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

[JJR512]

Originally posted by PhoenixBB
Hit a bit of a problem......

One of my members has just told me she can't set the weather for her area - South Carolina. There are no cities listed for that (though there are for North Carolina). Have I got missing files somewhere??

I never got any errors when inputting the data into the database so is everybody missing data for South Carolina?

I have many cities listed for South Carolina.

Did you use the weather_city.sql (one big file) without breaking it apart? If you did, you should have them. If you broke apart the large file into smaller pieces, you may have accidentally somehow cut out the SC cities. Or, if you used the smaller weather_city1.sql, weather_city2.sql, and so on (through 6) that I put in the last release, I may have accidentally left out the SC cities. So, please let me know how you did it.

Matt87, this doesn't use any of The Weather Channel's bandwidth, because the data comes from MSNBC servers. I assume it is OK with MSNBC because: (1) the data is publically available, and not blocked or protected by password; (2) I have sent emails to MSNBC asking for additional information regarding the formatting of the raw data, and although I have received no helpful reply, they also have not asked me to stop using their data feed, either. So, I am taking this as implied consent.

[PhoenixBB]

Hi

I used the chopped files given by the previous member, and you are right I probably accidentally missed some off.

Even the chopped files wouldn't always load without timing out on phpMyAdmin. Anything over 300k and it's potluck as to whether they'd upload without timeout errors. So those files I pasted half in, then the other half. Obviously I missed a bit out.

I went and downloaded your zip again and reuploaded the cities (after emptying the tables). 5 of the files I split in two so they were all under 300k. I double double checked I hadn't missed anything!

Reuploaded them and everything went smoothly. Database holds 37k + where before it was only 36,000+. South Carolina now has cities and everything seems to be peachy! I'd have been totally oblivious if I hadn't had a member from there though.

This is a fabulous hack and everybody loves it!

Now if only I can find a daily horoscope widget.........

[beemer]

Best hack so far, very cool work!!

[lemarsu]

Hi,

i get the following error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: convert_temp() in /home/sites/site12/users/ducati/web/monster/index.php on line 417

I Have version weather_mk2_v1[1].1a the file weather.php is loaded in the root for my forum web/monster/ with the following premissions.
-rw-r--r-- 1 ducati site12 weather.php

can you spot what is going wrong ?

LeMarsu

[Matt87]

Is there any way to put this in ther user's cp instead of the forum home page?

[Boofo]

JJR512, have you noticed that all of the update times end in 40 minutes?

[Matt87]

Anyone know how to do this?

[Boofo]

Do you want just the link in there or are you wanting to put all of the weather info in there, too?

Originally posted by Matt87
Anyone know how to do this?

[beemer]

Lemarsu, you are getting this error because you didn't put all the changes in before you tested it. You have to put the functions into the admin/functions.php file. Do step #5 and the error will dissappear.

[beemer]

Boofo, I did notice the same thing, everytime I do an update, it ends in 40 minutes, regardless of when I do this.

[Boofo]

And how far off of your time are you when the update happens? I finally got mine to about 40 minutes ahead of my time. That is the closest I could get.

Originally posted by beemer
Boofo, I did notice the same thing, everytime I do an update, it ends in 40 minutes, regardless of when I do this.

[Matt87]

I want to put everything that would be on the forum home

[JJR512]

Boofo, if your update time is always ahead of your current real time, try adjusting it backwards by an hour by following the suggestion in Post #95 above. Subtracting 3600 (number of seconds in one hour) makes it one hour earlier.

[Boofo]

Here's the code Xenon gave me to make it close. It was setting at the server time before (which is 6 hours behind me).

 $time_lastup = strtotime($weatherdata[lastup]);
  $time_lastup-=($bbuserinfo['timezoneoffset']+$timeoffset)*3600;
  $weather[updatedate] = vbdate($dateformat,$time_lastup);
  $weather[updatetime] = vbdate($timeformat,$time_lastup);

Originally posted by JJR512
Boofo, if your update time is always ahead of your current real time, try adjusting it backwards by an hour by following the suggestion in Post #95 above. Subtracting 3600 (number of seconds in one hour) makes it one hour earlier.

[JJR512]

Try changing the 3600 to 7200.