Trixology
WeatherCat => WeatherCat General Discussion => Topic started by: elagache on July 02, 2014, 11:37:27 PM
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Dear WeatherCat tinkerers,
I had created a custom alert for my Outdoor cooling potential synthetic channel (http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1322.0), but had never gotten around to writing one for when to close the windows. So I went ahead and created a custom rule and an AppleScript to generate the Growl notification. Well, the time came to close the windows and no alert. The alert definitely didn't trigger since I have it set to send the email and no email was sent either.
Here is the custom alert:
(http://www.canebas.org/misc/Voila_images/Close%20window%20alert%202014-07-02.jpg)
All I'm trying to do is make sure that the alert is triggered only when the temperatures are warming and thus the Outdoor cooling potential is decreasing and this 3 test technique has worked fine for me on other custom alerts.
I found something else odd. I wanted to test if the rule was correct and ran into an odd problem. Given this rule I would need a test temperature less than 1. However, when I tried to enter a number less then 1 into the test section, it would force the number back into an integer. Here is my attempt to entire a real number:
(http://www.canebas.org/misc/Voila_images/Trying%20to%20set%20variable%201%20to%200.1%202014-07-02.jpg)
When I try to enter a rate of change this is what happens to me:
(http://www.canebas.org/misc/Voila_images/0.1%20changes%20to%200%202014-07-02.jpg)
The 0.1 is changed into a 0.
Since I couldn't get real values into the test, I changed the custom alert so that the range was between 2-0 and used 1 as my test value. The test didn't return true even if my rate of change should have caused the alert to trigger.
So I'm confused. (http://www.canebas.org/Weather/LWC_forum/Custom_emoticons/question_mark_confused.gif) Do I have the logic flipped somehow? Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Congrats Edouard - that's a bug in the tester in V2.0 (it's all new) - the alert processing isn't though, so I'm guessing the value jumped straight through your window. Tester will be [edit: is] fixed in next release - should make it easier to test/figure it out (try -1 for the delta).
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Edouard, when Stu tweaks the tester, please post again. I am using the other half of your soon-to-be-matched set and I want to use this half too. Otherwise, my windows will be stuck open.
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Howdy Stu and WeatherCat tinkerers,
Congrats Edouard - that's a bug in the tester in V2.0 (it's all new)
Phew! - that sure looked plenty weird! :o
the alert processing isn't though, so I'm guessing the value jumped straight through your window. Tester will be [edit: is] fixed in next release - should make it easier to test/figure it out (try -1 for the delta).
Well, it went right through the alert again this morning. So I'll widen the interval and see if I can it to trigger tomorrow morning.
Thanks Stu! [tup]
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Howdy WeatherCat tinkerers,
Finally this alert triggered as it was supposed to and my AppleScript Growl notification finally got a chance to display on queue. However, I did a quick calculation and realized I was just lucky this morning. Stu was 100% correct, my temperature range was much too narrow. Even so, I had only widened the window to 0.5˚ F. However, this morning the temperature was rising at over 7˚ F per hour. Since my WeatherCat install is sampling every 5 minutes, the temperature was increasing by 0.58˚ F per every 5 minute interval. So it still could have jumped completely over my interval. Since the rate of climb could be even more drastic on very hot days, I guess I should nudge my interval even wider.
Interesting lesson about how to configure these custom alerts.
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Edouard:
I have been playing around with this as well. There is a button for testing a custom alert. When I open that test window and enter data that will trigger the alert, I can get it to trigger the alert but it won't email me. When I press the Email Test button, nothing happens. I receive other alerts (not custom) for things like freeze warning, etc. What do I need to check to see why the custom alert won't send an email?
Thanks.
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The Email test button isn't wired up and won't do anything :)
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Well, that would explain it.