Weather maps, anyone??

[RenHoek]

I'm currently using the MlbDude2 weather mod, with the weather.com mod...

I was wondering if anybodiez working on pulling down weather maps (radar, satellite, etc). It's nice to be able to see EXACTLY where the "big red blob" is when the tornado siren's going off...

I had that going in MyHTPC with their original plugin that just scraped a bitmap from a local tv station's site.

Anything like that in the works?
Thx-
RenHoek


BTW - I recently came across this cool flash version of displaying the current weather:
http://www.laplandfinland.com/moduls/saa/loader18.swf?lang=EN&mode=country&continent=Lapland&country=Lapland

[salsbst]

Coming soon to an STV near you: http://stusals.com/weather-report-suite/. [The images are animated at user-controlled speed.]

[Brett]

Is that going to be your own STV, or replace Mlbdudes Weather feature?

[salsbst]

Ultimately, anyone with Studio can decide for themselves.

Until then, I guess that would be up to each publisher. I probably won't be publishing my own STV. However, if none of the full STV authors wants to include this, then I'll put it out in the default STV.

[Jack_PVR]

Looks great, I'm starting to think that Studio should be free. In the right hands it seems to be improving SageTV more all the time...

[RedCoat999]

Saweet mod. This is the killer mod to kill all other mods!

On a small picky side note, I think the national temps graph should be in the national section instead of the forecast, but other than that, MlbDude should add this to his STV right now.

[salsbst]

you can move it once I publish it :)

.... take a look at the xml configuration file on my web site. I haven't quite finished filling in the comments, but it lets you choose the menu layout among other things.

That said, the national temps is an animation of the predictions for the 7 days starting with today, so it is a forecast element. I didn't want to split national and local forecast into two horizontal menu items (b/c each one would only have a single vertical menu item).... but again, as the SageTV motto goes, "You're in control".

FYI: the following are my top priorities for further development:

1) modularization of weather data gathering code and support for weatherroom.com

2) "internationalization" -- this means you could specify phrase replacements.... e.g., "when the weather data says "Cloudy" change this to "bewölkt" or whatever.

3) more views of weather conditions and predictions.... I won't be satisfied until every little useless piece of data that weather.com (or other sources you guys dig up) gives me has a place on a menu somewhere.

[tcdrake]

YES!!! Thank you Salsbst for taking the point on this.

[Opus4]

Regardless of what anyone else chooses to do, it will be going into MalDude when the weather module is ready for release. :)

Looking forward to it! :jump:

- Andy

[xlr8shun]

Originally posted by Jack_PVR
Looks great, I'm starting to think that Studio should be free. In the right hands it seems to be improving SageTV more all the time...
who said it wouldnt be?

[kny3twalker]

Hey thats looks great
just a thought
what about sunset and rising and moon phases

[salsbst]

IIRC, sunset/sunrise are available from weather.com, so I'll find a place for them in a future version. I don't recall seeing moon phases in the data.

[Brett]

it also does not appear to have Hi/Lo temps on the main "today" page

[RenHoek]

:jump: :goodjob: :jump:
That looks great!!!

I'll just sit back on my fat a$$ and wait!

-RenHoek

[salsbst]

If you mean the one labeled "Local Conditions", that's the local conditions page (so no, no high/low)... :)

[Brett]

Yeah "Local Conditions". The thinking is I turn this on in the morning the current temp is 63* but it might only warm up to 76* or heck it could go to 96*. I don't really see a need for a "low" temperature, but the "high" temperature would help in this case.

[RedCoat999]

Check the forecast page then

[salsbst]

If the point were that you'd like the forecast to be the first thing you see, your ability to configure it that way is already built in.

But I think your point is that you'd like some forecast information on a page along with the current conditions. I think there's value in such a page and will likely put one together.

Generally, my goal here is to provide a broad array of pages (each with a different slant) for you guys to choose from. Hopefully some other Studiites can chip in and create additional pages, too!

If a page doesn't suit you, you can choose not to include it. That feature's already in. Most people probably will not use *all* of the pages that the suite can display.

[JasonJoel]

AWESOME.

Can't wait! Good work. Although after doing XML day after day, last thing I want to do is edit more at home. But that is a small price to pay. ;)

Jason

[JUC]

WoW, this is awesome, I hope somehow it will be available as a 'plug-in' type thing so we can implement them into either Malore's or MlbDudes STVs
JUC

[broderp]

I want this! Please make it available for the DEFAULT skin!!!! This is the only thing mssing that I really want until I can do it MY way when Studio comes out!!

The perfect weather module!

Publish it as a separate plug in module. many Thanks!!

[srothwell]

Sorry if I missed it, but anyone have an idea when this will be out for everyone?

My wife (the weather junkie) saw the examples and NOW says the HTPC was worth the money and time..... when the weather stuff is working :-)

Stacy

[White94Cobra]

My wife said the same thing... Maybe this is the app to give Sage priority over Tivo in our house!

[JasonJoel]

Yeah... When WILL this be out? Really looking forward to it!

Jason

[ukmgranger]

Looks good dude, any idea of an ETA?

[salsbst]

Nielm's newly released STV supports the Weather Report Suite: http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7031

[CMfly]

Is there any way to get the weather information in the Metric system? Maybe grab weather info from http://www.theweathernetwork.com

This would be great for those who live in metric countries.

[salsbst]

Is there any way to get the weather information in the Metric system?
Change units="s" to units="m"... at least that's the way it's supposed to work. I didn't do a lot of testing with metric.

<weatherreportsuite
navigateDelayMilliseconds="200"
imageScaleWidth="1.0"
units="s"
weatherSourceMaxAge="0.25">

Maybe grab weather info from http://www.theweathernetwork.comThe architecture supports different weather providers. You'd have to code the "grabber" in Java. The source is on sourceforge in a project called "sagetvplugins".

If the provider doesn't provide as much information as weather.com it might look a little silly on the screen.

[nielm]

Metric works fine: I use it all the time! (see example config file delivered with my STV: weatherconfig_europe.xml)

[CMfly]

Originally posted by nielm
Metric works fine: I use it all the time! (see example config file delivered with my STV: weatherconfig_europe.xml)

I did install your stv but I kept everything defaulted since it was about 1:00 am I figured I'd try tonight. It works great in imperial though! I can't wait to try metric. I mean who knows how warm 68 F is anyways... ;) Thanks to you both!!!

[reboot_this]

I have installed the weather report suite... I have even modified the "included" locations to fit my needs down here in Texas.

Everything works great, I have the local forecast for each city that I input into the xml file......

Problem: I cannot seem to get the radar maps (neither the "area" nor the "metro") to show up which by default means that I am unable to see the animated pics.

I merely went to accuweather.com searched for my city (Dallas) and went about replacing each setting for the original "DC" location with all of the internet locations for the files needed to populate the radar menu screens for Dallas, but it does not work....

help anyone

if I need to post the edited portion of the xml file I will, but the only thing I changed was the location of the need files to reflect Dallas instead of DC....

[nielm]

I will need to see your XML to check, but the area and metro views are 'local' views -- and the defined views need have a location attribute matching the location name you have defined.

Look at the original xml, and see that there are several area and metro views defined with location names matching the defined location names.

<view name="area" location="Pittsburgh"
<view name="area" location="DC"
<view name="area" location="NY"

[turak]

I mean who knows how warm 68 F is anyways... ;)

I would guess about 300 million americans

[CMfly]

I would guess about 300 million americans
I was just joking but good guess anyway.

[reboot_this]

I will need to see your XML to check...

here's the xml section for the animated radars to show up:
<view name="area" location="Flower Mound" speed="750" delay="3000" maxage="0.25">
<layer type="animation" name="base" href="http://sirocco.accuweather.com/nxss_r1_h_500x620d/r1h/inxr1kftws_h.gif" cropbottom="0.225806452" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="roads" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/roads/kftw_roads.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="cities" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/cities/kftw_cities.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="road markers" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/markers/kftw_markers.gif" imageType="png"/>
</view>
<view name="metro" location="Flower Mound" speed="750" delay="3000" maxage="0.25">
<layer type="animation" name="base" href="http://sirocco.accuweather.com/adc_nxmos_640x480c/re2/inmremr_dfw.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="roads" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/metro_layers/roads/dfw_6x4_roads.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="cities" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/metro_layers/cities/dfw_6x4_cities.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="road markers" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/metro_layers/markers/dfw_6x4_int.gif" imageType="png"/>
</view>

Like I said before, all I changed was the url link to reflect that of Dallas, is this correct?

Also, I noticed that I cannot get the disk usage "look ahead" for the recordings to show up (the yellow part of the progress bar) It's REALLY weird, at first I could get it to show up to 36 hours ahead, then I shut down Sage to do some maintenance.... upon opening it again, the disk usage info was blank and would only show up to 24 hours ahead (after I changed it down to 24 from 36) Then I shut down Sage a different time, and now it will only show 12 hours ahead.... what's wrong with that picture?

Thanks in advance

[salsbst]

Make sure the location attribute in those views matches the location name, and not the location label.

P.S. it would be easier and faster to troubleshoot these things if folks would just post the *entire* config file as an attachment when they have questions (slap a .txt extension on it to get the message board to accept it). :)

[reboot_this]

Sorry, didn't know I could attach a file... DUH! here it is for you all to look at

[salsbst]

Make sure the location attribute in those views matches the location name, and not the location label.Doh! As I wipe the egg off of my face, I recall there was a reason I provided separate name and label attributes for the location. The name attribute cannot have spaces or special characters.

So, change the name attribute of your locations, and change the location attributes of your views, such that they have no spaces or special characters... restart SageTV... and you should be good to go.

[reboot_this]

COOL! I'll try that.... is an underscore a special character?

Also, you wouldn't have any ideas about the "disk usage" not showing the info for future recordings, would you?

Thanks again

[salsbst]

Underscore might be ok and it might not. I honestly can't remember at the moment exactly why this requirement exists! (and I'm only about 95% certain that it does, but the fact that you're having problems lends some credibility to my hazy recollection). :) You'll never see the name attribute outside of this file, so don't worry about making it pretty.

Sorry, I think you'll have to wait for Niel on the disk usage meter problem.

[reboot_this]

salsbst, OKAY I FINALLY got the radar stuff to work... (it would help if I would have cut and pasted the right "animated" links instead of the stills) Thanks for your help on that....

next question, how can I "add" a layer to those animated radars? what I mean is, I created a precipitation legend (at my girlfriend's request) to overlay on top of the other layers, but I could not ever get the new layer to show up... actually wrs didn't like anything I input for a new layer, not sure that "href" is the right parameter to put for a local path

check out the file and let me know what you think

thanks in advance

[salsbst]

Try using

href="file:/C:/Program%20Files/Frey%20Technologies/SageTV/STVs/OriginalV2/radar_key_area.gif

edit: there used to be two slashes between file: and C: above, but that was incorrect. The href attribute directly above is now correct.

If that gets mangled by the board, then the key points it should have expressed are:

a) href should be fine
b) use file:/ instead of http://
c) use forward slashes instead of backslashes
d) use %20 instead of spaces (I'm not positive about this one -- it may be that spaces are better than %20 but I'm leaning toward %20)

[Shuyun]

Is there a way to change the layout for the Weather Suite? For instance I would like the local conditions to show all of my locations instead of the radar. The same goes for the forcast. This way I could quickly look at all the location current conditions and forcasts without having to change locations each time.

Great Weather Suite by the way.

Thanks,
Salsbst

[salsbst]

Unfortunately you've hit on a shortcoming. Locations are set up in a way such that only one can be active at a time. There's nothing that made that necessary other than the way that I designed it. :( No promises, but I will remember this if/when I do an upgrade.

[reboot_this]

Thanks for the reply, I tried to input the line you said (w %20 then spaces, image type as png and then gif) neither worked ... I have been shutting sage down each time I make a change (I would think that would need to happen no matter what, I do have the order right don't I?

<layer type="animation" name="base" href="http://sirocco.accuweather.com/nxssa_r1_h_500x620d/r1h/inxr1kftwa_h.gif" cropbottom="0.225806452" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="roads" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/roads/kftw_roads.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="cities" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/cities/kftw_cities.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="road markers" href="http://vortex.accuweather.com/phoenix2/images/common/radar_layers/markers/kftw_markers.gif" imageType="png"/>
<layer type="image" name="radar" href="file://C:/Program%20Files/Frey%20Technologies/SageTV/STVs/OriginalV2/radar_key_area.gif" imageType="png"/>

also I attached the "legend" files, if you would like to try them out for yourself

Thanks!

[Shuyun]

Ok, thanks for the reply. It is a good program and adding weather to SageTV might just keep me from forking over dollars to meedio (That and if the music ever gets fixed).

Having one problem though. I'm not getting the metro or area maps for my locations. I'm pretty sure I've put everything in right but here is my config for all to look at.

Edit: I guess the attachemt has to be .txt

[reboot_this]

Shuyun, I had the same problem... I looked at your file, I noticed that the links you have for the "base" layers are pointing to the "still" images on accuweather.com Go back to accuweather.com, just above the radar you'll see "animate this map" Click on that and then get the properties of the "base" pic and plug that into your file

Example (for your denver-metro-base link) plug this into your file:

"http://sirocco.accuweather.com/adc_nxmos_640x480c/re2/inmaremr_den.gif"

(for your denver-area-base link) plug this into your file:

"http://sirocco.accuweather.com/nxssa_r1_h_500x620d/r1h/inxr1kdena_h.gif"

then your maps should show up!

[salsbst]

Thanks for the reply, I tried to input the line you said (w %20 then spaces, image type as png and then gif) neither worked ... I have been shutting sage down each time I make a change (I would think that would need to happen no matter what, I do have the order right don't I?You did everything correctly, but I made a mistake in my previous post (which I've since corrected).

Here is the correct way:

href="file:/C:/Program%20Files/Frey%20Technologies/SageTV/STVs/OriginalV2/radar_key_area.gif"

note that there is only one slash between file: and C:

Alas, though, that won't get you where you want to go, because the version of WRS that you have only supports up to 4 layers. This is easily fixed and I would hope that Niel can get it into his next release of his STV.

In the meantime, you could:

a) drop one of the other layers
b) combine two or more of the layers in order to stay under the limit and load them locally instead of loading them from accuweather.

[salsbst]

P.S. I'll tell you a secret: the imageType attribute can be deleted. It is ignored by WRS. It's a remnant of an earlier strategy I had for re-compressing images, and I just forgot to remove it from the example weatherconfig.xml.

[reboot_this]

well I removed one on of the layers and... VOILA! I saw my precipitation legend! Thank you for all your help and info!!! That's alright about the "imagetype" attribute, I was just trying anything to get it to work (I'm obviously not an XML expert)... Last question (I think), so is there not a java class file or some configuration file I can plug in to my folders in order to be using the latest version of WRS?

THANKS AGAIN salsbst!!!! you ROCK!

[salsbst]

No, it so happens that the change needs to be made in the STV file, not the Java library.

BTW, I haven't seen any XML mistakes out of you... just trouble interpretting relatively vague information about how the XML is interpretted by WRS. Maybe you are an XML expert!

[reboot_this]

That's a bummer about it being within the STV file... Frey! where is Studio!? ... or hopefully Niel will be able to fix that when he has a chance

Thanks for the compliment, I just hate not knowing how to do something so I just jump in and change things around (keeping backups of what works of course!) I have even gone through the XML files on Niel's STV config files and changed everything around to suit my taste... I'm lovin' the customizations, that's for sure!

BTW, great job on WRS salsbst! great job on the STV Niel! Pat yourselfs on the back!

[Shuyun]

reboot_this,

Thanks, you were right. Just used the animated Gif's and all is good now.

[nielm]

Alas, though, that won't get you where you want to go, because the version of WRS that you have only supports up to 4 layers. This is easily fixed and I would hope that Niel can get it into his next release of his STV.
That's a bummer about it being within the STV file... Frey! where is Studio!? ... or hopefully Niel will be able to fix that when he has a chanceDone! (in v1.4)

[abasu2003]

Salsbt,

I'm pinging you from every thread but I think this is definitely a weatherconfig.xml issue. I tried using a certain weather map

http://www.wunderground.com/data/640x480/ne_sf_anim.gif

and so clearly its animated. However, when I labelled it as animation, it wouldn't work (the same way it wasn't working when i tried to load other non-animated maps as animation). So then i changed the label type to image, and it worked fine, except it only showed a still image. Is there any help for this?

[salsbst]

There may be something about the animated GIF that is throwing off the parser. I'll take a look at it in debug mode and let you know.

[salsbst]

abasu, I found the problem.

Please do this:

a) shutdown SageTV
b) extract the Element.class file from the attached zip into c:\program files\frey technologies\sagetv\com\stusals\gif\
c) startup SageTV and test

Long story short, I assumed that a certain chunk of the GIF's binary data existed, and in the case of your GIF, it didn't. This class file contains a test to make sure that the chunk is there, and if not, goes on without it. It should work now.

[abasu2003]

that did the trick. thanks

[laurenglenn]

I would guess about 300 million americans
Yes! The United States..... the only country in the world keeping the Imperial measurement system alive.... :)

Let's switch to metric already... I mean, only in the US does driving 100 mean fast...

Lauren

[nielm]

Yes! The United States..... the only country in the world keeping the Imperial measurement system alive.... :)
Dont forget those waky brits, who are now completely confused...
big distance is still in Miles/mph
but fuel is sold in litres (garages have stopped putting the prices in gallons for the most part... prices of £5/gall ($10) would scare people!)
But they still use mpg for enconomy, except that it is imperial gallons of course, not us gallons!
Short distances (such as buying wood in a hardware store) is in metres/cm
weights are in kg (but lb/oz are displayed because nobody above the age of 25 knows what a kg feels like!)
Liquid in shops (water, coke etc) is sold in litres, but you still ask for a pint in a pub (can't remember whether you actually get one, or whether it is actually a half-litre!)

[laurenglenn]

Dont forget those waky brits, who are now completely confused...
big distance is still in Miles/mph
but fuel is sold in litres (garages have stopped putting the prices in gallons for the most part... prices of £5/gall ($10) would scare people!)
But they still use mpg for enconomy, except that it is imperial gallons of course, not us gallons!
Short distances (such as buying wood in a hardware store) is in metres/cm
weights are in kg (but lb/oz are displayed because nobody above the age of 25 knows what a kg feels like!)
Liquid in shops (water, coke etc) is sold in litres, but you still ask for a pint in a pub (can't remember whether you actually get one, or whether it is actually a half-litre!)
That's interesting. It's not just the US, for once. :)

It's amazing over here in the US sometimes. We get some people coming here from other countries and they see our speed limit signs and think it's in km/h.... At least, that was the case when I lived in Los Angeles. There's nothing like traffic moving at 110km/h and having one person (in the fast-lane no less) driving at only 70km/h on a high-speed freeway because the sign says 70mph.... :(

A doctor's assistant once asked me how much water I drank before my appointment and I said 1 liter. She asked me "What is that?" :) They can go to school to work for a doctor, but a well-known measurement system is beyond their level of comprehension? I'd hate to have her in the room when the doctor wants 10cc of something....

If the US goes metric shortly after hell freezes over :), people just need to change a little in the way they think. You'll get used to it. The soda industry changed in the 70's/80's over to metric.... It wasn't too much to rethink (you're getting an extra 1.6 oz in the bottle... for a 2 liter vs. a 1/2 gallon)...

Lauren