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About Cumulus: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Crystal Clear info.png|40px]] This page was written for the original (legacy) Cumulus software. Somebody needs to create a replacement page for MX, as described [https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=38 in posts here].
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= What is Cumulus software =
If you have not used Cumulus before, and are wondering whether to explore it further, this article is for you,
<big>If there is information that you would like to see added to this page</big>, either
{{TOCright}}
== Key Features ==
#How much does Cumulus cost?
#*Cumulus is totally Free for personal and non-profit use,
#*(Steve Loft who was the original developer called it shareware and said "a donation would be appreciated if you continue to use Cumulus after trying it")
#*Please note: since Steve retired from developing Cumulus, the donation option for Cumulus has ended, but there is a donation option for Steelseries options used in MX.
#What devices does Cumulus run on?
#*Cumulus 1 runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
#What weather stations does Cumulus work with?
#*Cumulus 1 Supports Davis Vantage Pro and Pro2; Oregon Scientific WM918, WMR-918, WMR-928, WMR-968 weather stations; EasyWeather stations (MyDEL, Nevada, Watson, Fine Offset, WH1080, WH1081, W8681, FWS-20 etc); La Crosse WS-2300, and other models in the WS23xx range.
#How can I view the weather derivatives calculated by Cumulus?
#*Whatever units your weather station uses for the weather readings it provides to Cumulus, Cumulus will derive values in your chosen units, and calculate other values derived from combining say temperature, humidity and wind speed.
#*Cumulus 1 has a simple main screen summarising all the current weather shown on PC running the software, from that various menu options give access to settings screens, graphs, screens to show extremes for any period, screens to correct errors in your extreme records, screens to view log files, and screens to edit log files and extreme files.
#A key feature of all Cumulus flavours is they give you a choice of meteorological day
#*The choice is between midnight to midnight or 0900 to 0900 (optionally during summertime only 1000 to 1000). This enables you to emulate official weather stations that work on days starting at 9am.
#*Cumulus will not automatically log minimum temperature against the date when the meteorological day ends as per official meteorological practice nor will it attribute some other parameters to the calendar date. But since Cumulus makes all the values it derives available, this processing can be done outside Cumulus to ensure your own web pages show correctly according to meteorological practice.
#How frequently does Cumulus update its outputs?
#*Cumulus can upload information at a default period of every 15 minutes, but this can be varied to suit you. There is also functionality to do some actions after a meteorological day has ended, in Cumulus 1 this is very basic.
#*You can optionally also use real-time uploading, set at a much more frequent interval to upload files relating to current conditions.
#*Cumulus 1 offered real time web display of wind speed and direction using Silverlight software that is no longer functional
#Can Cumulus upload to external home automation servers or other sites that accept weather records?
#*Yes, there is automatic generation of xAP home automation weather reports, and uploads to external web sites.
#*
#Can Cumulus upload to a personal web site?
#*Yes, there are ready-made web template files supplied that can create web pages. Plus all the information that Cumulus outputs is available in web tags that you can incorporate into your own web templates for Cumulus to upload for you as web pages.
#*Cumulus MX will also automatically send rows to update a MySQL database, and you can use that database for further web pages on your web site.
#Does Cumulus warn me if the temperature is very high or very low or other extremes happen?
#*Yes
#Does Cumulus provide any non-weather information for my web site?
#*Yes, Cumulus will provide times for sunrise, sunset, and a selection of parameters about the moon including an image to show current phase.
#*Comprehensive help file included in Cumulus 1
#*This wiki is an extensive documentation feature capturing all that people have said or asked about in the past
#*Free support available in the support forum
== What does it look like ==
== Periodic Actions ==
#Cumulus also has the ability to launch external processes, at its "real-time" processing interval, its "normal updating" interval or as it is processing the daily "rollover" to a new meteorological day.
== Outputs to external web sites ==
==Supported Devices==
There is a full list of [[Supported Devices]]
<br/><br/>
Steve Loft
= Flavours =
== Cumulus 1 ==
This is no longer developed and runs only on a device using the Windows operating system.
There are large numbers of web sites (both private and public) using Cumulus 1 and it is probably the simplest version to install. However, there is no source available, and no author knowledge available (other than what appears at [[FAQ|FAQ for Cumulus 1]] and other pages in this Wiki.
The current stable [[Cumulus Versions|version]] is 1.9.4 (28 November 2014). This is an installer, run it and it will install all the functionality and files that you need.
If you want to use Cumulus 1, after you have installed the above download, [[Downloads|download]] patch 2 (28 Jan 2020) as that patch will changedthe drop down year selectors to allow selection of future years (to 2030) as well as past years. The non-patched version will accept you typing in any dates, but the drop-down selectors can only display 2000 to 2020.
== Cumulus 2 ==
This is no longer available as it never worked satisfactorily. One design feature was it did everything in UTC, hoping to avoid issues with time zones, but actually implementing that for Cumulus users all round the world was not as easy as Steve Loft expected. Steve Loft felt he wasted a lot of time working on Cumulus 2, as only a small number of users did use it.
Some of its features were incorporated into Cumulus 1.9.x and from there into Cumulus MX.
Some other ideas like standardising on ISO format for dates; separating the engine and admin interface; and a few more; formed the basis for Cumulus 3.
The design of Cumulus 3 (MX) is much more robust, because it has learnt from the pitfalls of Cumulus 2
== Cumulus 3 aka MX ==
[[:Category:Cumulus MX|Cumulus MX]] is still being actively developed, it will run on a number of operating systems and has the advantage that it consists of an engine that reads the Automatic Weather Station, does the calculations, and creates a web server. There is then a separate administrative interface that runs in this web server, and lets you see a number of dashboard type web pages and edit settings; it can run on any device connected to your local network (LAN) or wifi, as it just just needs a private link to the device running MX.
=== Should I use Cumulus 1 or Cumulus 2 or Cumulus 3 (MX)? ===
Steve Loft (who originated all 3 versions) had no recommendations one way or the other. However, since he focussed on enjoying retirement and withdrew from involvement in Cumulus, a lot has changed.
Now newcomers should probably choose Cumulus MX, but read on if you are not sure.
Cumulus 1 is a finished version, with very few bugs, but because the development environment is obsolete no further changes are possible. Cumulus 1 is reliable, it has inbuilt functionality to cope with problems if your weather station set-up experiences problems. However, you may not be able to use it:
#it does not support some new weather station models, and
#it will only run on a Microsoft Windows device
That said there have been two recent patches to the screen interface, allowing dates from 2021 to 2030 to be selected in drop downs, but the core code will never change. Although there remains some expertise with Cumulus 1 established users, any newcomer may prefer to choose a MX as that has more technical support available.
Cumulus 2 explored an improved data approach using UTC and having better handling of rainfall. Although it was hoped it would make enhancement easier, and allow use of alternative languages possible, it proved too complicated. and has been abandoned and is no longer available, so if you don't already have it hard luck. Subsequently, some of the developments in Cumulus 2 were ported into new version 1.9.0, and remain in final Cumulus 1.9.4 from where they were in turn ported to Cumulus MX. So whichever of the two versions still available you choose, you are benefiting from work done for Cumulus 2.
Cumulus 3 was released by Steve Loft as MX beta. It is using a different architecture (partly inspired by Cumulus 2). The MX beta (version 3.0.0) lacked much of the functionality in the legacy Cumulus, consequently it was only suitable for very reliable weather stations, and people who did not need editing functionality.
=Cumulus MX=
As noted at start of page, this page was written for the legacy Cumulus software. Since Mark Crossley has taken over development of MX:
*He has taken it out of beta
*He had added code to cope with weather station problems
*He has added code to cope with new weather stations
*He has added code to allow editing of log files and extreme records
*He has added much new functionality
*MX has some bugs, there is more development to do
*MX is however now the supported flavour and newcomers now install it (and experienced legacy Cumulus users migrate to MX)
Here are some of the MX differences.
== MX Key Features ==
Despite MX being more complicated to get to know, it does offer more features and can connect to more AWS than Cumulus 1. This is not the place to list all extra features, but it can output to a database, it maintains its file of extremes for a month and year beyond the end of those periods, and adds the ability to process a file only at end of each day.
#*Cumulus 3 (normally known as MX) runs on Microsoft Windows 10 Operating System, plus all devices running a Unix type environment (such as Linux and Mac OS X)
#*Commercial use of Cumulus MX is not permitted due to library software used with it
#*Cumulus MX adds further modern stations to the list see [[Supported_Devices|Supported Devices page]] for up-to-date details.
#* Cumulus MX generates an [[MX Administrative Interface|admin interface]] that is viewed (on your local network) using a browser. Tabs in that interface give access to settings, charts, a summary dashboard, a tabular current conditions, a tabular today/yesterday summary, and the extremes for various fixed periods
#*The screens in the MX admin interface use ajax to interrogate application programming interfaces that will show updates as frequently as your weather station can provide them.
#* For MX, MQTT is added for home automation and windy is added to external web sites.
== What does MX look like? ==
MX also provides an admin interface, that is used for 3 main purposes:
#Entering all the settings
#Editing the extreme records, and viewing/editing the log files
#Looking at the weather readings and derivatives, there is a summary dashboard (a replacement for Cumulus 1 main screen, this is where alarms are heard), and screens for current conditions, today/yesterday, this month/this year/monthly all years, monthly reports, yearly reports.
Building up a library of screen shots for MX is planned, when development slows down (so it is not a moving target). Meanwhile, a number of the MX screenshots, as they used to be, is currently still available at [https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/using-the-banana-pi-bpi-m2-with-a-home-weather-station/ CumulusMX-with-a-home-weather-station]
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