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Migrating from Cumulus 1 to MX: Difference between revisions
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→Comparing Cumulus 1 and MX
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= Comparing Cumulus 1 and MX =
An introduction to Cumulus can be found at [[About Cumulus]]. That explains some of the background to its development and what functionality it offers.
== Cumulus 1 ==
* Cumulus 1 is software that only runs on Windows Operating System
* Cumulus 1 has an installer that you download and run to create all the files that are needed
* Cumulus 1 has a built-in [[Cumulus_Screenshots|Graphic User Interface]]
** The main screen summarises key current values (with some extra ones revealed when you mouse over parts of the screen) with a menu giving access to the other screens
** The View menu let you view data (e.g. View period shows you data for any one day, for any week, month, year, season or any other period)
** The Edit menu lets you edit the extreme records and some of the log files
** The Configuration menu lets you adjust the most useful of many settings available
** The file menu lets you request an upload, print a screen shot, or exit the software
* Cumulus 1 comes with an example set of [[Customised templates|web templates]] (showing how [[Webtags|Web tags]] can be used to add the weather outputs that Cumulus generates to a web page
* Cumulus 1 can generate graphs that you can view (and customise) on the view menu, and optionally upload to a web server (web site).
== Cumulus MX ==
=== Steve Loft says ===
NOTE: This section is based on Steve Loft's wording taken from the support forum with minimal alteration (clarification in []) for its new context.
Cumulus MX aims to be as compatible with Cumulus 1 as possible with 3 exceptions:
# Like Cumulus 2, MX separates:
#* the engine (reads weather station, calculates derivatives, creates web server for user interface, and sends updates to various external web sites), and the
#* administrative (shortened to admin hereafter) interface (currently [in the beta] it only displays basic information
#Like Cumulus 2, MX runs on Linux and OS X as well as (like Cumulus 1) Windows.
#Like Cumulus 2, MX learns from some of the mistakes made in early part of design of Cumulus 1, that limited further development.
Because the development environment for Cumulus 1 is no longer available, it cannot have any extra functionality added. Thus I
=== Development Environments ===
I won't worry about the technical details of the development environment for Cumulus 1, but will mention it was abandoned because Microsoft started development of the .NET family of development environments.
One of those new development environments was the '''.NET Framework''', and this (that is being phased out in 2020) is what Steve selected for Cumulus 2 and several years later for his Cumulus 3 beta (which he gave an alternative name to "MX" for reasons that have not been documented).
MX uses standard language C# (pronounced "C Sharp"), an object-oriented programming language created originally by Microsoft for use with the .NET Framework when that was launched. It also works with Mono (an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework) based on the European Computer Manufacturing Association (ECMA) standards relating to C# and the Common Language Runtime.▼
I am typing this in 2020, and C# has evolved a long way, the latest version being 8.x. But the .NET Framework is on its way out, Microsoft made it increasingly more specific to the Windows Operating System (that is why Mono has evolved so much) and then focussed on '''.NET Core''' which took out all the Windows specific parts and another .NET product (without any supplementary name) that focussed on integration with other Microsoft products. Again, trying not to get too technical, in November 2020, there will be change around of names, and the multi-operating system .NET Core product will take over the .NET name (i.e. the product that had no supplementary name). I don't pretend to understand the technical details, but the impression I get is that the new .NET in November will be similar to Mono, so apps designed for that will still work, but apps using .NET (the one without the supplementary name) to make code designed for windows will stop working
== Considerations when moving between Cumulus flavours ==
▲MX uses standard language C# (pronounced "C Sharp"), an object-oriented programming language created by Microsoft for use with the .NET Framework. It also works with Mono (an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework) based on the European Computer Manufacturing Association (ECMA) standards relating to C# and the Common Language Runtime.
NOTE: This section is also based on Steve Loft's wording taken from the support forum with minimal alteration (clarification in []) for its new context.
You can move between [Cumulus flavours] fairly easily, but you should really read all the guidance.
*In particular if you use decimal commas with Cumulus 1, then you MIGHT have issues when MX tries to read existing log files.
*[For separator characters in dates and lists] whilst Cumulus 1 only takes settings from the control panel in Windows,
** MX running in a Windows environment, takes settings from the locale you specify in a parameter when starting MX, or the Control Panel in Windows,
** MX running in a non-windows environment takes settings from the locale you specify in a parameter when starting MX, or the default locale in your Mono installation
** MX [may] take some [settings from] interaction between the two [the specified locale and the default locale], and MX may struggle to read file [lines] created by Cumulus 1 if the MX locale is not precisely same as settings when that file [line was] created.
== Key differences and similarities between Cumulus 1 and MX ==
NOTE: This section is also based on Steve Loft's wording taken from the support forum with minimal alteration (clarification in []) for its new context.
* While Cumulus 1 has a tool to generate graphs itself and then uploads them to your website, the graphs used in Cumulus MX are drawn when the end-user loads the web page, they use Highcharts routines that are free for non-commercial use only, i.e. you may not use MX with these graphs on a company web site.
* While Cumulus 1 runs as an application that includes a main screen, and other screens, that appear when you start it, Cumulus MX is two separate applications, there is the "engine" that connects to your weather station and processes that data, but there is also a separate administrative interface. The latter is viewed on a browser ''on any device connected to the same local network'' as the device that runs the engine. On this admin interface you change settings, you can edit the various logs, and you can view a series of web pages that allow you to see all the weather derivatives output from MX.
* The settings for both Cumulus 1 and MX are held in [[Cumulus.ini|'''Cumulus.ini''']]. For MX the file name is case sensitive [on non-Windows devices] and must have capitals where shown.
**The case sensitivity of MX [on all devices, even Windows,] also applies to the section names within the file e.g. [FTP site] must use capitals for the FTP and must use lower case for site. Edit any section names that do not follow format in the wiki article for this file referenced above.
**All the characters used within this configuration file must be within ASCII range (represented by binary 0 to 127, basically A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, and some punctuation), any extended characters (such as those used for accented characters, symbols and non English characters) must be removed.
**Whilst many settings are common between both flavours, some are not used by MX and MX has some new ones. In particular if you used '''Port''' in Cumulus 1, that will not be carried across to MX, and you will need to set '''ComPort''' instead. You are advised to check all '''Settings''' using the MX admin interface.
*The Cumulus 1 web templates (files using web tags) will not work with MX (whether you use the standard files provided or have written your own replacements)
**The reason is because the content of the standard web pages is different. For any web templates you have written, you will almost certainly need to change some web tags, and you may find this difficult because certain formatting characters (e.g. H or M) have different meanings when they appear in isolation in an output format to what they mean when combined with others (e.g.H:mm or 'd M'). See the [[Webtags]] page for full information on how to change these, and ask in the support forum if you have difficulty.
*(Other file names within MX will be as supplied in the
* The settings in Cumulus 1 and MX work differently, for Cumulus 1 you choose to save changes by clicking OK, for MX changes are only saved when you click a '''Save''' button if one is provided. If there is no Save button anywhere on the screen (as in Extra Web Files) then the setting is saved when you move to next field/line.
Finally if you are moving from Windows to Linux, remember you need to learn a host of new commands!
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