Creating a Weather Web Page

Creating a Weather Web Page

Purpose Create a web page(s) for use on either the local LAN or at a public WEB site. Also to transmit that page(s) to the web server.

Let WD Create the page(s)

1. Click Setup in the menu bar, then Control Panel.
2. Click Web files/web page setup.
3. Click the tab labelled Web Files setup #1.

To set the name of the file that will be uploaded to your web page, and be part of the URL, enter that under weather station filename. Do no use spaces in the filename, but you can use - or _ and don't include '.html' or '.htm'. The file name will have '.htm' put on the end of it automatically. You may click the Use .html instead of .htm, if you prefer that option.

If you are uploading a web cam file (the file name must remain static; see Help topic for web cam to setup this up), then add in the title of the web cam image that you want to appear on the web page (e.g. mybackyard).

If you want a wallpaper/background image to appear on the web site, then you enter the name of the wallpaper or image (.jpg or .gif only), but this file must be on your FTP server. You can have WD upload it to the server (see the Manual Upload tab), or use another FTP program.

Title of Web page: This will appear on people's bookmark of your URL, on the browser window, and on the Table title on the web page.

Special status message: use this as a quick and easy way to let people know the status of the weather station.

The real time graph upload is the one you can see under View, Real Time Graph (or right mouse click on the graph in weather display to see this option)

Right mouse clicking on most of the screen in Weather Display gives you some popup options, and a left mouse click will also go straight to some screens.

Tick the screen shot option to have the Weather Display screen, as you see it now, appear on the web page. You can change the colour of the screen shot; see the button to set screen shot colour (this is independent from the colour you have selected for normal viewing).

The upload time stamped 24 hour graph files option is useful if you want to limit the amount of web server space weather display uses (i.e. un-tick this option to limit the file space used).

Tick don't show indoor temperature/humidity on web page if you don't want these values to appear on the screen shot (some weather station types do not have indoor temperature/humidity anyway).

If you only want some images/dials on your web page, and no table, then you can tick that option.

The upload daily high/low pressure is to upload and include on your web page the daily high/low extremes (see under view, or click the extreme conditions section on the weather display screen to see this image).

There are additional selections available at the tab labelled Web Files #2.

You can create links to other web sites, and a email to yourself link. Click on Reset to reset these links to start over if you make a mistake.

You can change the back ground colour and cell spacing of the web table.

Using WD images in your own web page(s)

If you already have web pages of your own, you can include WD images within them.

1. Click Setup in the menu bar.
2. Click Control panel, web files/web page setup
3. Click the tab labelled Web Files setup#1.

As described in the section Let WD Create the page(s), select the images of your choice. Then tick that option to have them produced, and tick to upload them (un-tick this option of you are running on a web server).

Customizing the Summary image

The summary image is the first image that appears on the default web page.

1. Click Setup in the menu bar.
2. Click Control Panel, Summary Image / Icon Setup.
3. Enter a title for this image (I have entered Awhitu for my location, see http://weather-display.com/windy/otherdat.htm for my weather page.)

You can have the summary.gif file updated and uploaded, but not shown on the web page if you want.

If you are downloading a METAR (see the METAR download section), then tick include extra METAR info to have a separate METAR image produced (which you can view in Weather Display by clicking on the weather icon).

The snow icon temperature threshold is to set the temperature at which weather display decides you are having snow when precipitation is recorded.

If you don't have the WM918 forecast icon selected, then the weather icon that appears on the summary image is based on either the one you have chosen under input daily weather, or based on the rain in the last 10 minutes, or if below 10°C and over 97% humidity, then it will be a foggy icon, or if over 30 kts average speed, then it will be a windy icon. You can even have the weather conditions reported in the chosen downloaded METAR to update the icon. You can select the background colour, text colour (i.e for the words wind speed, and the Title colour). Hopefully soon I will get the chosen font to be selected properly.

Half an hour before and half an hour after sunset/sunrise (please set up the sun moon settings correctly first -- see View, sun moon and enter your latitude/longitude).

If you don't want this off to one side, and instead want it to appear where the weather icon is, then tick don't have sunrise/set as a separate image.

After half an hour after sunset, the current phase of the moon will appear. If you have the above mentioned option ticked, it will replace the current weather icon instead of appearing to the side.

Click on the weather icon in Weather Display to see the summary image at any time.

If you don't want this weather icon to appear on the screen shot on the web page, then tick don't show the icons on the main screen (useful if your PC screen colour is only set to 16 colours).

Sending the page(s) to the web server

1. Click Setup in the menu bar.
2. Click Control Panel, Setup FTP / Internet / ....
3. Click the tab labelled Web File Upload Times.

Also, make sure you set up the FTP server details in the connections setup, and turn on the Main internet switch as well. Next you will want to select the times that your web page is updated under Upload times.

If you want the files updated/uploaded every minute, tick Update every minute. The daily averages/extreme files are updated at the times specified, and you can set these to update at a more convenient time. The actual averages/extreme files are updated at either 5 minutes past midnight (if you have the midnight reset time selected), or 5 minutes past 9am (if you have 9am reset time selected) (see under setup, reset times), regardless of the time you set for when the files are updated to your web page. If you untick do daily uploads of averages/extreme, then the files will neither be created or uploaded.

Further refinement of file creation time is possible: Click Setup in the menu bar; Click Customize the Internet File Creation FTP Schedule. Create your own custom page(s)

If you are unfamiliar with web page creation, you should look at an introduction to HTML site.

Create a text file called wxlocal.html in the folder that contains Weather Display’s web files (default is c:\wdisplay\webfiles). This will be your weather web page that Weather Display will upload to your web site.

Create your HTML template using the special tags found on the Using Custom Tags page. Weather Display will replace these tags with the appropriate weather data (in the units you have chosen) and then create a new file called wx.html and upload it, leaving the original intact.

If you want to upload another file, then call it wxlocal2.html. It will upload as wx2.html (even if use normal file name selected). You can have up to 30 pages this way! You could also use the customise internet and file creation setup to set times to update and times to upload the wxlocal.html and wx.html file respectively, and you can also change the remote filename there too (dont forget to set times to create and also set times to upload all other files needed on the customise file creation and setup screen too)

Now go to the Setup menu. Click on Setup ftp / internet / .... Select the tab labelled Custom web page.

Use the various checkboxes and buttons on this page to suit your needs. Click the red OFF button to make it a Green ON button. Click the Test button to have WD create the corresponding WX.htm files. If the resulting file is what you want, click OK.

You can refine the update and upload times using Customize the Internet file creation / ftp schedule option in the Setup menu.

Here is a sample of how to use WD's custom tags:

  <table border="1">
  <caption>%formateddate% at %time%</caption>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>
  <tr><th>Temperature</td>
   <td>Current: %tempinusa%</td>
   <td>Min: %lowtempinusa% at %mintempt%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td>( %tempchangehour% )</td>
   <td>Max: %hightempinusa% at %maxtempt%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>
  <tr><th>Wind</td>
   <td>Current: %avgspd%</td>
   <td>from %dirdeg% ( %dirlabel% )</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td>Average</td>
   <td>Max %maxavgspd% at %maxavgspdt%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td>Gusts</td>
   <td>Max %maxgst% at %maxgstt%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>
  <tr><th>Rain</td>
   <td>Today: %dayrn%</td>
   <td>This month: %monthrn%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td></td>
   <td>This year: %yearrn%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td></td>
   <td>days without: %dayswithnorain%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>
  <tr><th>Snow</td>
   <td>Today: %snowtodayin.% in.</td>
   <td>This month: %snowmonthin.% in.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td></td>
   <td>This winter: %snowseasonin.% in.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>
  <tr><th>Barometer</td>
   <td>Current: %baro%</td>
   <td>Min: %lowbaro% at %lowbarot%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td></td>
   <td>%pressuretrendname% ( %trend% )</td>
   <td>Max: %highbaro% at %highbarot%</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr>		
  <tr><td colspan="3" align="center">
			Weather data collected using Davis Weather Monitor II<br/>
			and displayed using Weather Display %wdversion%
   </td>
  </tr>
  </table>	

This is what you will get:

as of 31 December 2002 at 6:00 pm Temperature Current: 11.7 °F Min: 11.7 °F at 7:50 PM ( -4.0 °F/last hr ) Max: 27.0 °F at 12:42 PM Wind Current: 0.0 mph from 331 ° ( NNW ) Average Max 11.3 mph NNE at 11:19 AM Gusts Max 21.0 mph NNW at 11:08 AM Rain Today: 0.00 in. This month: 0.18 in. This year: 0.18 in. days without: 1 Snow Today: 0.00 in. This month: 12.99 in. This winter: 34.25 in. Barometer Current: 29.267 in. Min: 29.264 in. at 7:41 PM Falling ( -0.024 in./hr ) Max: 29.619 in. at 00:04 AM Weather data collected using Davis Weather Monitor II and displayed using Weather Display 9.43