vB Weather Mk. 2

This is a post of a much-revised hack originally posted (by myself) here. I am posting this as a new hack because MSNBC, who the raw weather data is provided through, has changed their source provider (from AccuWeather to The Weather Channel), which required a retooling of the data parsing code, as well as completely new databases. I have also made obsolete the weather_functions.php file, moving the functions to admin/functions.php, simplifying the ability to show current weather data on any page (if desired). Finally, in what I'm sure will be welcome news to many people who have installed the original, I've completely rewritten the instructions, making them, as far as I can tell, much simpler.

If you are unfamiliar with the original: This hack provides current weather conditions and a five-day forecast to your members. Each member can select from over 34,000 cities, by narrowing down from region (like continents), country, and subdivision (like states). Each member can also select to see temperatures in Fahrenheit or Celsius, as well as metric or standard measurements for the other data.

A demo is available on my test board: http://www.jjr512.com/testboard/. I have set up an account for anyone to use to test it out (username: test; pw: test). If you are not logged in, you will see default weather on the home page (default is set to New York City), and cannot change settings (I forget if you can view a detailed forecast, though; you may be able to). If you do log in, you can change the settings for the test account, to see how it works.

***
If you have installed any previous version, you should completely uninstall it. Read the instructions and work backwards from there: Delete all templates added, remove changes to any existing templates (I forget if there were any or not), delete all new tables from the database, delete all new files added by the old hack. All have been changed to some extent, some more than others, and it would be easier to work from a clean slate. Especially since some of the template names have changes, so if you don't delete the old ones, they'll just be sitting there doing nothing at all. It is also vitally important to delete (or "drop") the tables--I believe there were six--you added for the original version. The new ones have different data and, for some, a different structure, so do not just empty them. Remove them totally.

Good luck!

Change Log
v1.1a: Current Version: Corrects a small error where an incorrect variable was used in the code to show the local time of the last update. If you already have v1.1, you only need to do the fix described in Post #82 below.
v1.1: Changes display of last update time to be the correct time in the user's own local time zone; previously, it was always Eastern Time (GMT-5) (Upgrade instructions are in Post #79 below). Also breaks the weather_city.sql into six smaller pieces (useful only to new installations; existing installations need not worry about this).
v1.0a: Adds instructions on how to add location to current weather on forums home page (changes to code added to index.php and forumhome_weather template).
v1.0: Original Release

[Julio]

PlurPlanet: Any help?

Lemarsu:

are you talking about text like "Mostly Cloudy" or "sunny" ?
I think this is pulled out from msnbc.com

Any news on this. I tried browsing the database and found no clue of it. (It just points to $context)

[Tigga]

Julio - That's strange... I just tried it on my test server and it worked fine. You could try logging in with phpMyAdmin and go to your "setting" table. Then find that setting (it should be the last one unless you've added anything since) and check that the values for it are:

(could be any number) | 1 | Show Weather? | showweather | (0 if turned off, 1 if on) | Show the weather forcast on your homepage. | yesno | 3

[Julio]

Verified the database and is OK. The problem may be where Im inserting the IF code at index.php?

I have tried inserting the IF expression in a line before the "// *** GET WEATHER *** or after it. And finalize with the } before the ?> or after it.

Depending where I put these, I get a blank screen , or a parse error.

[Forest Sage]

I couldn't find this anywhere else on this thread

When I try to up weather_city1.sql and weather_city5.sql

I get

Error

SQL-query :

INSERT INTO weather_city
VALUES (

'AYXX0007', 'Base Arturo Prat', 263
)

MySQL said:

Duplicate entry 'AYXX0007' for key 1

Or something of the like
...I've never used a hack like this before so I have no clue why there would be a problem like this

[Tigga]

Julio - I didn't think about that... I was thinking more of the board was being closed when the weather was turned off. It definitely sounds like you are putting the ending } in the wrong place. Sorry I misunderstood your first post.
The if statement can be either before or after "// *** GET WEATHER ***" (doesn't really matter since that's a comment line). The ending } should be right after this line:

PHP Code:

eval("\$currentweather = \"".gettemplate("forumhome_weather")."\";"); 


[Julio]

OK thanks. It works now...

Now... my other problem... I changed all the values in the tables to show another state besides Nw York as defalut, but still not work.

Anyone could help?

[Erwin]

I've had to remove this hack. It's a great hack, but the weather server is just too bad - most of the time there is no information available, and it slows down my forumhome by many seconds...

[Julio]

Erwin: Too bad it doesn't work for you the way you expected. However, I do notice I slight increase in the time the page takes to load, but there's always information regarding my area.

The only "problem" i have is that even though I have edited the files and the database, I still can manage to make my area as default... All my users keep telling me they don't like to change te preferences... (New Users)

[Tony DiMera]

I did this and for afew other tables to create. but for what was in this txt file:

PHP Code:

CREATE TABLE weather_country (
  countryid smallint(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  regionid smallint(6) NOT NULL default '0',
  country_title varchar(50) NOT NULL default '',
  PRIMARY KEY  (countryid)
) TYPE=MyISAM; 


I got this error:

PHP Code:

Error 
SQL-query :  [Edit] 

CREATE TABLE `weather_country` (`countryid` SMALLINT(6) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `regionid` SMALLINT(6) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL, `country_title` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ) TYPE = MYISAM comment = 'PRIMARY KEY  (countryid)'

MySQL said: 


Incorrect table definition; There can only be one auto column and it must be defined as a key

Back 


[350Chevy]

Originally posted by PlurPlanet

I've noticed the same problem... The temperature works fine on one of my sites, but not on another. It's the exact same code on both, so I'm not sure what could cause this. Anyone happen to know why it does this?

Same here.. everything shows but no temperature...?? Any suggestions?