Topic: Alternative-Dashboard Version 6.21

[n3ouc]

Hi Tom,
I am running a quasi version of alt dashboard and watched your page for a while tonight with great interest as I am having the same issue. Your page actually does ajax updates, but as mine is doing, the update so many seconds ago does not reset to 0 when an update occurs. Its really weird and I have looked into everything my feeble mind can think of to try and fix this but in the end I just ended up removing the update so many seconds ago section. This started happening on Monday for me and all I added or updated to the system was the alt-dashboard mobile 1.30. I even removed the mobile php to see if that would help but to no avail.

Scott, do you have any ideas or maybe even Ken can chime in..

Take Care,
Mike

[BurnsvilleWeather]

Did you upgrade to the new version of testtags.txt too? 

Scott

Hi Tom,
I am running a quasi version of alt dashboard and watched your page for a while tonight with great interest as I am having the same issue. Your page actually does ajax updates, but as mine is doing, the update so many seconds ago does not reset to 0 when an update occurs. Its really weird and I have looked into everything my feeble mind can think of to try and fix this but in the end I just ended up removing the update so many seconds ago section. This started happening on Monday for me and all I added or updated to the system was the alt-dashboard mobile 1.30. I even removed the mobile php to see if that would help but to no avail.

Scott, do you have any ideas or maybe even Ken can chime in..

Take Care,
Mike

[saratogaWX]

Hi Tom,
I am running a quasi version of alt dashboard and watched your page for a while tonight with great interest as I am having the same issue. Your page actually does ajax updates, but as mine is doing, the update so many seconds ago does not reset to 0 when an update occurs. Its really weird and I have looked into everything my feeble mind can think of to try and fix this but in the end I just ended up removing the update so many seconds ago section. This started happening on Monday for me and all I added or updated to the system was the alt-dashboard mobile 1.30. I even removed the mobile php to see if that would help but to no avail.

Scott, do you have any ideas or maybe even Ken can chime in..

Take Care,
Mike

Hi Mike,
Are you referring to your site at http://macungieweather.net/a/index.php ?
If so, you are driving the site by VWS and using the ajaxVWSwx.js script for updates.

I wasn't aware that the alt-dashboard+ajax worked with anything besides Weather-Display ???

Best regards,
Ken

[n3ouc]

Yes Ken,
I am using a mixture of the alt dashboard and your dashboard. Instead of testags, I was able to get the alt dashboard to read the VWStags.php. This setup has worked very well for me the past month or two and still continues to do so except that out of the blue on Monday, the update so many seconds ago stopped working as does Tom's down in Carolina. After banging it around in my head for awhile, I just removed that section of code. I even tried just using your dashboard and the seconds still do not update. The answer is probably right in front of me, but just cant put my finger on it.   .

Mike

Update: I re-installed that section of code for the update counter. That particular section is a script, but I cannot find the actual ajaxcounter script in the dashboard or ajaxVWSjs/AjaxWDjs anywhere. Am I on the right track?

[gwwilk]

Scott,

I think I've cleaned up the Solar Index code so that I'm getting the expected results on my Dashboards.  We still had a couple of problems.  We were calling 'get_SIrange($currentsolarpercent) and sending it non-numeric characters, ' %'.  The second problem was the omission of 1% of the range 10 times in the function 'get_SIrange' (9% to <10%, 19% to <20%, etc).

When I revised the call to 'get_SIrange' to 'get_SIrange(strip_units($currentsolarpercent))' my SI icons started making a little more sense.  Here is the revised code:

Code: [Select]

<img src="ajax-images/SI<?php echo get_SIrange(strip_units($currentsolarpercent)); ?>.gif" height="65" width="34" alt="" title="Current Solar Index" />

Here is the revised function 'get_SIrange':

Code: [Select]

function get_SIrange ( $solarpercent ) {
   switch (TRUE) {
     case ($solarpercent == 0):
       $si = '0';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent > 0) and ($solarpercent < 10)):
       $si = '0';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 10) and ($solarpercent < 20)):
       $si = '1';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 20) and ($solarpercent < 30)):
       $si = '2';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 30) and ($solarpercent < 40)):
       $si = '3';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 40) and ($solarpercent < 50)):
       $si = '4';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 50) and ($solarpercent < 60)):
       $si = '5';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 60) and ($solarpercent < 70)):
       $si = '6';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 70) and ($solarpercent < 80)):
       $si = '7';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 80) and ($solarpercenti < 90)):
       $si = '8';
     break;
     case (($solarpercent >= 90) and ($solarpercent < 100)):
       $si = '9';
     break;
     case ($solarpercent >= 100):
       $si = '10';
     break;
   } // end switch
   return $si;
} // end get_Solarrange

I've incorporated these changes into both my Ajax-Dashboard6.php and WWL-mobile.php and they seem to be doing the job so far this morning.  I'll let you know if they give me more trouble.

Edit:  I still wasn't happy with the 'Solar Index' that the '$currentsolarpercent' was producing.  I found a reference at Dynamax that states that the normal daylight maximum is 1000 W/m² which fits quite nicely with the 0 to 10 scale we're using.  I've modified the dashboards to base the index on '$VPsolar' rather than '$currentsolarpercent'.  Here is the new code I'm using:

Code: [Select]

<img src="ajax-images/SI<?php echo get_SIrange($VPsolar); ?>.gif" height="65" width="34" alt="" title="Current Solar Index" />
and

Code: [Select]

function get_SIrange ( $solar ) {
   switch (TRUE) {
     case ($solar == 0):
       $si = '0';
     break;
     case (($solar > 0) and ($solar < 100)):
       $si = '0';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 100) and ($solar < 200)):
       $si = '1';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 200) and ($solar < 300)):
       $si = '2';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 300) and ($solar < 400)):
       $si = '3';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 400) and ($solar < 500)):
       $si = '4';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 500) and ($solar < 600)):
       $si = '5';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 600) and ($solar < 700)):
       $si = '6';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 700) and ($solar < 800)):
       $si = '7';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 800) and ($solar < 900)):
       $si = '8';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 900) and ($solar < 1000)):
       $si = '9';
     break;
     case ($solar >= 1000):
       $si = '10';
     break;
   } // end switch
   return $si;
} // end get_Solarrange

I'm much happier with the range this algorithm produces.

Thanks for all of your hard work!

[CNYWeather]

Tom, I camped out for a bit and didnt see anything update except the time.

In my experience, that has usually meant there's something wrong with the ajaxWDwx.js file.
When I monkey with it and "break" it, time updates and nothing else does without a refresh.

[n3ouc]

Ken - Tom,
I found the problem the problem with my site not updating. I finally flushed the ajaxVWSws file and installed a fresh copy and it took care of the issue. Tom, did you re-install or mess with your ajaxWDws file? Look at that as it may very well be the issue.

Take care,
Mike

[BurnsvilleWeather]

Could you explain how using the raw solar reading is better then the percentage?  I'm not understanding how it is better as I am almost always above 1000W/m2 in the summer months and the idea behind the icons is more of a percentage of sunlight (like UV) that your site is experiencing.  I'm missing what improves with the raw reading as opposed to the percentage.

Scott

One issue with this solar icon script is that if you hit a number, say a solar index of 100, nothing will show icon wise. You need to set the script up to do something like this:
 case (($solar > 0) and ($solar < 100)):
       $si = '0';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 99) and ($solar < 200)):
       $si = '1';
     break;
     case (($solar >= 199) and ($solar < 300)):
       $si = '2';
     break;


and so on so that the number 100, 200, 300 and so forth are covered.

Hope this helps,

Mike

[n3ouc]

Hi Scott,
First let me apologize on the solar script as I was very mistaken with my earlier post. I think in previous versions the < = section didnt include the equals sign but now does. The script is fine how you wrote it. 

The only reason I use raw solar readings is because VWS does not do a solar percentage calculation so the only way I can get the solar icon to show is to do it with the solar radiation. I do not know why gwwlk is using this, but that is my reason. By substituting the testtags mentions in the alt-ajaxdashboard file with VWStags, I had to comprimise in a couple of spots to get the alt-dashboard to work and this is one of the spots.

Thank you for all your hard work..  I really enjoy working with these php scripts and seeing just what is possible. Every day I come across something else that can be done with these scripts.

Take Care,

Mike

[BurnsvilleWeather]

Hi Mike,

Ok, that makes more sense now.  To help keep confusion down though, can we start a new thread for questions about your VWS version?  I think it's confusing people as the alternative dashboard script I put out is only officially for Weather Display software.  I'd be happy to help with a translation to VWS where I can.

Scott

Hi Scott,
First let me apologize on the solar script as I was very mistaken with my earlier post. I think in previous versions the < = section didnt include the equals sign but now does. The script is fine how you wrote it. 

The only reason I use raw solar readings is because VWS does not do a solar percentage calculation so the only way I can get the solar icon to show is to do it with the solar radiation. I do not know why gwwlk is using this, but that is my reason. By substituting the testtags mentions in the alt-ajaxdashboard file with VWStags, I had to comprimise in a couple of spots to get the alt-dashboard to work and this is one of the spots.

Thank you for all your hard work..  I really enjoy working with these php scripts and seeing just what is possible. Every day I come across something else that can be done with these scripts.

Take Care,

Mike

[saratogaWX]

Yes Ken,
I am using a mixture of the alt dashboard and your dashboard. Instead of testags, I was able to get the alt dashboard to read the VWStags.php. This setup has worked very well for me the past month or two and still continues to do so except that out of the blue on Monday, the update so many seconds ago stopped working as does Tom's down in Carolina. After banging it around in my head for awhile, I just removed that section of code. I even tried just using your dashboard and the seconds still do not update. The answer is probably right in front of me, but just cant put my finger on it.   .

Mike

Update: I re-installed that section of code for the update counter. That particular section is a script, but I cannot find the actual ajaxcounter script in the dashboard or ajaxVWSjs/AjaxWDjs anywhere. Am I on the right track?

Well, I'm surprised (and a bit pleased).  When I'd created the plugins for VWS, WL and Cumulus, I'd tried to map as many of the native tags to WD $tags (in VWS-defs.php) to make the (original) dashboard and gizmo work.  I'd not tried it with Scott's alternative dashboard, but I'm pleased that much of it works with VWS as a driver.
Keep in mind that VWS doesn't produce all the tags that are used in the alternative dashboard, and the VWS AJAX can only update that which is published in the WeatherFlash files (wflash.txt/wflash2.txt).  

Best regards,
Ken

[gwwilk]

Could you explain how using the raw solar reading is better then the percentage?  I'm not understanding how it is better as I am almost always above 1000W/m2 in the summer months and the idea behind the icons is more of a percentage of sunlight (like UV) that your site is experiencing.  I'm missing what improves with the raw reading as opposed to the percentage.

Scott

I'll jump in here, Scott.  The scale is arbitrary when you use the raw solar reading, that's a given.  If you want to move the icon points around, that's fairly easy to do (e.g. 0 to <120, 120 to < 240, 240 to < 360...to end with 10>=1200).  Why use raw solar?  Well, I think that better reflects the nature of an index.  Do you want it to mirror the percentage of potential sunlight your site is experiencing, or do you want it to mirror the solar energy your site is receiving?  IMHO I think solar energy is a better use for a 'Solar Index', but that's just me.  Using percentage my 'Index' hovered around 6-7 all day, and then fell slowly at dusk--it still would have read 5 just now at dusk.  An index above zero when there's no energy coming from sunlight is counter-intuitive to me.

In fact, when I look at my max solar for last month it was indeed 1432 W/m², which means my shot in the dark indexing was off target.  I do see the value of a 'Solar Ratio' as the percentage along with 'Solar Index' as the absolute value.  Could we think about using both values?  Or just change the name of your original algorithm to 'Solar Ratio'?  Sorry...my OCD is on display again, isn't it?

The first set of changes I posted today should provide an accurate Solar Index ratio as based on percentage, and the second set of changes will provide an absolute solar index, although it scales up too rapidly as written.  I'm going to rescale it now just to see how it works tomorrow.

I apologize for any confusion I might have created while trying to get my head around this.

[stormwatch]

Ken - Tom,
I found the problem the problem with my site not updating. I finally flushed the ajaxVWSws file and installed a fresh copy and it took care of the issue. Tom, did you re-install or mess with your ajaxWDws file? Look at that as it may very well be the issue.

Take care,
Mike

Thanks everyone for the input here. Hi Mike, no I have not touched the ajaxWDwx file at all since I installed V6.09 of Scott's script several months ago. Like I said in the earlier post; Scott was able to pinpoint a problem I was having because my texttags were V1.06 but I thought I had been updating them as new Versions of the Dashboard were released but apparently not. Once I installed the newest Version of Texttags my other issues were corrected (forget issue now). As I said earlier though it seems that the issue with with my page not updating seems to have began right around the time I installed the new texttags but may have absolutely no connection at all. I do remember several weeks ago just watching my page to see how often it was updating (due to sometimes taking 20-30 sec) but it updated fine.

I guess the best thing do to is redo the ajaxWDwx and see what happens. You are definitely correct Tony; it will update when you first go to my homepage but after that no updates unless you manually refresh the page. Very strange but I am used to my scripts doing odd things....LOL!!! Most every time it is the OPERATOR not the script!!

Thanks, Tom   

[BurnsvilleWeather]

UPDATED:  Version 6.21 - 26-Jul-2011
Modifications for UV so values over 11 show correctly now.  Updates to Solar. This is a minor update that just needs the main .php file replaced. 

The download link is in the first message of this thread!

Scott

[FrontRunner]

Yesterday i download version 6.21 and currently trying to translate it to Dutch. So far results can be seen here http://westlandsweer.nl. But I've got a few issues with this:

• What I notice is that certain wind values are in knots and others are in km/h. How do I make sure that the uomWind-variable is always set to km/h?
• Furthermore my windchill record shows a date of 7/6/2013. But if I look in my testtags.php i see the following values:
  $recordlowchillmonth = '7';   // Record low temp month
  $recordlowchillday = '30';   // Record low temp day
  $recordlowchillyear = '2011';   // Record low temp year
  
  Any ideas on how to solve this? [Solved: changed some coding ajax-dashboard.php [line 1314] to]

Code: [Select]

                     if ($WDdateMDY)
                          echo date("M-j-Y", mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear));
                      else
                          echo date("j-M-Y", mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear));I would like to expres that in ajax-dashboard.php there are more rows with the mkdate-function. Just make sure that the mkdate-function always shows mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear) AND NOT mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillyear)

• In the Station All Time Records-section i see that certain values are shown as: 25.5°°C instead of 25.5°C?
• I'm using FWI. Current FWI is on 2.6, but showes a moderate image. Should be low?

[solved]
Seems to be a slight coding error in AjaxWDwx.js, imgNrs seem to be wrong --> find and replace

Code: [Select]

function ajax_getFireIndex ( fwi , fireImg ) {
   switch (true) {
     case (fwi==0): idx = fireImg.imgNrs[0]; break;
     case (fwi< 7): idx = fireImg.imgNrs[0]; break;
     case (fwi<16): idx = fireImg.imgNrs[1]; break;
     case (fwi<25): idx = fireImg.imgNrs[2]; break;
     case (fwi<31): idx = fireImg.imgNrs[3]; break;
     default      : idx = fireImg.imgNrs[4];
   }
return idx;
};


Any help is much appreciated

[BurnsvilleWeather]

The reason for the two different methods is so that it will work in multiple conunties, it follows the setting of WDdateMDY, if you have that set correctly, it will display correctly too.

Scott

• Furthermore my windchill record shows a date of 7/6/2013. But if I look in my testtags.php i see the following values:
  $recordlowchillmonth = '7';   // Record low temp month
  $recordlowchillday = '30';   // Record low temp day
  $recordlowchillyear = '2011';   // Record low temp year
  
  Any ideas on how to solve this? [Solved: changed some coding ajax-dashboard.php [line 1314] to]

Code: [Select]

                     if ($WDdateMDY)
                          echo date("M-j-Y", mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear));
                      else
                          echo date("j-M-Y", mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear));I would like to expres that in ajax-dashboard.php there are more rows with the mkdate-function. Just make sure that the mkdate-function always shows mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillyear) AND NOT mktime(0,0,0,$recordlowchillday,$recordlowchillmonth,$recordlowchillyear)

[BurnsvilleWeather]

With the next version of the alternative dashboard I will be adding support for leaf sensor, soil moisture and soil temperature.  I will be adding those sensors this coming weekend hopefully and will be beta testing that over the next few weeks.

Scott

[ed2kayak]

Scott,
Just checked your site w/beta alt dashboard. Looks like I'll need to buy some soil sensors.
Ed

[BurnsvilleWeather]

Scott,
Just checked your site w/beta alt dashboard. Looks like I'll need to buy some soil sensors.
Ed

Ed,

Yeah it was quite the project but the local area farmers seem to be pleased!  They are looking forward to the information during the growing season.  So far so good.  Now on to building a Soil page for all the other data!

Scott

[ed2kayak]

what's required for that setup hardware wise?

[BurnsvilleWeather]

what's required for that setup hardware wise?

For me, I purchased a Leaf and Soil Moisture/Temperature Station (wireless) #6345 from Davis, 1 Leaf Wetness sensor #6420 and 2 each of Davis Soil Moisture Sensor #6440 and Davis Steel Temp Probe #6470

Scott

[BurnsvilleWeather]

Here is a preview of the new Soil Conditions section (option) that I have added in Version 6.5:

You can set the number of sensors from 1-4 and it will include a base set of graphics for the current conditions icons.

Scott

[Strgazr27]

Working on getting the new dash installed. Fix the Langtran issue but now have this : Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /homepages/18/d339288694/htdocs/ajax-dashboard.php on line 2524

Any ideas?

Line 2524 id ?> which seems to be tied to me uncommenting the 2 lines noted to fix the lang error.

[Strgazr27]

OK so I need to work on my uncommenting skills Lol.... I got it up and running but it's a little wide...Back to work

[Strgazr27]

It's up and running  I don't know if it's me but the dashboard is JUST slightly wider than the spot it's sitting in. Did I miss changing a value? If so where do I go to change that value. Thanks Scott for giving me a nudge in the right direction