Alternative Dashboard Script Released (Ver 5.03 FINAL RELEASE)

I’ve released version 2 of an alternative to the dashboard offered by the Saratoga-Weather Script and the Ajax system from Ken True. This alternative is a total replacement that adds in many additional sections and changes to the original dashboard including:

  1. Expanded Solar and UV sections
  2. Wind Chill and Heat Index (Switches automatically based on Temperature)
  3. Heating and Cooling Degree days (Switchable automatically based on Temperature)
  4. Snow (Config to display in USA, Metric or CM’s in one script)
  5. Irrigation Index (Solar required)
  6. Station Records
  7. NWS Records and New Record High/Low reading image (Can be turned on/off in config)
  8. Many minor changes to the original format

This version is packaged as a direct replacement for your current ajax-dashboard.php file. No more adding in all the lines yourself! This script also is 100% compatable with my other scripts so if you already have the hi/low/avg script’s CSS mods, you don’t need to do anything extra! You must be running the Saratoga-Weather scrips with Ken True’s Ajax mods to have this page work.

If you already have my old dashboard mod in place, you will need to still follow the instruction included as there are a LOT of changes!

You can download the new version from my site http://www.websterweatherlive.com Click on the WD Scripts section on the menu.

Scott

1 Like

Hi Scott,

I have a modified version of your Alternative Dashboard running now on my site, customised as we dont get snow 8)
Cheers

Thanks for the excellent development work and your packaging … great job!

Best regards,
Ken

Hi Scott,
I’ve installed your alternative dashoard but i’ve some questions to set it up better.

  1. Why doesn’t it show large summary icon?
  2. How to delete “NWS Records”?
  3. How to delete Snow tag?
  4. Why doesn’t it show fire icons?
  5. How to translate the tags in Italian language? (should i use language-it.txt?)

Thanks in advance,

Alessandro

Alessandro,

I think that Scott’s ajax-dashboard replacement works with the English-versions of the templates only (Canada, USA, World) … it doesn’t currently have the translation functions needed for the World-ML/Canada-ML multilingual templates.

The templates have two different versions of the ajax-dashboard.php script … one for English-only, and a different one for the multilingual templates.

Best regards,
Ken

Yes, Ken is correct, I should have noted that a bit better. The USA template was the basis for the code. If there is something special in the other templates I did not include it in this version. There is an option to show snow in CM rather then inches though. If there is enough interest I’ll try downloading the other versions and see what’s needed to make it work there too.

Scott

Cool script Scott. The Troop meeting is this afternoon and several of the Scouts have expressed interest in this project. I wish they had a web merit badge :slight_smile:

Thank you Scott
Mark

Right now, no snow sounds real good!! What would you want in the snow spot if there were an option to shitch out snow with something else?

Scott

You could always suggest they add one! Thanks Mark!

Scott

Alessandro

To answer your questions…

  1. Right now I only have the larger summary icons in the square glass icon style and most people probably wouldn’t want that style mixed in with theirs. I will put them up as an additional download soon for those that do. The normal icons when stretched out to be larger don’t look right so I didn’t include them yet. You could make the 32 or so icons up and then just change the size to display them.

  2. NWS records are a config option at the top of the form. Just change the setting to false and it will go away! (See instructions)

  3. If you don’t want any snow items to display you would need to remove the snow section of code right now. I may put something selectable in it’s place in the next version if I can figure out what people would want to see there in it’s place!

  4. You need you put the fire images in the images directory (jpg images are the default) If you need to use the gif images, you need to change a couple lines. (next version will have that selectable too)

  5. I don’t know how Brian is using the translate file so I can’t use that. If you need to change languages, you would have to search the code for the word you want to change and manually change that, sorry.

Scott

Scott, the ajax-dashboard.php is the same in both the World-ML and Canada-ML templates. The key thing is to replace all display literals with calls to langtrans/langtransstr using the same literal value. The langtrans/langtransstr functions are in the common.php in the ML templates.

The silly reason I have two versions of the ajax-dashboard is I couldn’t figure out a good way to handle the missing langtrans/langtransstr functions in the Canada/USA/World templates without screwing up the ability of the dashboard to run independently of the template set (standalone mode). The old is_function() test just didn’t seem to work for conditional definition of functions. Sigh…

Best regards,
Ken

Wow! Nice job Scott. :slight_smile: May have to look into this a little further. What are you using for the guestbook-like interface at the bottom of your page? I like it.

Bill

Thanks Ken, I’ll download it and see if I can make mine work with it!

Scott

Thanks Bill,

The guest book script was talked about on this forum somewhere, I’m not at my normal desk right now or i’d look it up for you but if you search here for guestbook I think you’ll find it. it was easy to install

Scott

Hi Scott,

Really nice work here! A couple of issues that I have:

  1. My “New Record Low” image is displaying when the statement is false. My minimum temperature is higher than the WUmintempr.
  2. Record Nite low temp month is missing I’m blind…it is on the next line up.
  3. Page will not validate if you have the New Record High or the New Record Low image displaying. (may need to add the “alt”)

Cheers!
Michael

Hate how one thing always sneaks in there! Next version!

Scott

Hi Scott,

I will see if I can adapt your Dashboard to my site wich is an integration of Ken’s WML and Canada templates. So it could be a ML version. No promises made thou.

First stumbling block, my station and units in the templates are in C. So for the heat degree set at 61F, should I change that to 16? I hope my question makes sense.

Scott…good job…looks really neat. I don’t know if I will be able to use it though because of Snow and Irrigation. We don’t get snow and I don’t have the necessary instruments to calculate Irrigation from. But I do like the design. :smiley:

Wish list. :wink:

Instead of snow (bah humbug) paypal :lol:

Mark

What would you like to see in place of the snow? The irrigation just needs a solar sensor.

Scott