Category:CumulusUtils: Difference between revisions

See CumulusUtils (sub-Forum)

CumulusUtils is a full application program that generates a Fire Weather Index web page, gauges, graphs, reports, a top ten, a dayfile reader (YADR), NOAA report reader pages and several others mentioned in the forum article. The application works on copies of MX datafiles and can generate a web site with uploads of all these pages or the pages can be generated separately as individual modules. See the Forum article for full functionality and usage details, including how your own web pages, or other extensions, can be linked in through the user menu. This series of Wiki articles is supposed to act as manual. If you find errors, please correct them or inform the author.

Linked below are the articles in which all functionality is described, how to activate it and its parameters. These Wiki articles were originally based on the Manual which was in the distribution but is no longer maintained and has been removed.

The initial writing of this series of articles started end of march 2021 and was ready in raw form on the 16^th of April. The pages have been updated when required. If any error found, please correct or notify HansR

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Prerequisites

This paragraph describes what is required to use CumuluUtils (To be modified/extended by user experience).

1. A working CumulusMX environment on Windows, Linux (RPi) or MacOS
   1. On Linux (and probably MacOS too) Mono 6 and up is required
   2. NOTE: no experience by the author on MacOS exists so be prepared to communicate
2. At least 32 days of data
3. For the Miscellaneous Charts more data is required
4. A consistent date format in the logfiles
   1. Mixed data formats in logfiles are not accepted by CumulusUtils
   2. If a date format in a logfile is used which is not implemented, just request it

Goals

The goal of CumulusUtils (abbr: Cutils) is to facilitate website creation for users of CumulusMX without exposure to coding in e.g. PHP or javascript. Having a meteo-website should not be privileged to users with great IT-skills. Making charts should not be demanding for programming skills in SQL or making it otherwise impossible to create charts without diving deep into the technique involved in CumulusMX (which actually is also the case with SQL). Note that this does not mean you can't use IT skills: the user configurable menu offers an opening to expand as far as you wish.

CumulusUtils positions itself as a configurable application for which the understanding of how to run it and how to configure it is the most important thing to know. For configuration CumulusUtils uses cumulusutils.ini file which resides in the CumulusMX directory. If that file does not exist, it will be created. All other files related to CumulusUtils are in the utils directory.

The charts are created using HighCharts using their non-commercial license. If you want to use the charts or the Website Generator of CumulusUtils, please make yourself acquainted with this license.

Assumptions

The user is assumed to have basic computer skills and knowledge about the Operating System and directory structure. The user must also be aware of the directory infrastructure of CumulusMX and needs to be aware of the meaning of the terms webroot and FTProot and Working Directory. The user should be able to understand and edit the ini files (both from CumulusMX and CumulusUtils). The user should understand the basic functioning of CumulusMX which means the correct availability of CumulusMX is a precondition for using CumulusUtils.

Some output files can be used with Cumulus 1 but the charting possibilities rely on the availability of the JSON datafiles of CumulusMX. Therefore the use of CumulusUtils in combination with Cumulus 1 is limited. The website generator in combination with Cumulus 1 is not advised.