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

[Dark_Wizard]

Works fine for me...check it out here. I can tell you what I did to make it work

[PhoenixBB]

It always ran fine for me until a few weeks ago, but I didn't realise it was this causing the slow loading. I've just put links to the weather now. Doesn't look as nice but my Portal is already nippier.

[Dark_Wizard]

Ok...here is what I see as causing the problem...they are having router issues the hop before you get to them, hence the slow response.

[BiZ]

Yesterday at 10:18 PM Dark_Wizard said this in Post #371
Works fine for me...check it out here. I can tell you what I did to make it work

doesnt look like you did anything. its slow to load. The problem isnt consistent, whereas its slow every time you visit the board. if you try to access your main forum page on a daily bases, your going to see that there is lag time...and find yourself having to click links/buttons to your board more then once for it to load.

i tried you link..it had the same problems I had.

[ANT.menmusic]

i had alot of problems when i first installed this, but it was late last night after a few beers.
this morning, i woke up, deleted all the tables from mySQL (the ones pertaining to this hack), removed all the templates, followed this thread (actually read every post), changed the php pages back to what they were and started from scratch again and boom! it worked!
it's for a client so i think they will be very happy.

[ANT.menmusic]

okay, i changed the forumhome_weather template to:

<!-- Weather -->
<br>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" bgcolor="#0A293E"  width="95%" align="center"><tr><td>
<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0"  width="100%">
<tr id="cat">
	<td bgcolor="#336D95" background="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/images/catagory_backing.gif" colspan="5"><a href="weather.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&action=getdata"><normalfont color="#000000"><b>Check the Weather</b></normalfont></a></td>
</tr>
<tr id="cat">
	<td bgcolor="#1D6AA0" width="100%" align="left" colspan="5"><smallfont color="#EEEEFF">Time of last weather update: $weather[updatedate] at $weather[updatetime]</smallfont></td>
</table>
</td></tr></table>
<!-- /Weather -->

now my index.php loads quickly and only registered users can check the weather, since they have to click on "Check the Weather" category (which brings them to the weather.php.. etc.)

[Dodger]

This script is very cool, but i'am tired of w8ing loading forum home. I have an idea of sollution of this problem. Couse i'am lame in php can smb. write a peace of code - a link wich will popup window with an a detail forcast? So this link everybody can put in forumhome instead of $currentweather
THX

Addon:
Oh, I see ANT.menmusic done smth like this... THX to him!

[ANT.menmusic]

yeah, basically, the template that way only shows you a link to check your weather and the last time update (you could even remove the update time):
look here (i opened the board last night at 12AM).

[ANT.menmusic]

oh, here are the two files you can upload so that your visitors/users don't get a red-X when the weather server is down.
-ant

this one is named ".gif" (without the quotes, obviously)

[ANT.menmusic]

and this one is named "0.gif"
same image, but now all you have to do is upload it to your
yourdomain/forums/images/weather folder

-ant