CumulusUtils

[HansR]

If you are a user you may want to subscribe to this thread. Updates will contain both fixes and technical improvements besides functional changes, so even if you don't need the new functionality, updates definitely are useful. Updating is easy as well, just copy the complete bin directory.

CumulusUtils is a tool for the amateur meteorologist who is less interested in computer technology, at least less interested to start with. It requires configuration and not programming skills. It generates modules - partial content - for website pages. It can be downloaded below and all modules and the generated site can be seen operational on my site. The code can be found here.

The tool is not 'a single shot have everything running' tool, it requires some understanding and thought about what you want and need to configure.

Read the Wiki, it functions as a manual (and please feedback if you think it is in error or incomplete).

The principal functionalities are:

1. The Website Generator (1920x1080 resolution for best display)
2. A Fire Weather Index (pwsFWI) specially designed for personal weather stations. See scientific background.
3. The ChartsCompiler using CDL. This gives the user the possibility to completely freely define and generate charts for all weather variables within CMX (including userdefined and derivatives).
4. A Extra Sensors web module (realtime, charting).
5. Efficient charting of webtags (via CMX's CustomLogs)

The other modules are:

• (Climate) Graphs (Rain, Temperature, Wind, Solar - when available - and Miscellaneous);
• YADR – Yet Another Dayfile Reader (subset of all data);
• Records, Day records and a top10 record list;
• A system info page.
• A Map showing Cumulus(utils) installations
• NOAA reports
• Forecasts
• User Reports
• Station Map (only useful for larger monitors)
• Air Quality with a Table View and Graph View
  (for the Davis AirLink and any device which responds to the webinterface of the AirLink e.g. the AQM III)

CumulusUtils runs stand-alone, in the same environment and under the account of cumulus itself. It runs on all OSs Cumulus runs on, and may interact directly with the Cumulus program. It only uses the data (a copy of) when needed. On a module level it can still be used with Cumulus 1, graphs require CumulusMX. There is an internal Upload facility to upload output to the domain as defined under CumlusMX (and with those credentials). For support purposes, CumulusUtils generates a cumulusutils.log file and an FTPlog.txt file. In [the unlikely] case of trouble, please send it. When using SFTP, please use one of these cipher methods.

For those who are used to the [old classic] standard CMX website interface and would like to see more numbers in tables it should be pointed out that the CUtils feature UserReports most likely is able to fullfil your needs. Check out Andy's UserReports in this thread and on his site. See also Segur-Le-Chateau for some fine examples (take the Reports menu).

NOTES (please comply to prevent issues):

1. When running Windows 7 sp1, please apply this registry hack.
2. From version 6.6.0 and up CumulusUtils requires Mono 6.12.0.182 (and up) on Raspbian Linux (don't know about other Linux dialects). See release note. This procedure may help with removing/installing mono.
3. When running Linux make sure you have OpenSSL version 1.1.0 or higher and disable the old certificate.
4. When running on an RPi (maybe too on other linux devices) make sure to adjust size of the swap file to at least the size of physical memory. CUtils is memory hungry as it maintains and manipulates the data in lists in memory and Mono has trouble with memory leakage. Table with System RAM => Recommended Swap Space follows
   • Less than 2GB => 2 x RAM
   • 2GB-8GB => 1 x RAM
   • 8GB-64GB => 0.5xRAM
   • More than 64GB => Depend on workload

[HansR]

Version 3.1.1 is online.

I think it speaks for itself.

[HansR]

Version 3.1.2 is online

This is a bug fix release for the website generator only, the moon is a confusing fragile object.
Too occupied with the switching of the dashboards lately, ignoring some details elsewhere. Sorry about that.

[HansR]

Version 3.2.0 is online

This is kind of rapid fire after the fix release of this morning, but just see for yourself if you think it useful to install.

The large update of Graphs module contains the temperature statistics graph which is especially interesting for those with longer data series (I'd say at least three years). Since I have only 10 month of data, that is hardly interesting and difficult to get the experience, so I count on testing and a bit of feedback concerning the user interface and how it functions.

Another similar update for rain will come soon but I'll wait a few days for this to settle.

[HansR]

Version 3.3.0 is online

The website now has a fully responsive bootstrap 4 dropdown menu and it should work on all devices. That does not mean it is useful to use the CumulusUtils website on all devices. Especially small screens have a large distance between reports and the menu. Small screens may only be useful for the 'realtime' data i.e. the switchable dashboard. But that is a great feature I think. The 'dropdown on hover' has been abandoned.

The Yearly Rain statistics per month are now available.

Hope you like it.

[HansR]

Version 3.3.5 is now online

Appearance and skins

CumulusUtils does not know skins in the more complex meaning of giving the website a complete other look and feel than your neighbours. It was not there at the origin and not by design, so don't expect it ever to make an appearance. To compensate a bit for this lack of personalisation, it is possible to give the appearance a personal touch by colouring. All main features of the site can be configured for colour.

Twenty parameters starting with 'Color', followed by a meaningful description describe the colour appearance of the website. You are free to make any combination but you're on your own. If you are satisfied, please share the settings on the forum. I'll make a special thread for it.

[HansR]

Version 3.3.6 is online

The parameter 'ColorMenuBackground=Lightgrey' had been erroneously set as 'Lightgrey=Royalblue'.
To avoid confusion in future, if you did already install and run, please remove the color parameters and especially the 'Lightgrey', install the new CumulusUtils 3.3.6 and rerun.
My apologies

[HansR]

Version 3.3.7 is online

This is a correction release to get the displayed version number equal to the in the forum published version number.
There is a minor functional addition (photo in the title header).
Sorry for the version number mistake .

More haste, less speed.

[HansR]

Version 3.3.8 is online

The release notes are clear I guess. Chance would have it that I had given the menu bar the same colour as the menu toggler. So when looking on a phone there was a menu, but you did not see it. The other two fixes improve the rain graphs.

[HansR]

Version 3.3.9 is online

Contains the promised correction for the Daily Rain graph Y-axis range.

[HansR]

Version 3.4.0 is online

Contains a new Forecast module.

[Edit:] I would advice, if you use module 'Forecast', to run CumulusUtils after 01h00 because the update of the API file may delay a bit and to have yesterdays day as the first entry does not seem to me what you want.

[HansR]

Version 3.4.1 is online

I changed the Cumulus Graphs (the opening graph) to accommodate 'Feels Like'. Related to the introduction of Feels Like, I introduced ini parameters in the [Website] section for Apparent, Feels Like, Wind Chill and Heat Index for the user to select show or no show (values true or false) of these temperature derivatives for human perception of the weather.

In relation to this, I would like to repeat the remark, that the user can edit cumulusutils.ini and reorder the parameters for clarity. You can NOT move parameters to other sections though, a parameter MUST stay in the section (if removed, CumulusUtils will recreate the parameter with the default value!).

[HansR]

Version 3.5.0 is online

This version implements the first phase of the transalation system of CumulusUtils and contains all existing strings used in the modules.
The next phase will add all strings used by the website (e.g. the dashboards). The gauges have their own translation.

The translation is described in the manual. A short description follows here:

1. The language used is defined in cumulusutils.ini in the section [General], running once will make appear the ini parameter Language containing the ISO two letter code for a country.
2. The language code is used for translating the gauges (which have their own translation system) and it will generate a file CUstrings[Language Code].ini which will contain all strings used by CumulusUtils.
3. The language file MUST be saved in UTF-8 encoding to accommodate all language characters, including the French accents and cedille, the Norwegian characters but also Greek and Russian. Use an editor which can save encoded!
4. Language files can be shared via the forum. Translations efforts can be shared as well of course.

Although you don't see it easily, it had quite some impact on the code so there may be an error here and there.
Let me know if there are any problems.

Happy translating.
(I won't be available tomorrow)

[HansR]

Version 3.5.3 is online

The translation approaches its completion. All strings have been added to the system but the strings in the Cumulus Charts (the charts you see when starting the site. Those charts are a bit more complicated and demand some peace around me to complete.

With respect to the translation you may have noticed that the ini parameter names have changed. I hope it did not bother you too much, That won't happen again Nevertheless, it gave you the chance to run over the texts again and reconsider. Sometimes strings have been duplicated because of the place and space where they were intended. Giving them separate entries in the inifile gives the user more freedom to play with the text. Sometimes space is limited and you have yo adapt.

Month names have always been in local language if your system locale was local. That will remain so and in future I will set the locale for the program to the locale of the language you choose (I will not make any distinction between dialects of e.g. English). Some output will then be automatically converted to your language so if you wondered why there are nog months and weekday to translate: there it is.

If you find any strings which I missed, please let me know.
I will start a sticky thread for sharing language files.

[HansR]

Version 3.5.4 is online

With this release the translation system is complete.
New strings may be added if new modules are made, but those are minor modifications.

Please notify me of any untranslated strings.
English: please notify me of spelling errors.

[Edit:] Apologies - when I said the translation system is complete, I forgot the promise of the addition of the language locale for the program. So there will be a minor addition coming up later. this week. You will be informed.