Moved: Upgrade Plans

[elagache]

Dear X-Air and WeatherCat "animal lovers, . . . . " 

I don't like change! Once I figure out how to use an app, I keep using it until the wheels fall off!

  . . . . . You still haven't explained to us how you keep your Fetch pooch from chasin' your WeatherCat!!  . . . . 

Cheers, Edouard 

[xairbusdriver]

Well, we all know you can't train a Cat! So which one do you think is trained to "play well with others"? I find a short, sturdy leash also helps...

[xairbusdriver]

Nearly finished with the 'in-progress (dummy data) simple Wx site'.

Won't try to make it iPhone usable, but maybe iPad. The nav menu already slides over to the left side of the window. May be a float:right on a couple of charts/graphs. Forecasts will probably be more involved as they seem to collapse the upper (fancy chart/graph) and lower (daily forecast) parts when they window gets too small. Hopefully just some @media screen and (max-width: 550px)... additions to the CSS.

I now have a less powerful Contact page, at least it still hides my email addy.

Need to review the process of having two different sites at the new domain. May be nothing more than keeping the Leuven Template in its own directory, just like it is in the current domain. The simple site can then stay at the root level with it's own directories... sounds too simple!

[elagache]

Dear X-Air and WeatherCat web spinners,

Nearly finished with the 'in-progress (dummy data) simple Wx site'.

As already noted it isn't my cup of tea but the only thing I see that is strange are some oscillating valves on some of your graphs.  For example the Humidity, Wind Chill, and Heat Index graph looked like this when I visited the page:



Am I the only person seeing these odd graphs?

Won't try to make it iPhone usable, but maybe iPad.

Should be fine for iPad unless you use flash anywhere.  Do you have an iPhone?  If you do, you might find the ipwx templates useful.  It is really easy to install:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=213.0

Cheers, Edouard 

[xairbusdriver]

I see [...] strange [...] oscillating valves on some of your graphs.

The finished site is running on the mini and uploading to the folders used by the Leuven Templates. The 'in-progress' site is running on my iMac, not connected to the Console, therefore, the data is static, supplied by Stu for testing purposes like this. However, I do hope live data doesn't ever become like that, either! If it will make you happy and because I'm such a nice guy, I'll borrow some current data from the mini and upload it to the new domain.Sorry, the data "updates" every few minutes which means the actual WC created files get over-written with the 'dummy-data' files... constantly. If I really was a nice guy, I would reset the update times to "never" form most of the data. Alas, I'm not (yet) that nice!

Since I plan/hope on keeping both sites running, I'll be investigating how to get the data uploaded to the two different locations. I know you've told me that Stu has two different sites supported by one copy of WC(?). I don't see the settings in the WC prefs that allow two different FTP addresses. I think the template has a folder named "tagFiles" that WC uploads, but I don't even remember how those were created! Need to look at the Template instructions, again! Also a "processedFiles" with three of the four files in the "tagFiles" folder. The "processedFiles looks like it contains many of the same things as the "WeatherCatCustomWeb" folder.

This research will have to wait until tomorrow, at least, I'm pooped from mowing the yard and repairing the gate I "modified" with the mower...

[WCDev]

Since I plan/hope on keeping both sites running, I'll be investigating how to get the data uploaded to the two different locations. I know you've told me that Stu has two different sites supported by one copy of WC(?). I don't see the settings in the WC prefs that allow two different FTP addresses.

The simple web processing and custom web processing are independent and can have different FTP destinations, both will run independently and upload to entirely different servers if you wish. However, it isn't possible to specify more than one destination for custom web uploads (or for simple web for that matter).

Hope that helps clarify 

[elagache]

Dear X-Air and WeatherCat web spinners,

The 'in-progress' site is running on my iMac, not connected to the Console, therefore, the data is static, supplied by Stu for testing purposes like this.

Okay Touch? . . .

Sorry, it is always a 3-ringed circus around here and just to make my life more complicated, I have two philosophical discussion going on the V-8 Buick forum.  I've decided I'll reply only to one a day.  I need some time for my trusty wagon!

Since I plan/hope on keeping both sites running, I'll be investigating how to get the data uploaded to the two different locations.

However, it isn't possible to specify more than one destination for custom web uploads (or for simple web for that matter).

Yes, this is true, but you can have more than one website uploaded using the WeatherCat custom upload mechanism if you are "sneaky" . . .

The trick is to have aliases or symbolic links as they are called in UNIX so that the files in one directory can be accessed from another.  I have my standard site at this URL:

http://www.canebas.org/Weather/

I also provide a complete test version of the original Seamonkey templates without my customizations:

http://www.canebas.org/Weather/SeaMonkey/

I use symbolic links to populate the subdirectory with the files that actually are uploaded in the same folder as my main weather site.

Unfortunately if I recall correctly, you want to have two separate domain names.  If you pay for separate hosting of each domain name that won't work.  I've never done it, but I believe the Apache web server can be configured to answer requests for two different domain names running on the same server.  So you might be able to have a single hosting provider allow you to have two domains on one virtual machine.  You would need access to the Apache configuration file to accomplish this though and would have to be willing to get your hand dirty with a little UNIX configuration stuff.

The other option would be to write some small shell scripts to automatically FTP the files needed on the other machine from the first one.  That isn't too terribly hard, but you would need to get some experience with bash scripting and would have to encode passwords in the script which isn't terribly secure.  I don't know if there is any other way to handle having files move from one virtual machine to another.

This research will have to wait until tomorrow, at least, I'm pooped from mowing the yard and repairing the gate I "modified" with the mower...

  . . . . Ooooh, so you like doing "mods" too! . .

I've done all kind of "mods" to my wagon!  Like I changed the dash from this:



to this:



Okay, okay, I know . . . 

What you referring to is the sort of "mod" like I did to my trusty wagon's radio antenna:



No, the bend in the bottom antenna didn't come from the factory.  I "modified it" myself . . .

That's why I had to buy the reproduction antenna at the top! 

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. Hope the gate isn't too worse for wear!

[xairbusdriver]

First, Welcome BacK, Stu!

Thanks for the info concerning two sites and one WC. I suspected that was the "approved" method.

Second, I actually did use a tiny bit of php to copy a php file that had just one WC tag in it to the correct location on my site. WC would update it and put it with the other files, of course, but its actual location needed to be in another folder, which is the problem Stu describes. Maybe a "feature" for a future upgrade: FTP paths for each uploaded file WC processes. I'm sure there is one other person in the World who could use that capability!

Symbolic links may be the answer since the "Simple" method doesn't support using multiple files, if I understand things correctly. It appears to use what would be the <body> of an html file?  I'm assuming that since the WC Web Server is used to perform the FTP, it would not be wise to run two instances of WC... or would that work in the 'sand-boxed' environs of Yosemite and up?

Third, I always used a wire coat hanger when I had 'modified' the original antenna beyond 'repair.' I think it would add a nice touch of levity to the possible "my-car-is-more-pure-than-your's" crowd. I'm hoping Edouard is not in that group.

[WCDev]

Thanks for the welcome back!

Yes, the Simple Web pages use a template built into WeatherCat's package, with an interface to the UI to control a few things such as some text to display or whether to include the web cam image. It isn't designed to be modified as any changes you made to the template itself within the package would be wiped out when WeatherCat was updated 

[elagache]

Dear X-Air, Stu, and WeatherCat fans of "mods," . . .

Third, I always used a wire coat hanger when I had 'modified' the original antenna beyond 'repair.' I think it would add a nice touch of levity to the possible "my-car-is-more-pure-than-your's" crowd. I'm hoping Edouard is not in that group.

  . . . That's an affirmative X-Air, Rodger! . . . 

Cheers, Edouard 

[xairbusdriver]

Just about ready to make the "in-progress" site live, but there are two "problems". 1. We'll be leaving for that rail journey in a few days! 2. On an iPad, I have to click the Nav menu links twice to get to any other page, unless I'm ON the "Forecast" page. From that page it's the correct, single touch (click) to get to any of the others.

The "Forecast" page uses some Leuven scripts to display the data, but the menu and all the rest of the page is exactly like all the others, at least according to the BBEdit, W3C validator, etc.

[Blicj11]

Your in-progress site looks nice. When I checked it out this morning, there is nothing displaying on the Current Gauges page, but everything else looks really nice. You've done a lot of work and the results is clean and simple. I like it.

[xairbusdriver]

I've seen that, also, but a refresh usually clears it up. I think I'm over taxing WC with those gauges. I changed the update times for most of the pages, and the time-lapse movie to 10 minutes. The gauges and graphs are set to a 1 minute update rate. Maybe I should change the times to Prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11...) so they would rarely coincide!

The two-click requirement on the menu links: It appears my iPad is the only (local) device affected. Even after clearing the cache and un-syncing Safari on both the iPhone and iPad. The links work normally on my wife's iPad (not yet updated iOS, but an iPad3) and my iPhone 5.

It's either the older hardware (iPad 2?) or the CSS. I use the sane CSS in another site and only today found that the same problem occurs in the secondary (lower) level menu on that site, again, only with my iPad. Maybe I just need to buy a new iPad! Donations accepted in cash, check, or PayPal!

[Blicj11]

I had tried a refresh earlier and it did not made any difference. However, just now when I visited your site again, the WeatherCat gauges worked as advertised. Perhaps you sprinkled that page with your Tennessee mojo and all is well.

[xairbusdriver]

I did 'play' with where I put the WC tags and how often those 'pages' updated. The Gauges and Graphs tags are not actually on the pages that display them (neither is the webcam video tag). But I think it takes WC a bit of time to create the graphics and then there is the upload time... No mojo.