phpweather-devel

Iconize weather info and something else

[Ray v. B. <r_v...@ho...>]

Hi all,

I am interested in showing some simple icons that indicate 
cloud/sun/rain/snow etc, as you can see on portals, sites of newspapers etc. 
Is somebody engaged in this?

The other thing is more a suggestion. The account I have is on a rather slow 
server. This means that when someone is requesting the page with the 
phpweather script, it can take a long time before the requested page is 
showing. The script first need to get the METAR data from the noaa site. 
Then the page generated. Then the page is sent to the one that requested the 
page. Would it be possible to have the script responded right away by 
showing the complete page but with a remark like 'Retrieving METAR data ... 
please wait'? Then when the script has received and processed the METAR 
data, the remark is replaced by the actual data.
In general, during the time the METAR data has not been received and 
processed, some indication should be shown that shows this status. After 
processing, the indication is replaced with the actual data.
Would that be possible?

Ray

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Re: Iconize weather info and something else

[Martin G. <gim...@gi...>]

"Ray van Beek" <r_v...@ho...> writes:

> Hi all,
> 
> I am interested in showing some simple icons that indicate
> cloud/sun/rain/snow etc, as you can see on portals, sites of
> newspapers etc. Is somebody engaged in this?

Well, there has been some people working on this, but I haven't
received any code that solves the problem. The problem is (as I see
it) that there isn't a field in the METAR that tells you if the
weather is good or bad. You'll have to combine the information, and
either select an appropriate image from a huge list of ready-made
images, or perhaps generate the image on the fly using the GD library
from within PHP.
 
> The other thing is more a suggestion. The account I have is on a
> rather slow server. This means that when someone is requesting the
> page with the phpweather script, it can take a long time before the
> requested page is showing. The script first need to get the METAR
> data from the noaa site. Then the page generated. Then the page is
> sent to the one that requested the page. Would it be possible to
> have the script responded right away by showing the complete page
> but with a remark like 'Retrieving METAR data ... please wait'? Then
> when the script has received and processed the METAR data, the
> remark is replaced by the actual data.

That would be very cool - but how should that be done in HTML? It
might be possible to do this by using JavaScript or Java.

> In general, during the time the METAR data has not been received and
> processed, some indication should be shown that shows this status.
> After processing, the indication is replaced with the actual data.
> Would that be possible?

It's difficult to make HTML pages respond to things happening at the
server, after the page is loaded, as a HTTP request for a page is
stateless: you request a page, the webserver sends it to you, and
that's it. The browser doesn't communicate any further with the server
about that particular page.

It could be possible to make some JavaScript or another widely used
language runs at the client, that would be ask the server for the
weather information after the page has been rendered with the 'Please
wait...' text.

But I think it would be difficult to make this reliable and cross-
platform.

-- 
Martin Geisler                       My GnuPG Key: 0xF7F6B57B

See my homepage at http://www.gimpster.com/ for:
PHP Weather => Shows the current weather on your webpage.
PHP Shell   => A telnet-connection (almost :-) in a PHP page.

Re: Iconize weather info and something else

[Max H. <ma...@fl...>]

> > I am interested in showing some simple icons that indicate
> > cloud/sun/rain/snow etc, as you can see on portals, sites of
> > newspapers etc. Is somebody engaged in this?

You could try www.wunderground.com - find a station you're interested in,
and then look for "Add this sticker to your homepage".

Obviously, not as much control as using phpweather to do it, but no dev
work needed.

Max

-- 
Never put the words "Diabolical Master Plan" on a CV

Re: Iconize weather info and something else

[Kristian K. <zi...@zi...>]

Regarding the javascript...

You could include some javascript file that outputs the metar
information you're interested in. This javascript file would be a php
file that outputs javascript, eg. a string called 'metar' that contains
the metar information you would like to write on your page.
When the original page loads you check if 'metar' contains something or
not. If i does you output the metar otherwise your write 'Retriving
metar... Please wait'
This should work, but I haven't tried it :-)

Try it out or write back, the idea should be possible to accomplish.

Best,
Kristian
* Martin Geisler (gim...@gi...) wrote:
> "Ray van Beek" <r_v...@ho...> writes:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am interested in showing some simple icons that indicate
> > cloud/sun/rain/snow etc, as you can see on portals, sites of
> > newspapers etc. Is somebody engaged in this?
> 
> Well, there has been some people working on this, but I haven't
> received any code that solves the problem. The problem is (as I see
> it) that there isn't a field in the METAR that tells you if the
> weather is good or bad. You'll have to combine the information, and
> either select an appropriate image from a huge list of ready-made
> images, or perhaps generate the image on the fly using the GD library
> from within PHP.
>  
> > The other thing is more a suggestion. The account I have is on a
> > rather slow server. This means that when someone is requesting the
> > page with the phpweather script, it can take a long time before the
> > requested page is showing. The script first need to get the METAR
> > data from the noaa site. Then the page generated. Then the page is
> > sent to the one that requested the page. Would it be possible to
> > have the script responded right away by showing the complete page
> > but with a remark like 'Retrieving METAR data ... please wait'? Then
> > when the script has received and processed the METAR data, the
> > remark is replaced by the actual data.
> 
> That would be very cool - but how should that be done in HTML? It
> might be possible to do this by using JavaScript or Java.
> 
> > In general, during the time the METAR data has not been received and
> > processed, some indication should be shown that shows this status.
> > After processing, the indication is replaced with the actual data.
> > Would that be possible?
> 
> It's difficult to make HTML pages respond to things happening at the
> server, after the page is loaded, as a HTTP request for a page is
> stateless: you request a page, the webserver sends it to you, and
> that's it. The browser doesn't communicate any further with the server
> about that particular page.
> 
> It could be possible to make some JavaScript or another widely used
> language runs at the client, that would be ask the server for the
> weather information after the page has been rendered with the 'Please
> wait...' text.
> 
> But I think it would be difficult to make this reliable and cross-
> platform.
> 
> -- 
> Martin Geisler                       My GnuPG Key: 0xF7F6B57B
> 
> See my homepage at http://www.gimpster.com/ for:
> PHP Weather => Shows the current weather on your webpage.
> PHP Shell   => A telnet-connection (almost :-) in a PHP page.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PHPWeather-devel mailing list
> PHP...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/phpweather-devel
> 
-- 
http://www.whizit.dk | Open Source skills
http://www.zianet.dk

Re: Iconize weather info and something else

[Martin G. <gim...@gi...>]

Kristian Kristensen <zi...@zi...> writes:

> Regarding the javascript...
> 
> You could include some javascript file that outputs the metar
> information you're interested in. This javascript file would be a php
> file that outputs javascript, eg. a string called 'metar' that contains
> the metar information you would like to write on your page.
> When the original page loads you check if 'metar' contains something or
> not. If i does you output the metar otherwise your write 'Retriving
> metar... Please wait'

And what do we do, when we get tired of waiting? :-) We have to detect
when the metar is loaded, but how do we propagate that information
from the server out to the client?

> This should work, but I haven't tried it :-)

Neither have I, as I don't know JavaScript...
 
-- 
Martin Geisler                       My GnuPG Key: 0xF7F6B57B

See my homepage at http://www.gimpster.com/ for:
PHP Weather => Shows the current weather on your webpage.
PHP Shell   => A telnet-connection (almost :-) in a PHP page.