Cumulus Wiki

Simple Website setup

Revision as of 20:24, 23 June 2015 by Sfws (talk | contribs) (→‎Configuration: added missing selections)

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:

  1. You have FTP webspace (i.e. your provider allows you to use FTP to place files in your webspace)
  2. and an FTP tool (use this cross-reference to get more information)

From your webspace provider you will be given:

  • FTP server Host name (this is the name that is equivalent to the w.x.y.z format Internet Protocol (=IP) address in the screen-shot below - see the notes below it)
  • FTP Port (in most cases port 21 is reserved for file transfer clients)
  • username (controls access to the directories you can update)
  • password (do not disclose this when you ask questions on the support forum)
  • webspace folder / directory (could be something like "public_html" which is related to the FTP root as explained later on this page for the file and folder structure you will create, that is different to the Universal Resource Locator (=URL) root when you look at the file through the browser's port)

For a simple set-up, a server that uses a Linux environment is normal for displaying standard Cumulus pages (although some people use a server on their own machines using a Windows environment).

Although Cumulus 1.x.y builds do not require PHP Hypertext Pre-processor script, having that available will allow you to subsequently use more of the customised pages on offer from other contributors, and if you later decide to write your own web pages PHP does allow you to 'include' standard bits of code (stored in just one file) on multiple web pages easily.

Do check with any provider that they let you FTP files with at least all the following extensions:

  • .txt and .css
  • .htm and .html (and .php if you might use that)
  • .json
  • .js
  • .bmp, .png, .gif, .jpg (and any other graphic formats you might use)
  • audio and video mime types (e.g. Cumulus uses .swf)

Folders and Files to Transfer

Cumulus 1.x.y

Look at the Cumulus\webfiles folder on your PC.

The folders to be uploaded are:

  • dbimages
    • When you upload this folder, all of its files will also be uploaded (this folder is essential for the gauges.htm page to work).
  • images
    • When you upload this folder, the one file within it will also be uploaded (this is a folder to which Cumulus will upload graph images etc.).

One file to be uploaded is the Cascading Style Sheet:

  • weatherstyle.css

and there are 2 more files also used for the gauges.htm page:

  • wz_jsgraphics.js
  • CumulusRealtime.swf


Cumulus MX

Look at the CumulusMX\webfiles folder after un-zipping the download on your computer/device.

The folders to be uploaded are:

  • images
    • When you upload this folder, the two files within it will also be uploaded
  • js
    • When you upload this folder, the one file within it will also be uploaded
  • lib
    • When you upload this folder, the sub-folders within it will also be uploaded
      1. highstock
        • this script library is used for drawing the graphs, if you need to update any component the download is on this page;
      2. jQuery template, and jQuery 1.9 minimised code
        • For the best compatibility with modern browsers, replace the latter with the latest jQuery 2.x.y minified code downloaded from this page.   If you think people with obsolete Microsoft Internet Explorer versions might be trying to view your web site then the latest jQuery 1.11.x minified code can be downloaded on that same page to replace version 1.9.
      3. HTML5 Canvas Steel Series gauges code
        • Should you subsequently want to update this web page, the latest version can always be downloaded at SteelSeries_Versions within this Wiki.

The file to be uploaded is the same Cascading Style Sheet as for Cumulus 1:

  • weatherstyle.css

Instructions

Firstly, we need to get several files and folders onto your web space. 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 web space. 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.

Whether you are using Cumulus 1 or Cumulus MX, the first task is to copy everything in the:

  • Cumulus 1: Cumulus\webfiles
  • Cumulus MX: CumulusMX\webfiles

folder into where you want to store your web site pages, preserving the sub-folder structure.

If you're using a graphical ftp client like Filezilla (recommended), in the left hand pane just navigate to the webfiles folder in Cumulus, open it, and you should see the five (Cumulus 1) or four (Cumulus MX) items listed in previous section.

  - Before for Cumulus 1.x.y: 

Select them all, and drag them to your web site in the right hand pane. That's the setup done.

  - After for Cumulus 1.x.y:

Configuration

Within Cumulus, click Configuration, Internet Settings

 Within the Sites/Options tab you should see (Picture is Cumulus 1.x.y interface) a frame called 'web site'in the top left corner:

  1. Host name
    • Here enter your FTP server name.
    • An example could be myserver.org. Just enter a HOST NAME or IP ADDRESS.
    • Do not enter a URL - do not include "ftp://" or "http://" or anything similar.
    • If you have managed to transfer files using a FTP tool, its log should show the host name or the (numbers separated by dots) Internet Protocol address. The illustration shows an IP address typical of a local server.
  2. FTP port
    • This is normally 21 unless your provider has told you otherwise
  3. Directory
    • Generally your provider will have given you instructions what to enter here.
    • 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, or anywhere within, the name. It is a relative path from the FTP root. If you have successfully used a FTP tool to transfer files, then (as in before image above) there should be a reference to the directory in the log dialogue of establishing connection to your website.
  4. Username and Password
    • In all cases your provider will tell you these two values.
    • 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. Again if you have successfully used a FTP tool, you will have specified username and password for that, so use same values for Cumulus.
    • Cumulus sends these (using standard commands) to the server to initiate a session of contact, and waits for the server to confirm the session has started.
  5. Forum URL
    • This can be left blank, if so then the standard web pages will not include a navigation link with the label Forum. However, if you type http://sandaysoft.com/forum/search.php?search_id=active_topics here, then the navigation link labelled Forum on each standard web page will link to the Cumulus support forum and will display those postings that are most recent.
  6. Webcam URL
    • This is discussed in the help and can be left blank for most people.

Still within the Sites/Options tab you should see (Picture is Cumulus 1.x.y interface) in the top centre:  

  1. In this 'frame' first click on Auto Update (so that it is ticked with recent versions of Windows); this tells Cumulus you want it to automatically process the templates and generate web pages.
  2. The illustration (Cumulus 1 interface) shows Use active FTP mode selected, as Cumulus Help says, normally this is NOT selected. In active mode, Cumulus is listening for an incoming data connection from the server; in passive mode, Cumulus asks the server if it can establish a connection.
  3. The illustration (Cumulus 1 interface) shows Use FTP rename un-selected, as Cumulus Help says, normally this IS selected.
  4. Leave Delete before upload un-selected.
    • You may need to experiment with changing these last 3 selections, which works best depends on your web server.
  5. Leave UTF-8 encode selected (all standard Cumulus web pages use this encoding)..
  6. Now look at Interval, this is how often Cumulus will update your website.
    • It has been set in illustrated example to 5 minutes as that is quite good when you first start so you can see all your pages being updated frequently. Typically people set this to 10 or 15 minutes on established sites. It is tempting to change this to 1 minute, but little is gained from this as on most web pages very few figures change that frequently.
  7. As part of the Standard set-up you can request Cumulus to provide pseudo real-time data. The blue box in the illustration shows the relevant items for Cumulus 1.
    1. There are now three 'Enable...' boxes for Realtime; if you want Cumulus to upload the realtime.txt file for the 'Flash' gauges on the standard Cumulus 1 gauges page, you need to tick all three boxes. In reality, the standard cumulus 1 web templates used in this Simple setup only include two ‘realtime’ elements to show wind speed and direction on the gauges page. For Cumulus MX, the steel series gauges page provided requires all 3 boxes to be selected. If you are running Cumulus 1.x.y and do not wish to provide realtime data untick the 3 “Enable Realtime” boxes, and comment out the last two graphics on the 'gaugesT.htm' template.
    2. The next selection is the time Cumulus will wait after sending a burst of real-time information until it re-starts for producing another burst of real-time information.
    • In this example, 90 seconds. Consider Realtime carefully -- firstly this impacts on your internet connection as Cumulus will update a very small file on your website every XX seconds. Also, some weather stations only update Cumulus less often (e.g. The Fine OffSet stations are updating every 48 or 60 seconds) so a 15 second realtime update is wasteful and unnecessary.

Next, click on the Files tab:

 

Make sure both “Include Standard” Files and “Include Standard Images” are ticked in Cumulus 1.


You have now told Cumulus how to update your web space with the Standard Cumulus Template files for the web.


Testing

  1. You can force an immediate web update to test your settings by, in File menu within Cumulus, clicking Web Update.
  2. This will display a window of progress as it uploads the necessary files to your web space (or show a failure message). (Within the Configuration menu, you can turn on 'FTP logging' for full diagnostics).
    1. Once completed the progress display will end with “Logging Out” and you can close the window.
  3. Open a web browser
    1. Type in 'your web site' Universal Resource Locator (URL) name, if you were hosting yourself then localhost is usually recognised. It could be the same as you typed for Host Name, anyway, your provider has probably told you what your web site name is.
    2. The web server will have a list of file names that specify the order of names to look for to determine the first page to be shown, Cumulus produces a page called index.htm and (unless you have uploaded additional pages with names that occur earlier in the server's list) that will be loaded,
    3. Click one of the navigation links at the bottom of the standard Cumulus pages, and the next page will be sent to the browser. Repeat this to look through your complete Cumulus website with your data on the various pages.

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
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