't use ° since it's not HTML, but a single ASCII character.

Hope this helps...
Best regards,
Ken

[jay_hoehn]

Thanks, Ken.  That took care of the problem.

Jay

[PaulMy]

Hi Ken,
Got started on the template and test can be seen here www.komokaweather.com/wxindex.php and I think everything shown looks and works fine and got the radar, forecast, etc. correct for here .   Thanks for all the help you have already given us.  Now I need a bit more help

The most basic, can the Cumulus data be added to that test site to see how it looks before I decide to make it live?

Can I add the local WU forecast to the Forecast & Advisories drop down, say between the Advisories and WX Sim?  I’ve looked at the Settings.php but can’t seem to see anything there where I can add something, but then I don’t know what to look for .

How can I modify the menu listing so I can add my own links on the main page?

Paul

[saratogaWX]

Hi Ken,
Got started on the template and test can be seen here www.komokaweather.com/wxindex.php and I think everything shown looks and works fine and got the radar, forecast, etc. correct for here .   Thanks for all the help you have already given us.  Now I need a bit more help

The most basic, can the Cumulus data be added to that test site to see how it looks before I decide to make it live?

Can I add the local WU forecast to the Forecast & Advisories drop down, say between the Advisories and WX Sim?  I’ve looked at the Settings.php but can’t seem to see anything there where I can add something, but then I don’t know what to look for .

How can I modify the menu listing so I can add my own links on the main page?

Paul

Hi Paul,
I see you're already uploading your Cumulus CUtags.php to the /weather directory.  In the home directory, you need to add (from the Cumulus-plugin.zip ) the following files:

gen-CUtags.php
CU-defs.php
Settings-weather.php
tags.txt

Then edit the Settings-weather.php file and change

Code:

$SITE['WXtags'] = 'CUtags.php';    // for weather variables

to

Code:

$SITE['WXtags'] = './weather/CUtags.php';    // for weather variables

If you don't have a Solar or UV sensor, then change

Code:

$SITE['UV'] = true;  // set to false if no UV sensor
$SITE['SOLAR'] = true;  // set to false if no Solar sensor

to

Code:

$SITE['UV'] = false;  // set to false if no UV sensor
$SITE['SOLAR'] = false;  // set to false if no Solar sensor

and that should get your site reporting your Cumulus data.

Regrettably, the WU-forecast.php script is not designed to work for Canada or USA forecasts as they differ greatly from the World (non-US, non-Canada) forecasts on WeatherUnderground.
Menu options are added in the flyout-menu.xml file (not in Settings.php) and the guide for how to do that is here.  Be careful editing the flyout-menu.xml -- an XML syntax error will stop your entire website from operating until the error is corrected.  There's a method you can use to test a new menu described in the link above, and I'd recommend you use it until you are fully comfortable editing XML.  Also, new pages on the site are created easily by using this procedure.

Enjoy your new weather website

Best regards,
Ken

[PaulMy]

Thanks Ken,
I have made the changes and now have Cumulus data. Some minor issues and wonder if you could steer me where/how these can be corrected.

On the main page under the 'sky' image there is Curr -6.8 Max -0.5 and Min -6.8 and a red X where presumably some other charactor or image should be shown.

Weather Station Status shows Cumulus realtime Not Current - unknown - file not found.

Almanac: Station Graphs seem incomplete.
see www.komokaweather.com/wxindex.php

I will look at doing the menu changes and other tinkering when everything else is running well.  Many thanks for your assistance and patience.

Paul

[saratogaWX]

Hi Paul,
The thermometer.php isn't showing because it can't find the Cumulus realtime.txt file (which you are uploading to /weather/realtime.txt )

Change your Settings-weather.php

Code:

$SITE['realtimefile']   = './realtime.txt';  // directory and name of Cumulus realtime.txt file

to

Code:

$SITE['realtimefile']   = './weather/realtime.txt';  // directory and name of Cumulus realtime.txt file

and that should fix the thermometer.php image on the dashboard.

Which directory are uploading the Cumulus graphs to?  The default is the /images directory, but I checked the /weather/images/ directory, and it seems to be empty.  Check your settings in the Internet setup in Cumulus, and make sure you have the 'Include Standard Images' check box checked.

Then (given that Cumulus is uploading to the /weather directory, you should see a /weather/images directory with images produced by Cumulus.  Then you can change in Settings-weather.php

Code:

$SITE['graphImageDir']  = './images/';     // directory location for graph images with trailing /

to

Code:

$SITE['graphImageDir']  = './weather/images/';     // directory location for graph images with trailing /

and the graphs should work.

Some of the difficulties you are encountering is due to having Cumulus upload to the /weather directory instead of to the same directory as the template set.  You just have to specify that the additional /weather directory is in the paths of key settings like

Code:

$SITE['WXtags'] = './weather/CUtags.php';    // for weather variables
$SITE['ajaxScript']     = 'ajaxCUwx.js';   // for AJAX enabled display
$SITE['realtimefile']   = './weather/realtime.txt';  // directory and name of Cumulus realtime.txt file
$SITE['graphImageDir']  = './weather/images/';     // directory location for graph images with trailing /

And... you will need to change ajaxCUwx.js JavaScript to have the URL path of the realtime.txt file by changing

Code:

var realtimeFile = '/realtime.txt'; //  URL location of realtime.txt relative to document root of website

to

Code:

var realtimeFile = '/weather/realtime.txt'; //  URL location of realtime.txt relative to document root of website

then your AJAX updates will work.

Best regards,
Ken

[Albuquerque Weather]

Hi Ken

When data is from cumulus do we need a different setup for RMWN to display the information on our personal pages.


Ron

[ke9lz]

Hi Ken,  One more question for you, my icon for the current condition seems to be stuck at mostly cloudy.  Right now we have snow and looking at the VWS broadcast.jpg icon within VWS it shows snow and the new dashboard doesn't.  I am using the alt dashboard but checking your original from the template it stays at mostly cloudy.  Is there something I am missing with a config within VWS to make it show proper with the template or maybe the config in the template?  I have VWS setup to take the METAR data from the closest NWS station which in my case is KIMT.  Your original dash is at http://weather.athelstanewi.com/ajax-dashboardoriginal.php and my old site with the VWS broadcast is at http//:weather.athelstanewi.com .  How does your dash determine which icon to pick?

Thanks

Steve

[PaulMy]

Hi Ken,
Now I have a thermometer, thanks, and the other changes made.  You're correct the problems are with the Cumulus in the /weather subfolder but that was the suggested instructions I followed a year ago   but certainly learned a lot from this and have overcome many other obstacles (mostly self-imposed) by myself.  I should now catch most of these issues by myself.

Now another little issue to ask about as I don't know which date/time format to edit.  In the Weather Station Status the Cumulus weather data shows Current with an odd/incorrect age time and a different date format than the Realtime and Ftp there show.

Ken, I am amazed about how quick you have the solution to issues that we bring forward.  All so much appreciated.
Paul

[saratogaWX]

Hi Ken

When data is from cumulus do we need a different setup for RMWN to display the information on our personal pages.


Ron

Hi Ron,
If you changed your weather software used for conditions to the RMWN, then just let Tony know about the new software you are using, otherwise, no change is needed to display the RMWN mesomap on your site.

Hi Ken,  One more question for you, my icon for the current condition seems to be stuck at mostly cloudy.  Right now we have snow and looking at the VWS broadcast.jpg icon within VWS it shows snow and the new dashboard doesn't.  I am using the alt dashboard but checking your original from the template it stays at mostly cloudy.  Is there something I am missing with a config within VWS to make it show proper with the template or maybe the config in the template?  I have VWS setup to take the METAR data from the closest NWS station which in my case is KIMT.  Your original dash is at http://weather.athelstanewi.com/ajax-dashboardoriginal.php and my old site with the VWS broadcast is at http//:weather.athelstanewi.com .  How does your dash determine which icon to pick?

Thanks

Steve

Hi Steve,
For VWS, you have an option on how to set the icon/condition word.  The code involved is in VWS-defs.php

Code:

$Currentsolardescription = $WX['climate_cconds1'];  // Current Conditions
$iconnumber = VWS_icons($WX['climate_icon1'],$WX['vst143'],$WX['vst144'],$WX['vst145']);
if(isset($SITE['conditionsMETAR'])) { // override with METAR conditions for text and icon if requested.
global $SITE;
include_once("get-metar-conditions-inc.php");
list($Currentsolardescription,$iconnumber) = mtr_conditions($SITE['conditionsMETAR'], $time, $sunrise, $sunset);
}

If you DONT have in Settings-weather.php a definition for $SITE['conditionsMETAR'], (that is, you've commented out that line), then the dashboard/gizmo uses $WX['climate_cconds1']; for the condition words, and converts the VWS icon ($WX['climate_icon1']) to a WD icon number for display based on the icon, time, sunrise, sunset (last three used to determine whether to display a day or night icon.  The details for mapping of VWS-icon to WD iconnumber are also in the VWS-defs.php file

Code:

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# VWS support function - VWS_icons
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

function VWS_icons($icon,$time,$sunrise,$sunset) {

global $Debug;
$VWSlist = array( // maps day/night, VWS icon names to WD conditions icon numbers
'day' => array(
  'chancetstorms' => 29,   // Chance Thunder storms
  'chanceflurries' => 27,  // Chance Flurries
  'chancerain' => 22,      // Chance Rain
  'chancesleat' => 24,     // Chance Sleat
  'clear' => 0,            // Clear
  'cloudy' => 18,          // Cloudy
  'fog' => 6,              // Fog
  'flurries' => 27,        // Flurries
  'hazy' => 7,             // Hazy
  'mostlycloudy' => 2,     // Mostly Cloudy
  'mostlysunny' => 9,      // Mostly Sunny
  'partlycloudy' => 19,    // Partly Cloudy
  'partlysunny' => 19,     // Partly Sunny
  'rain' => 8,             // Rain
  'sleat' => 23,           // Sleat
  'snow' => 25,            // Snow
  'sunny' => 0,            // Sunny
  'thunderstorms' => 31,   // Thunderstorms
  'unknown' => 0,          // Unknown
),
'night' => array(
  'chancetstorms' => 17,   // Chance Thunder storms
  'chanceflurries' => 16,  // Chance Flurries
  'chancerain' => 15,      // Chance Rain
  'chancesleat' => 23,     // Chance Sleat
  'clear' => 1,            // Clear
  'cloudy' => 4,           // Cloudy
  'fog' => 11,             // Fog
  'flurries' => 16,        // Flurries
  'hazy' => 7,             // Hazy
  'mostlycloudy' => 4,     // Mostly Cloudy
  'mostlysunny' => 4,      // Mostly Sunny
  'partlycloudy' => 4,     // Partly Cloudy
  'partlysunny' => 4,      // Partly Sunny
  'rain' => 14,            // Rain
  'sleat' => 23,           // Sleat
  'snow' => 16,            // Snow
  'sunny' => 1,            // Sunny
  'thunderstorms' => 17,   // Thunderstorms
  'unknown' => 1,          // Unknown
)
); // end $VWSlist definitions

$Debug .= "<!-- VWS_icons begin: '$time','$icon','$sunrise','$sunset' -->\n";
if(!preg_match('/^\d{1,2}:\d{2}[:\d{2}]{0,1}\s*[am|pm]*$/i',$sunrise)) { $sunrise = '';  }
if(!preg_match('/^\d{1,2}:\d{2}[:\d{2}]{0,1}\s*[am|pm]*$/i',$sunset)) { $sunset = '';  }
 
     $sunrise2 = VWSfixupTime(($sunrise<>'')?"$sunrise":"6:00a");
     $sunset2 = VWSfixupTime(($sunset<>'')?"$sunset":"7:00p");
     $time2 =   VWSfixupTime(($time<>'')?"$time":date("H:i",time()));
     if ($time2 >= $sunrise2 and $time2 <= $sunset2) {
         $daynight = 'day';
     } // end if
     else {
         $daynight = 'night';
     } // end else
$Debug .= "<!-- VWS_icons using: time2='$time2' as $daynight for sunrise2='$sunrise2',sunset2='$sunset2'  -->\n";
     if(isset($VWSlist[$daynight][$icon])) {
     $Debug .= "<!-- VWS_icons using: $daynight iconnumber='".$VWSlist[$daynight][$icon]."' for $icon  -->\n";
return $VWSlist[$daynight][$icon];
} else {
     $Debug .= "<!-- VWS_icons using: $daynight iconnumber='".$VWSlist[$daynight]['partlycloudy']."' default for $icon  -->\n";
return $VWSlist[$daynight]['partlycloudy']; // default icon: partly cloudy
}
} // end VWS_icons

So ... you can choose to use VWS or a nearby Metar for your condition icon/description.

Hi Ken,
Now I have a thermometer, thanks, and the other changes made.  You're correct the problems are with the Cumulus in the /weather subfolder but that was the suggested instructions I followed a year ago  but certainly learned a lot from this and have overcome many other obstacles (mostly self-imposed) by myself.  I should now catch most of these issues by myself.

Now another little issue to ask about as I don't know which date/time format to edit.  In the Weather Station Status the Cumulus weather data shows Current with an odd/incorrect age time and a different date format than the Realtime and Ftp there show.

Ken, I am amazed about how quick you have the solution to issues that we bring forward.  All so much appreciated.
Paul

Hi Paul,
Currently your Cumulus software is reporting

$WX['date'] = '2/12/11'; // The current date
$WX['time'] = '20:36 on 12 February 2011'; // The current time and date. Example result: 18:30 on 30 December 2009.  If you simply wish the time, use a combination of the day, month, year tags (below)

which shows the date format as mm/dd/yyyy (USA style).  In your Settings.php you have

Code:

$SITE['WDdateMDY'] = false;

and it should be set to

Code:

$SITE['WDdateMDY'] = true;

to reflect that Cumulus is using MM/DD/YYYY format dates.  That should fix the date issue

And, to all three.. you are very welcome!

Best regards,
Ken

[ke9lz]

Thanks Ken.  I missed that in the config.  Works great now!

Steve

[PaulMy]

Ken,
Yes that did the trick, and enjoying the results very much.  

Paul

[saratogaWX]

Now available .. a updates page you can query to find out what's changed since you downloaded the Beta or Release versions of the template sets.  If your query results in changed files being listed, you can also click on a link to download a .zip file with all the changed scripts.  The page also allows you to save the selections for easy use next time (requires browser cookies to be enabled).

Enjoy!

http://saratoga-weather.org/wxtemplates/updates.php

BTW.. I strongly recommend that all Beta testers and new Release users try the page and download the fixes

Best regards,
Ken

[PaulMy]

Hi Ken,
Is there anywhere that I can see the differences of the 'flyout-menu' and the 'menubar.php' on active pages or a very brief explanation.  I have read your Menu configuration but the reading is a little overwhelming until I get to actually start to edit/configure one or the other.

I have a wxnewpage.php (kom-apart-test) working (started with 3, then 48, then 1 and finally nil XHTML errors on my first .php page so another lesson learned) and would like to see what would be most suitable - i.e. Part of or similar to 'External Links' or included with the other 'Links' menu

Paul

[saratogaWX]

Hi Paul,

The older menubar.php built-in menu creates a simple vertical list of pages on the left-hand sidebar, and the link for current page you are viewing is highlighted.  That menubar.php system is useful for maybe up to 10 or 15 links, and after that you get a long, unorganized view of what's on your website.

I recommend you stick with the default-enabled flyout-menu system which allows you to group and nest related pages with fairly easy configuration of the menu by updating flyout-menu.xml

Most sites stick with the flyout-menu AFAIK.  I'd suggest you troll around the list of template sites and see what kind of looks you can get for your menus.

The "External Links" area in the sidebar is actually in the menubar.php, and you can use this link to add some links or images into your sidebar.

Hope this helps...
Best regards,
Ken

[LeomaTNWX]

Where in the script do I set the weather software type so the NOAA reports will show up?

http://www.leomaweather.com/include-NOAA-reports.php

Thanks
Mark