Cumulus Support

I am in the process of installing a weather station and computer running Cumulus at my sailing club that provides updates to the club web site every 10 minutes as well as 'live view'. This is working well so far but it is currently on test in my garden in Abergavenny (see www.nusc.co.uk, there is is link to the weather station when you go into the main homepage). When I install at the club I want to mount the computer behind the bar and just have the Cumulus display showing on an LCD computer Monitor. In order to allow club member to select the various views and graphs I would have to let then have access to a mouse. Unfortunately I cant trust them not to mess things up by say going into the configuration menu and changing settings. I have though of a way of just letting them go to selected screens by presenting them with just three buttons on the wall below the screen. One button would scroll through 'all time records', 'this month', 'this year' and 'graphs'. The second button would go backwards through the sequence and the third button would return the user to the main display. There appears to be Alt key short cuts to the menu items and short cut keys to the sub menu pages as well as Alt+F4 to go back to the main screen. The simplest way I can think of implementing this is by hacking an old keyboard and using a PIC processor to sequence the correct keys from the 3 available buttons. for example Alt+V followd by G would open the 'Graphs' view. Alt+F4 would get me back. After a time-out I would return to the main display view anyway if it had been left with a window open. All possible with a PIC or similar microcontroller and cheap if you have a gash keyboard. Now the thing I would like to do is allow each of the thumbnail graphs to be sequenced to the main graph panel when in 'Graphs' view. The problem is I don't think Steve has allocated shortcut keys to select each thumbnail, correct me if I am wrong? This would be a shame if I can't automate this bit but at least the club members can have more than just the main view of Cumulus.

If anyone has any better way of doing what I am attempting please let me know and if there are shortcuts for the thumbnails I'd like to know.

John.

I haven't put any shortcut keys into Cumulus other than menu selections, which I get automatically. It's possible that I could assign keys to the graphs, but I'd have to look into how to do that. I suppose the obvious way would be to create a menu for them, and then the shortcut keys would come automatically.

Hi Steve,

It would be a nice feature. Do you know of any other users that may have a similar need to what I am doing? They maybe interested in some limited access capability as well. The other option I guess would be if you only released access to Cumulus configuration and other potential damaging menu items to users who signed on with an admin password, then a mouse or tracker ball could be made available to the terminal visitors - just a thought and would save any extra hardware.

If I develop a PIC I could release details for your Cumulus users.

Regards,

John

What if you put everything on a web site ?

You could <F11> to fill the screen, and put the key board away !!! (just leaving the mouse for navigation through the site)

1113562 wrote:Do you know of any other users that may have a similar need to what I am doing?

You're the first person to have ever asked for an alternative means of navigating the graphs (as far as I can remember), so I guess not.

If it were me, I would create a Cumulus website (eitheron the WWW or on a networked PC running as a webserver and have a networked pc available as a terminal for public access to the cumulus website. F11 is one way to make the website full screen, but there is another option that runs a website in full screen. There is a -k switch that runs Internet Explorer in kiosk mode. This prevents the use of F11 to switch back and forward. I have public access computers set up this way in a library I run and it restricts access to the rest of the operating system unless users know a few shortcuts like Ctrl+W.

Bob

Forgotten about kiosk mode for IE, great idea.

Edit: 2nd thoughts, there is still quite a bit of keyboard functionality, including <CNTL>+<ALT>+<DEL> - so back to my first instinct, <F11> and hide / disconnect the keyboard.

Thoughts for the future - you could design your own pages / layouts so scrolling is not an issue, and have a 'special' url which could cycle through designated pages (every minute or whatever)

Regarding display - does your club have a large flatsceen TV with RGB (PC) input ?

I fixed up a 10m 'extension' in my local hostelery which they used for bingo, karaoke, an Web TV footie - "nothing to do with me officer".

Nothing clever, not a double o/p video card or anything - just a simple 'Y' splitter and the extension cable.

Thanks everybody,

There are some great ideas that you have sent in today. The big problem I have is that the club is fairly unmanaged and people come and go all day (and night) as everyone has a key to the main areas. If I let them loose with a mouse on the Cumulus display they may shut down the program by accident and not restart it or mess up the settings completely which means no data goes out to the web site. We have some daft ISP set-up that does not allow us to host the site from our own computer so it has to be a www. as well not having a spare networked PC for general use as they tend to get abused. We let those that need internet access bring their own laptops and connect via wi-fi.

I'll study the options you have all provided and see if I can work out the best options e.g. the kiosk mode and/or revert to my plan A.

How about a touch screen display - limited access via on screen buttons - with no other input.

GW

Hi John.

like the idea but loads of pitfalls which usually means work for some sucker

Have just put the 'graphs page' up on a 32" flat screen. Nice.

So, why not use the existing PC (with Cumulus) to feed video to a TV. A cheap video-sender would do the job.

Lidl had one for £20 recently.

Just display the Cumulus graphs as a single page or scroll thru. Wallpaper/desktop function !

Good luck