Cumulus Wiki

Default Website Development

Revision as of 17:32, 21 March 2024 by NeilThomas (talk | contribs) (→‎Alternative public website)

The default CMX website Development

These section of the Wiki will enable you to get the latest information and resources for the alternative to the default CMX website shipped with version 3.10.x

Alternative public website

As part of the development process, a new public website template is available which can either sit on top of of totally replace the template supplied with CumulusMX.

This template introduces a number of features and/or improvements.

  • It is significantly more responsive - adaptable to different viewing devices
    All the fonts correctly scale on all browsers
    All tables have been removed and replaced with more flexible elements
    Panels correctly redistribute themselves on all screens.
  • Panels can be rearranged with minimal coding skills
  • Different colour schemes can be applied, again with minimal coding required
    • It includes a high contrast theme as well.
  • It has the facility to specify a separate location for your data files
  • Sub-menus can now have dividers to separate sections as required
  • The mobile menu now closes sub-menus automatically when you select another sub-menu.
Download the latest version here (Updated: 21/03/2024)

Installing

Download the current zip file to you local machine and upload it to your web server.

  • Unzip it in the same location as your existing site - it will not overwrite the existing pages
    The new site uses .html pages whereas the existing default site uses .htm
    If you visit your site without specifying a page you will be taken to the new template pages,
    Specifying a page such as index.htm will display your old template pages.

Changing where you data is found

This applies to the data used for your pages, the data used for the charts and the data used by the gauges.  It does not affect your moon image or your NOAA reports.
  • You will obviously need to create the required folder on your web host system.
  • You need to configure CumulusMX to upload to that folder.
    This is done on the Internet Settings ~ Web/Upload Site options under Remote FTP Directory.
You should check that the data is being uploaded to the correct location and adjust your settings if not.
  • You then need to edit the ws-extra.js file.
    The variable on line 13 is used to point to your data so it should be the name of the folder created above with a trailing forward slash.
    Please note that it should be empty if your data is uploaded to the normal location.

Your Own Pages

As with previous releases, the public website template also includes a template page.

The template.html page is provided to make it easier for you to add your own pages while retaining the look and feel of the website. The template page is called template.html.

Editing The template page shows all the different column layouts that are available. These are: 

ow-oneCol,   ow-TwoCol,   ow-ThreeCol,   ow-FourCol,  ow-FiveCol    and ow-SixCol
These will always try to display the indicated number of columns but as the screen becomes small will automatically collapse into fewer columns as appropriate.
If there are more panels than columns they will gracefully split onto additional rows while retaining their column settings.
Rows with fewer panels than columns will centre panels up to the stated number of column.

Editing the website menu

The website menu is held in the file my-menu.js. This ensures that it does not conflict with the existing menu.

It is now possible to add dividing bars to sub-menus as well as extra menu items. The menu is shown below: 

menuSrc = [
	{title: "Dashboard",    menu: "b",    url: "index.html"},
	{title: "Today",        menu: "b",    url: "today.html"},
	{title: "Yesterday",    menu: "b",    url: "yesterday.html"},
	{title: "Today-Yest",   menu: "b",    url: "todayVyest.html"},
	{title: "Gauges",       menu: "b",    url: "gauges.html"},
	{title: "Records",      menu: "b",    submenu: true,       items: [
		{title: "This Month<i class=\"fa-solid fa-rectangle-list\"></i>",        menu: "b",    url: "recordsthismonth.html"},
		{title: "This Year<i class=\"fa-solid fa-rectangle-list\"></i>",         menu: "b",    url: "recordsthisyear.html"},
		{title: "All Time<i class=\"fa-solid fa-rectangle-list\"></i>",          menu: "b",    url: "recordsalltime.html"},
		{title: "Monthly<i class=\"fa-solid fa-rectangle-list\"></i>",           menu: "b",    url: "recordsmonthly.html"},
		{title: "",					 menu: "b",	   url: "#"},
		{title:	"All records<i class=\"fa-solid fa-rectangle-list\"></i>",		 menu: "b",	   url: "records.html"}
	]},
	{title: "Charts",    menu: "b",    submenu: true,    items: [
		{title: "Trends<i class='fa-solid fa-chart-line'></i>",            menu: "b",    url: "chartstrends.html"},
		{title: "Select-a-graph<i class='fa-solid fa-chart-line'></i>",    menu: "b",    url: "chartsselect.html"},
		{title: "Historic<i class='fa-solid fa-chart-line'></i>",          menu: "b",    url: "chartshistoric.html"}
	]},
	{title: "Reports",   menu: "b",    url: "noaareports.html"},
	{title: "Forum",     menu: "b",    url: "#",    forum: true,    new_window: true},
	{title: "Webcam<i class='fa-solid fa-camera'></i>",    menu: "b",    url: "#",    webcam: true}
];

Things to note

  • It is possible to use Font-Awsome icons in the menu
    You don't need to add sub-menu indicator icons as this is embedded in the code.
  • You can add menu dividers to the sub-menus by adding an entry as shown below:
{title: "", menu: "b", url: "#"}
  • It can be placed in both menus, only the full screen menu or the mobile menu as required.

Other changes

The mobile menu now collapses correctly if you select a different sub-menu - you don't have to close a submenu manually before you open another one.

Changing the Theme and Other Settings

This template comes with 33 themes to enable you to personalise the public website. Sixteen of these are light, 16 are dark and one is a high contrast theme. They are all located in the /themes folder.

To change the theme you will need to edit the page-manager.js file located in the 'js folder. The pertinent section is shown below: 

let CMXConfig = {
	'Theme': 'Nebulas-Blue',
	'StaticHead': true,
	'StaticFoot': true,
	'Units':	'vh',
	'PaddingTop': 2,
	'PaddingBottom': 1,
	'Seagull': {
		'Animation': '',
		'Duration': 5,
		'OnTop': true
	},
	'Version': 3.0
}

This is located at the start of the file between lines 9 and 22. Do not edit anything else as you will in all likelihood break the site.

Theme

The available themes are: 

Arcadia,	Arcadia-Dark,		Cherry-Tomato,	Cherry-Tomato-Dark,
Chili-Oil,	Chili-Oil-Dark,		Crocus-Petal,	Crocus-Petal-Dark,
Cylon-Yellow,	Cylon-Yellow-Dark,	Dark-Grey,	Dark-Grey,
Emporador,	Emporador-Dark,		High-Contrast,
Lime-Punch,	Lime-Punch-Dark,	Marsala,	Marsala-Dark,
Martini-Olive,	Martini-Olive-Dark,	MeerKat,	MeerKat-Dark,
Nebulas-Blue,	Nebulas-Blue-Dark,	Red-Pear,	Red-Pear-Dark,
Russet-Orange,	Russet-Orange-Dark,	Spring-Crocus,	Spring-Crocus-Dark,
Valiant-Poppy,	Valiant-Poppy-Dark

Any of these can be used but be careful not to disrupt the formatting - It must be in quotation marks and the whole entry must be followed by a comma.

Other Settings

Layout

The next FIVE options affect the overall layout of the pages.

  • Static Header
    By default the header will stay at the top of the page when long pages are scrolled.
    If you prefer to have it scroll, then set StaticHead: false,
  • Static Footer
    By default the footer will always stay at the bottom of your screen regardless of the length of the page.
    If you want it to scroll then set StaticFoot: false,
  • Units to use for gaps
    By default the site uses responsive units to adjust the gap between the header content and footer.
    • You can use vh which ties the gap units to a percentage of the screen height
    • You can use em which ties the gap to the height of the font (which is responsive), or
    • You can use px which is a fixed height based on the resolution of your browser/screen.
  • Gap between header and page content
    Any positive value can be used but if using pixels, it must be an integer.
  • Gap between page content and footer
    As for above.

The Seagull

The seagull is a fixture on your screen. By default it fades in over two seconds. However, you can use a different animation if you prefer. The available animations are:

  • Float down - the seagull will fall from the top of the screen and grow as it does so until it sits on the footer.
    Set 'Animation': 'FloatDownLeft',
  • Slide across screen - the seagull will slide in for the side of the screen along the footer.
    Set 'Animation': 'slideLeft',
  • Appear - the default animation.
    Set 'Animation': 'appearLeft',
    • If you set this animation then you can also adjust the default animation speed to zero to stop the animation completely.
  • Duration - this adjusts the time taken for the animation in seconds. Decimal numbers are allowed.
  • Stay on Top - The seagull can be made to stay on top of your page content or hide behind it. This only applies if the screen is narrower than apron 1200px.

Changing other features

In order to change other features you will need to edit the html of the pages. As this is a more involved task it is covered on a second page.

To learn about editing the html please visit: Editing website pages

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