Nuke Resources - WeatherHarvest V0.9.5

WeatherHarvest Background WeatherHarvest is a PHP based module/block combination that is written for PHPNuke. This BETA is early development of a weather harvesting tool that provides "value add" to your site by presenting weather conditions throughout the US. Future releases will include Canada, Europe and Austrailia. Weather is harvested from a variety of locations, but for the initial BETA releases it is limited to the NOAA database servers. This is consistent with other popular weather tools such as HAMWeather. Future "harvesting" will come from governmental and UN based weather gathering servers throughout the world. The reason for this approach? The data is freely available!

WeatherHarvest v0.9.5 What's New? I no longer consider this BETA - we've come a long way. Although it isn't v1.0, yet, it's got a lot of stuff. I pretty much will bet it has more power than packages costing you $75.00 or more! I will always post updates to the databases, and more versions of this great product are in the works. Even though there is a lot in this release, there is a lot missing! Bugs fixed

Buffer overflow in date/time parse routine. Caused the date and time to display incorrectly.

Countries added

Israel
Mexico
Netherlands
Thailand
Malaysia
Vietnam
Cambodia
Germany

WeatherHarvest Initialization updated to include

Extended Forecast Links
Limit on muber of days displayed for Extended Forecasts
If you try to upgrade, remember your root paths!!!

Database Management hads been added

Database ADD, DELETE, UPDATE for Weather Stations
More to come!!!

Just remeber, as database management is added, it should be treated like a loaded gun - very carefully! You can really screw up your database tables in a hurry if you aren't sure of what you are doing!

The following is a list of table field descriptions you should be aware of

Country - you select from a list!
Region - this can be a state, province, etc. How you want to split up a large country
Reporting Station - this is typically the city you wat to display
METAR Code - Retrieve these from NOAA
FIPS - A little harder to describe, but for the US it's how the government identifies areas of the country. You can get lists of these from NOAA, but I'd recommend you look through the database as it is. Finding a city close to one already entered will work for fips codes. Oh, these give you the extended forecast!
Primary, Secondary radar - These are NOAA radar codes. Get them from NOAA
User Radar - This is any palce that has weather images on the web. Caveat - don't even try weather.com - they will block you in a second! There are plenty of places you can get more radar graphics, you just have to research!

Extended forecasts for Marine areas. The Ocean and Coastline are covered, and there are more I am adding. Although I didn't get the BOUY block in this release, it's coming. In researching the ways I can retrieve the Marine forecasts, I realized I had made a mistake in coding the block for buoys, so back to the drawing board - please be patient! Finally, there is extended forecasts link control for your block! Installation Instructions Power users - if you want to upgrade - you can!

If you have successfully installed BETA 0.4.0, you may apply WHUpgrade0-4to0-5.sql.
If you have successfully installed BETA 0.5.0 you may apply WHUpgrade0-5to0.7.sql.
If you have successfully installed BETA 0.7.0 you may apply WHUpgrade0-7to0-8.sql.
If you have successfully installed BETA 0.8.0 you may apply WHUpgrade0-8to0-8-5.sql.
Although I have an upgrade path for 0.9.5 - it's pretty much a refresh of a few tables. If you have a working copy of BETA 0.8.5 running - apply WHUpgrade0-8-5to0-9-5.sql. You MUST also apply WeatherHarvestMORE0-9-5.sql due to table changes! NOTE - When v1.0 is released, the upgrades start over!!!

Apply the rest of the code in it's respective location as with previous installs. Just to be SAFE! The zip file provided is based on a directory structure "/www/phpnuke6.5/...". This is what the development machine is. Future PROD zips will start from "html" under your particular PHPNuke version. Steps to success:

Unzip and copy files to their correct locations in your PHPNuke site
CHMOD the "modules/WeatherHarvest/cache" directory to 777
Apply the WeatherHarvest0-9-5.sql file AND WeatherHarvestMORE0-9-5.sql, now located in the /www/phpnuke6.5/sql directory. It is applied through the mySQL command line or through an admin tool such as phpMyAdmin. This file will wipe old databases, and create new ones.
IMPORTANT: Before activating your block and module, you must go through your admin panel and set up your defaults in the initialization table. All paths are based on "root" and must have a trailing '/' You'll receive errors if they are entered wrong. Your cache paths from "root" should all be the same. If you are a power user, you can set up a seperate cache path for radar images.
- Note: Cache timeout is for cleanup and regeneration of data files. NOAA typically updates every 30 minutes unless a significant event is taking place.
- HTTP protocol is the preferred. If you choose FTP, you could experience a "slow" site. I give you the lodaed gun - use it wisely!
Once you have successfully saved your initialization data, activate your block and module. You may place the module in your "links" block, as it now has menu options for users.
At this time, you may want to set up your default site city. You perform this through the admin panel.

A quick note about root paths Keep in mind that the root path of an Operating System and the root path of PHPNuke are very different things. When trying to find the root path of your hosting Operating System, you need to telnet to the system, change directories to '/' ('' for Windows systems), and then progress until you are back at your sites home directory. The root directory of your PHPNuke install will minimally be the home directory of your site (where you are when you first log-in to your telnet session). I know this can be confusing, and it's certainly not easy to explain - but it makes a HUGE difference in your ability to read/write to various directories in your site path. BUG Reports and Wish lists Let me know what's going on! Use the forum at www.ibdeeming.com to report all issues or make suggestions. Anyone who's worked with me in the past knows I'm pretty wide open! What's Next I have begun the design and initial work on the following:

Looping Radar
WeatherHarvest Block ADMIN - extended to be smart enough to know if your block in center or side!
More radar images in the database - they're not all there because it's a manual entry process, and very boring!
Admin functions for the weather stations
Zip code support
Weather forecasts

Nothing is in any particular order, and again, feel free to post your wish lists! THANKS! Thanks for using this "add-on" I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy making it! Get it HERE