vB Weather: Give your members current weather and forecasts!

After seeing a weather feature at the vbPortal website, and finding out that I couldn't get it for free, I determined to create it for myself, and give it away to everyone for FREE.

So here it is. It's based in part upon the original MyWeather add-on module for PHP-Nuke, which as I understand was also the basis for the add-on module for vbPortal. Anyway, I basically used the part of the PHP-Nuke module that gets the raw data and parses it into a usable format, although I reworked it some and corrected a few bugs. I wrote on my own the rest of the code which handles and displays the data, along with letting the user select his/her location (to localize the weather), number formats (like ?F or C, winds in mph or kmph, etc.), and various other little bits.

I've done as much testing on it as I can on my own, and have had it running on my own production forums for about a day now. Several people have commented that they really love the feature, that it's almost getting to the point where they don't have to go anywhere else on the Internet. I haven't heard of any complaints or problems yet, though, so I'm reasonably certain it's fit for a full release.

You can demo the hack on my message board: JJR512.com. The first part you should look at is the box that appears in the column of boxes on the left side of the home page. This box displays basic current weather info. There are two links in that box, one to see the forecast, and the other to change settings. I forget if you need to be logged in to see the forecast--it may just show you a forecast for the default location, which is Central Park, New York City, NY, USA--but you definitely need to be logged in to change settings. For the purpose of seeing this hack in action, you can login as Test User using the password testuser. Feel free to change the settings and save them, do whatever.

Installing this hack is in some ways easy, in other ways not so easy. There will only be one file modification. However, there are no specific instructions as to which file to edit or how to edit it. If you want the small weather box to show up on your forums home page, you need to edit the associated file (index.php). If you want it to show up somewhere else, then you need to edit whatever file generates the page where you want it. There is a text file in the ZIP that contains all the code, and only the code, that you need to insert into whatever file. If you prefer, you can turn that text file into a .php file (by adding <?php at the beginning and ?> at the end and renaming it to .php) and simply including it in whatever file you need it in.

You will also most likely need to edit the template that makes the weather box. It's formatted to basically make a box as it appears on my site, which is in the middle of some other boxes in a column. If you want to reformat it to appear as a long thing across the top of the page, like the various stuff at the top of the forums home page here at vbulletin.org, that's up to you. You edit the templates to match your own site.

BTW, I would appreciate it if someone better at PHP coding than myself would take a look over this and tell me if I've done everything right or not. I believe the code works and does what I want it to do, but it seems like it might be a little more complex than it needs to or should be. I guess I'm just wondering if there may have been a more efficient way to do some of the things I did. If you have any tips or advice for me, or even want to rewrite the code to show me, I'd really appreciate it.

OK, so without further ado, here's the hack in the attachment. Whatever problems you have, please post them here, and I'll try to help as best I can, but make no guarantees that I can help at all. Please remember that I write my hacks for my own site first and foremost, so they do what I need them to do, not what I think somebody else might want. I choose to release them here in case anybody else can benefit from them, but you may need some part of it to work slightly differently. If I know how to do it I will try to tell you how to do it, but I won't update the hack with every little feature variation that people ask for. In general, I only update my hacks to fix bugs and to add new features that I want or need for my site.

// Change Log]
03b: Includes necessary database change instructions.
03a: Forgot to update 03 ZIP with new templates; fixed.
03: Changed code for new icon system, added code for forecasted weather type (new part of raw data)
02: Adjusted code for new format of weather forecast raw data
01b: Fixed two missing lines from weather_include.txt
01a: Added missing template; updated instructions regarding missing template; fixed $templatesused variable in weather.php; added text file explaining how to add more cities; updated instructions regarding where to get the icons used for this hack
01: Original release

[JJR512]

Originally posted by Boofo
I didn't mean to sound negative when I said "halfway", that's not what I meant. Sorry if it sounded like that.

That's what has me puzzled. It worked the very first time I installed this hack, but never since. It will update if I do the modify and submit, so I know it can do a force update somehow. I have the weather_include contents in the index.php at the very bottom right before it calls the forum_home template. Everything else seems to be working great on it.

Don't worry, it didn't sound negative at all, I didn't think that.

It just has me puzzled. The index.php and anything on it shouldn't have anything to do with it...the force update link is on a page generated by weather.php, the action related to the link is handled by weather.php, and the results are displayed by weather.php.

But tell me again exactly what happens. Tell me what you do in the order you do it and what you see after you do it.

[Erwin]

I see no weather data, no icons.

[Boofo]

Ok, if I click on the link to Force Update, it just goes to a blank page with the word "Done" in the Staus bar at the bottom of the window and just sits there. I have to manually put the path to the board in again to get out of it.

If I go into Modify settings, and just click on the submit button (without changing anything), it will give me the thank you for updating message and then update, and take me back to the screen with the 5-day forcast on it and everything is updated (8 out of 10 times, anyway). I have also noticed that the last time updated is usually off by about 45 minutes (ahead) of whatever my time is on the board. (That might be MSNBC on that though.)

Also, when a new user logs on, there is no icon, no region or city and just zeros for numbers. It does not default to NYC for unregistered or new users. Did I forget to do something?

Originally posted by JJR512
But tell me again exactly what happens. Tell me what you do in the order you do it and what you see after you do it.

[Erwin]

So it's working for you Boofo... ? If it's working for you or anyone else, is that with the update 3b or with the original 1b?

[Boofo]

Yes, finally. You telling me to put it in the index.php right before calling the forum_home template did the trick for me. Thank you for that. When you installed this latest version, did you replace the 3 templates with the new ones? And add the database queries that he added to this version? Oh, and upload the new icon5 set? That is the only set he is using now and the templates are hardcoded for that. That and uploading the new php files to replace the old ones should do the trick. That's all I did and it started working.

Edit: I'm using the latest version. 3b

Originally posted by Erwin
So it's working for you Boofo... ?

[Erwin]

Oh bugger - 3 new templates... his update instructions didn't mention that the templates are changed... will do it now.

[Boofo]

The instructions in the file haven't been updated yet as we were fixing things as they came up. He explained it in the messages as we were going along. Kindof hit and miss type stuff. But he got it working.

Originally posted by Erwin
Oh bugger - 3 new templates... his update instructions didn't mention that the templates are changed... will do it now.

[Erwin]

I updated the 3 new templates - no change. No icons, no data - for some reason it no longer works for me. I have updated the db changes, and uploaded the iconset5.

[Erwin]

I also did upload the new php files. The only thing I haven't done is reinsert the original sql files.

[JJR512]

Well, it took me about a half hour to make a new set of queries for all the cities in Alaska...at this rate, I should be done in about...oh...a very very long time from now, if my arms don't fall off first!