Cumulus Support

Hi y'all,

I've been working on a new mobile website that features more information/graphs for my Cumulus website using jQuery's Mobile Interface and PHP scripting. I'm just looking for comments, questions, critiques, suggestions, etc to improve it.

Remember: it is still a work in progress! Not all pages work at this time.

The mobile site is mainly compatible with WebKit browsers (Chrome/Safari) and, of course, iPod/iPhone/iPad. The template is also said to be compatible with many web-enabled phones. Here's a list of compatible phones.

The difference between the current Cumulus page offered here is that this one uses JavaScript for minimal loading time. To load the front page, it only grabs the JavaScript files, tiny images, and links. Not all the pages. Once you click a page, it sends an AJAX request to fetch the page and render it. On my iPhone 4, this takes hardly any time, even on EDGE. In addition, I have created a "live conditions" page that fetches live conditions as they are updated on the main site, which uses daj's live conditions script (with permission) including numerous of edits (status messages, ability to work with intermittent internet connections) in order to make it work properly on the mobile-optimized website.

Now, this is a work in progress and it will take me some time to get everything working properly. But once I do get started, I shouldn't take long to finish. I did all you see now in about 6 hours of web dev work, so expect some little buggies (help me squish them please!).

Again, I'm taking any comments you may have. I'm not concerned with the looks, but rather the functionality of the site. Test it on your devices and let me know how it looks. If it's all good, I'll make a public-production release for everyone to use. I'm not sure how likely I'll make it international use (in reference to the "forecast" page, since it uses NOAA's forecast), but if I have enough requests for it, I'll try..with some help possibly.

So, now that I've explained my project, here's the link to it: MCWX Mobile.

Screenshots from my iPhone 4:



Thanks,
Jared

I think it looks great, would it be customizeable to remove certain things that are not available locally, such as radar?

It's cracking tho, looks really good!

robynfali wrote:I think it looks great, would it be customizeable to remove certain things that are not available locally, such as radar?

It's cracking tho, looks really good!

Thanks!!

Yes. I'll make it so you can exclude certain pages. You can almost make any changes to the code yourself. There are several themes you can use, actually. And you can make your own, but that's getting into the advanced part of the project.

Oh trust me mate, my brain can't handle advanced

robynfali wrote:Oh trust me mate, my brain can't handle advanced

Dont worry, I'm pretty sure people like you won't need to change the theme. It's pretty neat as is. I'm thinking that I'll make a configuration file generator on my site for easier configuration. It'll point out different things all on the page so all you need to do is decide and save the file.

Note-the historic weather data is for my site, so it won't be included. For that, you'd have to make a database and stuff. That's out of my range of training for now.

No worries, well, whenever you feel your work in progress is in a beta format, then give me a shout, i can always put it in a sub-directory to try it out, presumably it reads from the realitime file uploaded by cumulus?

robynfali wrote:No worries, well, whenever you feel your work in progress is in a beta format, then give me a shout, i can always put it in a sub-directory to try it out, presumably it reads from the realitime file uploaded by cumulus?

It uses cumuluswebtags PHP file and the realtime file for live conditions.

fair enough (pretends to understand it all), well when ever your ready, gimme a shout buddy

Jared

It looks great and a huge leap forward from the currnet iphone offering (I developed it about 100 years ago!)

I will have a 'play' around with it and offer any comments. If you need any help (which I doubt as you look to have done a great job) then let me know.

will watch both of u with baited breath

It looks very nice on my HTC Desiré with Android 2.2 !!!

meteotortosa wrote:It looks very nice on my HTC Desiré with Android 2.2 !!!

Is it possible for you to get some screenshots of it? And please let me know what doesn't work and what does. The more info the better!

And thanks for the comments everyone!

I tested it on the iPhone and iPad. Using Wifi, 3G and Edge. Edge is obviously slower but you accept that is the limitation of Edge and I certainly didn't feel I waited any longer than other sites loading on Edge.

On both devices I experience, what seems to be, un-necessary screen refreshes....click an option, the screen pops-up 'loading' then the page slides in from the right. As soon as the slide finished it seems to reload (so the screen flashes/clears very quickly and back). It might have something to do with the 'loading' message as it seems to bring the page in, including a 'loading' grey box and then hide it (I guess using jQuery) so the screen then moves up/down. I could be wrong.

On the iPad it would be nice if it detected it and increased the font size as there is much more 'real estate'.

Not sure what the plans are for the graphs -- personally I would prefer to show the Cumulus ones rather than WUnderground

Well done -- really like it.

daj wrote:On both devices I experience, what seems to be, un-necessary screen refreshes....click an option, the screen pops-up 'loading' then the page slides in from the right. As soon as the slide finished it seems to reload (so the screen flashes/clears very quickly and back). It might have something to do with the 'loading' message as it seems to bring the page in, including a 'loading' grey box and then hide it (I guess using jQuery) so the screen then moves up/down. I could be wrong.

I know this will be shown on the "Live Conditions" page because it's loaded externally--not using AJAX, mainly because it contains such a high volume of scripting. Is this happening on just that page or all?

daj wrote:On the iPad it would be nice if it detected it and increased the font size as there is much more 'real estate'.

If I had an iPad, it would be so much easier to test this. In addition, it is kinda rough since it's designed for small-screen devices, not really iPads. iPads are meant to use the main site's layout, not a mobile design IMO.

daj wrote:Not sure what the plans are for the graphs -- personally I would prefer to show the Cumulus ones rather than WUnderground.

I don't actually use Cumulus graphs since I find Wunderground's are more dedicated and don't consume my system resources. I don't even generate Cumulus graphs, but it can be done. I'll test it out and see which seems better. However, I know there is a way to dynamically generate graphs using jQuery. But that requires a database, and then we go into more advanced/technical stuff.

Thanks for the comments! Keep 'em coming!

jlp09550 wrote:If I had an iPad, it would be so much easier to test this. In addition, it is kinda rough since it's designed for small-screen devices, not really iPads. iPads are meant to use the main site's layout, not a mobile design IMO.

totally agree to be honest! Just thought it would be a nice to have.

Here's screen shots in Portrait and Landscape

I don't actually use Cumulus graphs since I find Wunderground's are more dedicated and don't consume my system resources. I don't even generate Cumulus graphs, but it can be done. I'll test it out and see which seems better.

Maybe offer a choice/setup instructions how to configure for either