Default Website Development
The default CMX website Development
These section of the Wiki will enable you to get the latest information and resources for the alternative to the default CumulusMX public website.
Alternative public website
As part of the development process of the CumulusMX Interface, I have generated a new public website (with template pages) as an alternative to the one provided with CumulusMX.
This template builds on the development of the AI and introduces a number of features and/or improvements.
Full details of the alternative public website, including screenshots can be fond on my wiki together with comprehensive instructions on how to install, use and modify.
Its major change is that all configuration data is held in one place: the CMXConfig object, so you can set the location of your data, your NOAA reports and the menu just by editing one part of one file.
The menu has also been enhanced with some additional features while maintaining the single json structure of the original.
This site also comes with new themes (unfortunately not compatible with the AI or previous versions) that should be easier to modify for your own needs.
Download the latest version here (Updated: Friday 17th January 2025)
You can view my site using the new default templates on Oaktree Weather .
Amendments since last revision
- Repositioned the popups on the gauges page to be vertically centred.
Installing
Download the current zip file to you local machine and upload it to your web server.
- Unzip it in the same location as your existing site - it will not overwrite the existing pages
- The new site uses .html pages whereas the existing default site uses .htm
- If you visit your site without specifying a page you will be taken to the new template pages,
- Specifying a page such as index.htm will display your old template pages.
- Please clear your browser cache before viewing.
Your Own Pages
As with previous releases, the public website template also includes a template page.
The template.html page is provided to make it easier for you to add your own pages while retaining the look and feel of the website. The template page is called template.html.
Editing The template page shows all the different column layouts that are available. These are:
ax-column1, ax-column2, ax-column3, ax-column4, ax-column5 and ax-column6
- These will always try to display the indicated number of columns but as the screen becomes small will automatically collapse into fewer columns as appropriate.
- If there are more panels than columns they will gracefully split onto additional rows while retaining their column settings.
- Rows with fewer panels than columns will either stretch the remaining panels across the full width or distribute them centrally - this can be controlled by you.
Please refer to my wiki for full details of the menu and how to edit it.
Changing the Theme and Other Settings
This template comes with 33 themes to enable you to personalise the public website. Sixteen of these are light, 16 are dark and one is a high contrast theme. They are all located in the /themes folder.
To change the theme you will need to edit the page-manager.js file located in the 'js folder. The pertinent section is shown below:
let CMXConfig = { 'Theme': 'Nebulas-Blue', 'StaticHead': true, 'StaticFoot': true, 'Units': 'vh', 'PaddingTop': 2, 'PaddingBottom': 1, 'Seagull': { 'Animation': '', 'Duration': 5, 'OnTop': true }, 'Version': 3.0 }
This is located at the start of the file between lines 9 and 22. Do not edit anything else as you will in all likelihood break the site.
Theme
The available themes are:
Arcadia, Arcadia-Dark, Cherry-Tomato, Cherry-Tomato-Dark, Chili-Oil, Chili-Oil-Dark, Crocus-Petal, Crocus-Petal-Dark, Cylon-Yellow, Cylon-Yellow-Dark, Dark-Grey, Dark-Grey, Emporador, Emporador-Dark, High-Contrast, Lime-Punch, Lime-Punch-Dark, Marsala, Marsala-Dark, Martini-Olive, Martini-Olive-Dark, MeerKat, MeerKat-Dark, Nebulas-Blue, Nebulas-Blue-Dark, Red-Pear, Red-Pear-Dark, Russet-Orange, Russet-Orange-Dark, Spring-Crocus, Spring-Crocus-Dark, Valiant-Poppy, Valiant-Poppy-Dark
Any of these can be used but be careful not to disrupt the formatting - It must be in quotation marks and the whole entry must be followed by a comma.
Other Settings
Layout
The next FIVE options affect the overall layout of the pages.
- Static Header
- By default the header will stay at the top of the page when long pages are scrolled.
- If you prefer to have it scroll, then set StaticHead: false,
- Static Footer
- By default the footer will always stay at the bottom of your screen regardless of the length of the page.
- If you want it to scroll then set StaticFoot: false,
- Units to use for gaps
- By default the site uses responsive units to adjust the gap between the header content and footer.
- You can use vh which ties the gap units to a percentage of the screen height
- You can use em which ties the gap to the height of the font (which is responsive), or
- You can use px which is a fixed height based on the resolution of your browser/screen.
- Gap between header and page content
- Any positive value can be used but if using pixels, it must be an integer.
- Gap between page content and footer
- As for above.
The Seagull
The seagull is a fixture on your screen. By default it fades in over two seconds. However, you can use a different animation if you prefer. The available animations are:
- Float down - the seagull will fall from the top of the screen and grow as it does so until it sits on the footer.
- Set 'Animation': 'FloatDownLeft',
- Slide across screen - the seagull will slide in for the side of the screen along the footer.
- Set 'Animation': 'slideLeft',
- Appear - the default animation.
- Set 'Animation': 'appearLeft',
- If you set this animation then you can also adjust the default animation speed to zero to stop the animation completely.
- Duration - this adjusts the time taken for the animation in seconds. Decimal numbers are allowed.
- Stay on Top - The seagull can be made to stay on top of your page content or hide behind it. This only applies if the screen is narrower than apron 1200px.
Changing other features
In order to change other features you will need to edit the html of the pages. As this is a more involved task it is covered on a second page.
To learn about editing the html please visit: Editing website pages