Cumulus Support

Hello

Firstly my thanks to David Jamieson who quickly helped to get my weather station on-line. I would now like to try to make some amendments to the look of my site. I have - well I think I have - followed the Forum advice on changing the background picture on the 'now' page of the website but I still cannot get my own background up and running! That bird - the fulmar - keeps coming back to haunt me despite the fact that I have deleted his picture from the images file and replacing it with my own image which I simply renamed 'picture'. Would someone be good enough to advise me - in the simplest terms please - how I can get rid of Mr Fulmar?

Additionally I would like to remove the Solar Radiation and Evapotranspiration tags on the 'now' page because my station doesn't provide this data and if possible also make some amendments to the 'welcome' text.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Tony

Could you please provide a link to your website, that'll help us to see why your background picture isn't changing.

Regarding the solar info on the index page, all you need to do is edit the indexT.htm file on your PC (in the Cumulus/Web folder) and delete those lines. If you are new to this, make a backup of that file first before editing it.

Tony

When you say you have deleted the picture, you realise it needs to be removed from the web server, not your images folder on the PC?

If you wish to replace the image, you would need to upload (FTP) a new picture with the same filename, or a new name and change the reference to the name.

You will need an FTP tool, or use my web based FTP service. Some tools and link to my web service here

http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FTP_tools

For "Solar Radiation", etc, you can use something like notepad (or Notepad++ which is a free download) to edit the indexT.htm file on your PC which is the template used to build and upload the page by Cumulus every 5 minutes.
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Customised_templates


(I haven't mentioned Tony's web address in case he does not wish it made public -- he can note it here if he wished)

Hello David

Thank you for your advice. Sorry to be such a pain but I have tried to download the glohosting ftp tool but when I do so it asks for various items of information, all of which I have except, the details of the ftpserver. Where would I find this piece of information.

Many thanks.

Tony

Hi Tony

It's no problem at all -- the ftp server is the same as the hostname in your setup email

Hello again David

Old Man Trouble here again! Following your advice I successfully connected to the web server yesterday and was able to easily delete the Fulmar picture. I then was able to upload my own picture which appeared on the website. I wasn't too happy with it, mainly because it appeared too large and so I started again and removed it. Since doing this, although uploading another - reduced size - picture to the web server and checking that it was OK by checking the view box, my web site continues to have a stubbornly white background. I have started from scratch numerous times with different pictures but nothing will shift the white background. Sadly I'm even beginning to miss Mr Fulmar now!

In trying to find a solution I have looked at but certainly haven't altered the Weatherstyle CSS file on the server but I notice that where the text line (9) appears 'background-image: url(images/picture.jpg);' the words 'images/picture.jpg' within the brackets are in red italics. I don't know whether this is significant but nothing else within this file has any italic text.

I think I might give up on this and leave well alone but I don't like to be defeated! Have you any suggestions please?

Sorry to be a nuisance but we pensioners still like to have a go at being clever now and then!

Tony

Hi Tony

You had a two problems. ....

You correctly looked at the style sheet and the clue is there ...'background-image: url(images/picture.jpg);' ...but you had placed picture.jpg in the root folder (www), whereas it needs to be in the images sub-folder below the root.

Also, somehow your filename had a space so it was picture .jpg -- note the space before the .jpg. I removed the rouge space


You were nearly there

PS -- the red-italics is just your software trying to make it easier for you to read the style sheet by colour coding certain elements

Hello David

Thank you for sorting out the background picture. Having experimented with different backgrounds over the last day or two, I have decided that none were really suitable and have reverted to the simple white background until one that one is appropriate takes my eye! At least now, with your previous help, I know what to do to avoid problems in the future.

Altering/deleting tags and any changes to the welcome text might be considered later when I feel a little braver! Curiously words of wisdom from my late father keep coming back to me including 'make haste slowly' and 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. I think, from the perspective of hindsight - a wonderful thing! - he may well have been right and it might have been better to have heeded his advice!

Best wishes and many thanks.

Tony

Hello David

Encouraged by being able to successfully change the background picture to my website I decided to try to delete the Solar and Evapotranspiration web tags. Last evening I downloaded Notepad++ selected the Index T file on Cumulus and carefully deleted both tags without problem and saved the changed file. I refreshed the website and was pleased that everything was OK and subsequent refreshes were fine. In order to check all was well, turned off the PC and logged in again a couple of hours later and confirmed that things were still OK. This was last night. This morning I turned on the PC and again checked that all was well as indeed it was. Later this afternoon I tried to access the 'now' page and was met by a completely white screen yet all other screens were working OK.
I noticed that the Cumulus Index file was blank showing 0kb although the IndexT file shows 6kb. I then checked the Index file on the server and yet again it showed an empty file (0kb). As an experiment I uploaded the IndexT file to the server and this had the result of restoring the 'now' page but without any current data. I have now deleted this file from the server. The only thing I can think of is that earlier this morning I opened Notepad++ and looked at the Cumulus IndexT file. Inadvertently I left Notepad++ open all day and presumably the Cumulus IndexT file as well. Could it be this that has caused the problem?
Can you give me some advice and a possible fix please?
Many thanks.
Tony

It's unlikely that having the indexT.htm file open would cause any problems, but it is a possibility. But having closed it, the problem should then have gone away. If your other pages are still updating correctly, then I suspect a problem in the format of your indexT.htm file which is causing Cumulus to have problems processing it. If you upload it I could take a look.

Hello Steve

Hopefully I've attached the file OK.

Tony

You've named the file indexT.html - the standard file has to be called indexT.htm. I know that's not really the way things should be done, but unfortunately that's what I chose way back and we're sort of stuck with it now.

Your template has been called indexT.html -- for Cumulus it needs to be indexT.htm (without the L at the end)

Hello Steve & David

How then do I go about changing the file from html to htm?

Tony

Just rename it in Windows Explorer

OR

Open the indexT.html in notepadd++ and do a file, Save As and type the new name -- indexT.htm

Then delete the .html one