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WeatherHarvest V0.9.5 - Ready to go! |
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seventhseal
writes "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"
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Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 @ 10:44 PM CST by chatserv |
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