Simple Website setup
The 'Simple Website' setup is by far the easiest and quickest way to get your Cumulus data online. It uses the standard Cumulus web templates and the process is well documented in the Help files for Cumulus under 'Setting Up your Website'. However this article may help further
Checklist
Below is your check list before you start:
- You have FTP webspace
- and an FTP tool
From your webspace provider you will be given:
- FTP server name
- Port
- username
- password
- webspace folder / directory
Core files
Firstly, we need to get several files onto your webspace. This is a one time only exercise but is essential to the operation of your Cumulus website.
Configure your FTP tool to connect to your webspace. Once done, make your connection and change to the correct directory/folder on your site, as advised by your provider.
You may wish to create a sub-folder to store your weather site, but for this purpose we will assume not.
With your FTP tool, locate the ‘webfiles’ folder within the Cumulus folder on your PC. Upload the following to your webspace (using FTP)
- weatherstyle.css
- wz_jsgraphics.js
- CumulusRealtime.swf
- dbimages (this is a folder, so upload it and all of its files will also be uploaded)
now create a folder ‘images’ This must be in lowercase, with no quotes.
upload picture.jpg to the images folder
Note that the structure of the 'webfiles' folder in Cumulus has now changed slightly to make this process simpler. The structure of the webfiles folder now mirrors the required structure on the web site, so the set up process simply involves copying the entire contents of the webfiles folder (but not the webfiles folder itself) to the required place on your ftp server, preserving the folder structure.
Configuration
Within Cumulus, click Configuration, Internet Settings
Within the Site/Options tab you should see:
In hostname enter your FTP servername. An example could be ftp.myserver.org If it is the same as your webspace URL do not include the http://
FTP port -- this is normally 21 unless your provider has told you otherwise
Directory -- your provider will advise of this. It may be blank or may be a folder structure. It is almost always case sensitive so type it exactly as advised. There will be NO spaces at the start, end of anywhere within the name. An example could be /var/www/html or webspace.
username and password -- your provider will advise of this. It maybe be the same username and password used for your email, it could even be your email address. Again this is case sensitive so type it exactly as advised.
Forum URL and Webcam URL are discussed in the help and can be left blank for most people.
Next click on ‘Auto Update’ so that it is ticked. Now look at Interval, in this example 10 minutes. This is how often Cumulus will update your website. It is tempting to change this to 1 minute, but little is gained from this. Typically people set this to 10 or 15 minutes.
As part of the Standard setup you can request Cumulus to provide pseudo real-time data. In this example, 15 seconds. Consider Realtime carefully -- firstly this impacts on your internet connection as Cumulus will update a very small file on your website every 15 seconds. Also, some weather stations only update Cumulus less often (e.g. The Fine OffSets are every 48 seconds) so a 15 second realtime update is wasteful and unnecessary. In reality, the standard cumulus web templates used in this Simple setup only include two ‘realtime’ elements to show windspeed and direction. If you do not wish to provide realtime data untick the “Enable Realtime”
Next, click on the Files tabs
Tick both “Include Standard” Files and “Include Standard Images”
You have now told Cumulus how to update your webspace with the Standard Cumulus Template files for the web.
You can force an immediate web update to test your settings by clicking File, Web Update within Cumulus. This will display a window of progress as it uploads the necessary files to your webspace.
Once completed the status window will end with “Logging Out” and you can close the window.
Now visit your webspace via a web browser and you should see a complete Cumulus website with your data.
Possible problems
- You see a lot of text, no colours and a bad layout, etc
- You have not uploaded your Core files -- go back to the section above and check your settings
- You do not see your Cumulus Site but another site, an error message or a blank
- Check you are uploading to the correct folder/directory on your webspace. There is a good chance you have mis-typed the details in the Internet Configuration section above.
- Via your FTP tool ensure that your website has an index.htm file. It should NOT have index.html, default.html, default.htm, index.php, default.php This should be removed if necessary
- My realtime section of the ‘gauges’ page is not refreshing every x seconds
- If using free hosting, they may not permit uploading of ‘txt’ files. Please check with them
- Is there a log file to help with my problem
- Yes, you can enable FTP logging and then examine the file which will have more detail on any issues. It may also be useful to upload the log file to the Cumulus Forum when asking for help. More on Ftplog.txt