External Tag files

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:48 pm

Really should be doing something else today, but... hey..

I created two tag files.

status-current.txt

Simulates a WD clientraw.txt file (close but not quite). The not quite part is that a WD clientraw.txt file uses values of a specific types regardless of what the user has chosen to view the data in. This is using the values as chosen by the user which means you have to know what those values are (it is in alltags.txt). However to attempt to use this output file like a real WD clientraw.txt file it would need to be processed on the web side.... something I will do next.

Also, I hard coded the station name, and the lat and long info as the tags didn't provide the right format for either. They would not change once you set it up anyway...

alltags.txt

** REPLACED BY XML FILE MENTIONED BELOW **
Contains all the known tags available in a single file.

I removed the <#wdirdata> and <#wspddata> tags though.

You can see the output of them via:

status-current.txt

The intention is to create a simple PHP based templated system that reads this data and displays current weather conditions dynamically.

A number of issues arise:

1) It appears that the process files are only uploaded when the full webpage is uploaded. Ideally, it would be as often as the realtime.txt file is. If there were a check mark on the settings page to indicate that should take place, that would be a nice option.

2) Obviously, there are a lot of tags that simply don't exist. Some comon ones are all of the Solar stuff (UV, Wm/2), some others like humidex etc...

3) Cumulus doesn't use a rename upload. This can cause issues if a file is being read and it has not yet been totally uploaded yet. When using a rename upload, the new file is uploaded using a tmp filename, and after it is uploaded, it is renamed to the real filename. This is a common feature for many data upload programs as it eliminates short pulls from the local server.
It would be nice to see that as an option in the ftp setup area.

It appears however, that the processed files are only uploaded at the same time as the rest of the full web. It would be nice if there were a check mark in the files are to stipulate that it should be sent at the same time as the realtim.txt file.

Oh, yeah... almost forgot...

Source for External Tag Files

Below are links to the source files of the two above:

status-current.src

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:51 pm

BTW... the intention would be to create a "Cumulus" Standard set of export files including only what it actually can output rather than attempting to mimic something else.

I just wanted to try some basic WD like scripts on the basic clientraw like output to see what I was getting.

I would also build a Cumulus realtime.txt and other export file parser like I have for WD:

wd-parser.php

This is all if there is interest in it of course...

steve · **Posted:** Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:52 pm

TNETWeather wrote:

1) It appears that the process files are only uploaded when the full webpage is uploaded. Ideally, it would be as often as the realtime.txt file is. If there were a check mark on the settings page to indicate that should take place, that would be a nice option.

Yes, agreed.

Quote:

2) Obviously, there are a lot of tags that simply don't exist. Some comon ones are all of the Solar stuff (UV, Wm/2), some others like humidex etc...

Yes - the tags don't exist because Cumulus doesn't currently handle any of the sensors at all that I don't own.

Quote:

3) Cumulus doesn't use a rename upload. This can cause issues if a file is being read and it has not yet been totally uploaded yet. When using a rename upload, the new file is uploaded using a tmp filename, and after it is uploaded, it is renamed to the real filename. This is a common feature for many data upload programs as it eliminates short pulls from the local server.
It would be nice to see that as an option in the ftp setup area.

Yes, agreed.

All good suggestions to add to the rapidly growing list. I think I will have to go open source and recruit some assistance

Steve

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:06 pm

Created a parsed XML file of all tags.

This basically is a text file that has all but a few of the tags in the format of an XML file. When parsed by Cumulus and uploaded to the server, the file becomes a file called alltags.rss which can then be parsed like a regular XML file.

Example:
** REPLACED BY NEWER XML FILE SEE BELOW **
alltags.rss

Notes:

Some info is hard coded like my url, station name etc...

3 tags were removed.

Temp Units
Latitude
and Longitude.

The use of ° is invalid in an RSS feed format.

Using PHP and the simplexml_load_file function, you can easily parse the XML data and generate a simple page. Didn't put a lot of time in this....

parse_xml.php

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:20 am

I am now parsing data exported from Cumulus to auto generate the signature at the bottom of my post. I had to remove some of the stuff from the script (Solar) and I see the weather conditions will remain at Sunny so I will need to remove that as well. The conditions is obtained in WD from a combined check of Metar data, solar data and rain tips.

steve · **Posted:** Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:51 am

TNETWeather wrote:

I am now parsing data exported from Cumulus to auto generate the signature at the bottom of my post.

I know of at least one Cumulus user who would be very interested in one of those!

Steve

TgT · **Posted:** Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:31 pm

This things are cool and big + for cumulus is that you can make whatever template you want to simulate other software outputs.

Im playing with lots of things these days using Cumulus export thingy :p
And im going to use that banner also soon :mrgreen:

Keep it up ! 8-)

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:25 pm

Nice to hear that it has interest...

There are a number of things in mind coming up....

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:13 am

One feature that would create a huge advantage to web making would be a switch that changes the extension that the template web files are uploaded to the website with.

Currently, they are uploaded as htm files.

File Extension: __ htm __ php __ asp

Then when the files are uploaded, they are uploaded using the selected extension instead of the default htm extension used now.

This would then allow PHP and ASP capable web pages which could then be used to create an included template system.

Right now if you want to do that, you basically have to upload a different set of files and pretty much dispose of the existing files that are uploaded.

An example of what an included file template system is, you can take a look at my example pages:

Constructing a Included Web Page System

This type of system makes making updates to web pages much easier since common areas are included by all the web pages (top section, menu section, footer section...etc).

I made some adjustments to the basic Cumulus pages the other day, and I had to make the same changes to each page for what would be in an included system common areas.

Changes that I made:

o Centered and boxed the top section (lat long and other info)
o Centered the title sections of various areas (removed the invalid caption center element).
o Changed the bottom menu, adding a link the my xml gen page and removing the forum and webcam links.
o Some other changes I cant recall right now.

Most of these would have been a single change in the section that was included instead of 7 different pages.

steve · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:34 am

The web pages were originally created by Mrs L (and then abused a bit by me) using Dreamweaver, about which I know very little. But I do know that they are created using some sort of Dreamweaver templating system, which means that for us, changing any of the common parts involves changing just one file. So, it's rather like the "included" system you mention, except that the including is done locally rather than on the server.

They exist because they're our web pages, and they're really only included with Cumulus as examples of how the web tags work. It never occurred to me that most people would simply use the supplied examples instead of creating their own pages! I guess if I had known that they would get so much use, I might have done it slightly differently.

Incidentally, the webcam and forum links are easily removed from the processed pages by removing the links on the internet configuration screen in Cumulus.

Steve

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:49 am

I understand that.

That is a good method if you want to generate the web code on the weather workstation side. But you end up having to upload everything to the web server each time to update the pages the visitor sees.

I think if you blank out the webcam and forum links in Cumulus, the links are still on the page, they just don't go anywhere.

In any case, it really doesn't matter.

I rarely upload whole web pages now days, instead, preferring to upload just the data and let the web pages get what they need from that.

I figured that I would make sense to start with what most people are used to seeing. So I've already started converting your original style to a template style. When I am done, I will post instructions on how to use it and how to create the XML file it uses to get its data.

I've already done the core files and have completed two of the pages themselves, the index (current conditions) page and the today page. I will have the others finished when I get more time to play.

The style is that of your basic page with some slight tweaks, nothing radical, mostly playing around, but they are now PHP based files.

Experimental PHP Template:

http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion

They have the same info (hopefully).

Each page is created using includes of:

Settings.php - A basic overall configuration file that defines variable and some common functions.

w-top.php - The very top of every page (<html><head> ... )

w-station.php - The block with the lat long and other station info

... the page itself

w-menu.php - The menu block at the bottom of each page

w-footer.php - the final footer section for each page.

Note the w- preface is a style setting in the Settings.php file which allows me to make a completely new theme with the same data by just changing the style indicator in the Settings.php file.

The pages that have been done can be viewed as source (Note that I use a tab 4 structure)

Core Files
w-top.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/w-top.phps
w-footer.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/w-footer.phps
w-menu.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/w-menu.phps
w-station.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/w-station.phps

Pages Themselves
index.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/index.phps
today.php
http://cumulus.tnetweather.com/phpversion/today.phps

steve · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:59 am

TNETWeather wrote:

I rarely upload whole web pages now days, instead, preferring to upload just the data and let the web pages get what they need from that.

Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind for Cumulus 2.

Quote:

The style is that of your basic page with some slight tweaks, nothing radical, mostly playing around, but they are now PHP based files.

And that's exactly what I thought I would do to start with for Cumulus 2.

These are great, many thanks. When I get time I will have a look at them in more detail, and start using them on my website.

Steve

Paul C · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:09 pm

steve wrote:

TNETWeather wrote:

I am now parsing data exported from Cumulus to auto generate the signature at the bottom of my post.

I know of at least one Cumulus user who would be very interested in one of those!

Steve

Hope you are not talking about me behind my back !

I must say that Kevins weather banner does look a little better than mine

broadstairs · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:16 pm

Paul C wrote:

steve wrote:

TNETWeather wrote:

I am now parsing data exported from Cumulus to auto generate the signature at the bottom of my post.

I know of at least one Cumulus user who would be very interested in one of those!

Steve

Hope you are not talking about me behind my back !

I must say that Kevins weather banner does look a little better than mine

I recognise your banner :roll:

I've not added mine to this forum yet since its not using Cumulus today. :roll:

I also recognise Kevin from another place :roll:

Stuart

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:08 pm

Hello Stuart...

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