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Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Weather skins
sgtevmckay

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by sgtevmckay »

No problem friend.
I take in all suggestions :great:
User avatar
GhostMatrix
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 141
Joined: April 18th, 2009, 8:26 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada 45.5658°N, 73.5898°W UTC -5

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by GhostMatrix »

sgtevmckay wrote:I am looking for an RSS feed that is reliable and has the Moon Rise and set times as well to add to the skin.
I just have not found one yet....

any suggestions are greatly appreciated :thumbup:

@sgtevmckay and Dojomoto
:welcome:
I don't want to break your bubbles... but you won't find any basic RSS feed with the rise & set time of the moon, only some premium RSS feeds will have this.
If you really want to add this feature on your skin, you will have to get the rise & set time from a website page...
You will say parsing a a RSS feed is the best way to go, yes I know that RSS is more reliable and easy to parse, website page could change and break the regex, and code source is not pretty to parse.
But they could change a RSS feed by adding and/or removing info, or shutdown the feed.
If you remember(May 22,2009) I was parsing webpages for an AccuWeather skin before they grant us a RSS feed for a while, well I start the skin today and everything still working fine after 1 year and 8 months.

I have already done this for the sun & moon on a higher level for one of my skins...



So I can parse the Weather Underground website for you if you want (my skin is private), because I have one concern with website skins and public release...
The number of Rainmeter users has grown considerably and is still growing... so if a skin go public and become very popular, I don't know the impact the skin will have on the traffic of the website you have chosen for it, and how they will react if they get a hudge amount of it!

In your case the info stand for the current day, you can do something to update the measure only when the current time reach 1:00 am for an example, you will have one hit on the website at the initial start of the skin, and a second hit at 1:00 am if the computer stay on for a long period of time, so it will minimize the traffic generated by all the users of the skin.

Btw if you go for it... you can add a current event area on your skin, so you can have messages like...
Civil twilight have started at 6:54 am (go off at sunrise)
Having lasted 9h 16m the day has ended, tomorrow will be 2m 9s longer.
It's full moon now, if you are a werewolf... peoples near you are in big trouble!

it could be fun! :D
If you need any help I'm back... my old laptop was overheating, after three black out I stop using it to avoid to screw Windows, or/and the hard disks!, seem o.k now (I bought a base with a fan designed for a laptop).

GM
sgtevmckay

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by sgtevmckay »

I have missed you my friend :-(
I am so happy to hear from you after all this time :great:

Beyond RSS feeds, I am also looking into XML's, and even web pages as you have suggested.
It will require a lot of patience, and you may have the best solution-ary page via Accuweather

Currently I am experimenting with http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=231
These folks have a tone of information, and laid out very well from what I can tell :thumbup:
Parsing the page is a bit of a nightmare, but nothing compared to what Accuweather is like

I have been working diligently to increase the UI load time, while maintaining appropriate update times.
What a pain, but well worth it.
Your suggestion in this is excellent :)
Btw if you go for it... you can add a current event area on your skin, so you can have messages like...
Civil twilight have started at 6:54 am (go off at sunrise)
Having lasted 9h 16m the day has ended, tomorrow will be 2m 9s longer.
It's full moon now, if you are a werewolf... peoples near you are in big trouble!
Yes sir.
Fun is definitely a direction I have moved in...started with the graphics on the latest release, with a little modification, you can add your own moon, and now a graphic over the moon and under the moon phase graphic. This seems to be meeting well with many folks :great:
So fun is in :sly:
If you need any help I'm back... my old laptop was overheating, after three black out I stop using it to avoid to screw Windows, or/and the hard disks!, seem o.k now (I bought a base with a fan designed for a laptop).
I will certainly be calling on you my friend

It is so good to hear from you and have you back with us once again (I was going to write you in a few days.....your ears burning or massive sneezing fits?)

Welcome back :party: :circle: :cheer: :bounce: :YESSS: :beer: :yahoo:
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GhostMatrix
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 141
Joined: April 18th, 2009, 8:26 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada 45.5658°N, 73.5898°W UTC -5

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by GhostMatrix »

sgtevmckay wrote:It is so good to hear from you and have you back with us once again (I was going to write you in a few days.....your ears burning or massive sneezing fits?)
ears burning!! :D

Well I have already done the Weather Underground...



But I can do the timeanddate.com if you prefer this website. :)
For AccuWeather I have to go back to see what info are available, and if those are not only for the U.S.A.

GM
sgtevmckay

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by sgtevmckay »

I will be upfront and say that I am avoiding AccuWeather.....
It turned into an unfortunate event :(

I was unaware that Weather under ground returned such information.
The example XML at their API page would not lead one to believe that some of this is available :confused:

at least I know that the XML from Weather Under ground is consistent ;)
I would like to test and see if timeanddate.com is a stable XML for various countries as well :great:

Weather Under ground may be the way to go :thumbup:
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jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by jsmorley »

As GM said though, there are downsides and risks associated with "screen scraping" a site rather than using an RSS / ATOM or other XML based feed. Hate to see a skin that was constantly needing "tweaking" to adjust to a changing website out in wide distribution cause a lot of aggravation for you or your users.
sgtevmckay

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by sgtevmckay »

Indeed, and this is my single largest concern to be sure.

I think weather underground may do the trick.
So I may continue the mashup there ;)
As far as I know Weather Under ground keeps a stable XML
At least, if you are a registered user, they will tell you if there is going to be a change, so that should give me a few days to make any changes necessary.
User avatar
GhostMatrix
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 141
Joined: April 18th, 2009, 8:26 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada 45.5658°N, 73.5898°W UTC -5

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by GhostMatrix »

From my user experience...

I "screen scraping" MétéoMédia the French version of the Weather Network website (Canada based) in 2004, in 6 years I had only one change when they have changed the webpages layout for their 20 years anniversary, If I compare this with Weather.com when they have changed the URL of their RSS feed and affect all the Rainmeter skins at that time, I can say the result is equal in this case!

XML reliability...
My original 2006 skin for the Earthquake XML feed from the USGS don't work anymore, the regex is broken... in 4 years one change so far.

At the present moment the risks associated with "screen scraping" a site rather than using an RSS / ATOM or other XML based feed are equal for me!

So I have a good feeling that it will be the same thing for Weather Underground...

GM
sgtevmckay

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by sgtevmckay »

Thank you sir :rosegift:
User avatar
GhostMatrix
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 141
Joined: April 18th, 2009, 8:26 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada 45.5658°N, 73.5898°W UTC -5

Re: Visions+ Weather Beta 3 now available

Post by GhostMatrix »

sgtevmckay wrote:Indeed, and this is my single largest concern to be sure.

I think weather underground may do the trick.
So I may continue the mashup there ;)
As far as I know Weather Under ground keeps a stable XML
At least, if you are a registered user, they will tell you if there is going to be a change, so that should give me a few days to make any changes necessary.
I check your "time and date.com", same info apart the length of visible light (can be calculate), well you can use it as an emergency backup!

I code something for this...
On the initial start if the weather underground site is down, or do something who break the regex, you will have an image pop-up after a determinated lapse of time (I set 8 secondes), users will read... and if they click on the image the skin switch the "Weather Underground" source for the "Time and Date" one!
Image
So no more comments like "my skin is not working anymore... :( ", unless if the two sources are not working in the same time!, in that case I will suggest you to check the current date, if it not December 21st, 2012 by chance!! O.O

Now it seem that you want to have the current events feature, for this you will need to pin-point the time separately like "7:28 AM EST" to have
7
28
AM
EST

to use in the formula who will calculate the events, but no worry you can reconstruct the text format in the meter... Text="sunrise %1:%2 %3 %4"

That said, you can offer options for your users like...

Change the wallpaper when the clock reach the sunrise and sunset time, or whatever! (NirCmd needed for this)

Play sound when the clock reach the sunrise, sunset, moorise time, or whatever!
Sunrise = http://www.echoswebmagic.com/sounds/rooster1.wav
Sunset= http://www.naturesongs.com/ghow1.wav
Moonrise= http://www.planete.org/dossiers/loup/loup.wav
I will test the rooster one, just for the fun to see my brother come in my room and says "What the ...is going on!" :D

Have a little bar changing color according to the current sky, like yellow on sunrise, blue on daylight, orange on sunset, etc...

Well you can say "sky is the limit!"... 8-)

It's up to you... you are the Image of your skin!


GM
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