Revised XML Based Weather Script

[Rick Fox]

Discuss the XML Based Weather Script here.

Let me know what you think.

[rbrun]

I made a small change in the FormatForecastStringHTML function to make the date formatting in the forecast more consistent. I was getting stray chars at the end of the day.

tempdate = Right(tempdate, (len(tempdate) - (len(day)+2)))

I don't use the speech portion but it would probably work there as well.

[mattz]

Thanks Rob - I was just going to put a post up about the date problem, and you already had the solution!

[Rick Fox]

When I made the same change to the script, I lost the month. So I took a look at my regional settings and changed to match dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy and it worked. My origianl setting was, ddd, mmm dd, yyyy, which does not appear to be a standard setting. I must have changed it for a reason, oh well not sure why now.

I have also noticed some problems with the current condition icon. In the XML file it refers to the MSNBC site, and I assummed that the data was coming from MSNBC. Earlier this moring the condition icon was a Sun from the XML and Moon on the MSNBC site. Have you seen this as well?

I may send them an email and see if I can get clarification.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Rick

[mattz]

Rick - After fixing the date, I thought I'd go to the site itself to see what data was being parsed. I entered the info for Cherry Hill NJ, and got a different set of data than what is being displayed. For example:

Conditions: Script says "Mostly Sunny", site say "Mostly Cloudy".

Wind: Script says "13 MPH", site says "18 MPH"

Same with the other values. My settings.ini [location] shows Cherry Hill as the city, NJ as the state, and 08003 as the zip. All correct.

(I'd also like to change the Texas flag to NJ - what site did you get the icon from?)

Thanks

[Rick Fox]

I have noticed these irregularities as well. I am going to send an email to confirm a few things. In the XML it indicates when the update occurred, I seen update time earlier than the current time. Hopefully I can get some info from them.

The Texas flag is home made.

Did find this web site, but they are a litle on the large side. http://www.iconbazaar.com/flags/usa/index.html

[Rupp]

Is there anyway you could make a separate ini file for this script. This way if I decide not to keep using this or any other script it doesn't leave information behind in my HS ini file.

-Rupp
...One Nation Under GOD, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.

[jacw]

I noticed on the forecast (Westport, CT) that each day had some porton of the end of the day repeated. I copied it for you to see below but first noticed it when Agent was speaking the forecast:

Sunday
y, December 01, 2002
High: 36°
Low: 22°
Condition: Windy
Precipitation: 0%
Monday
y, December 02, 2002
High: 38°
Low: 20°
Condition: Flurries
Precipitation: 30%
Tuesday
ay, December 03, 2002
High: 36°
Low: 20°
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Precipitation: 0%
Wednesday
sday, December 04, 2002
High: 34°
Low: 23°
Condition: Cloudy
Precipitation: 20%
Thursday
day, December 05, 2002
High: 38°
Low: 19°
Condition: Flurries
Precipitation: 30%

[Dan-O]

Did you fix the script by changing the line that Rob posted?
I had the same extra letters and the problem was fixed by changing the line posted above.

Dan-O
My system specs are in my profile
(Current beta as always)

[Bulletcom]

Hi all,

Just installed this script, worked fine out of the box, apart from:

1) Here in the UK, we use dd/mm/yy as our date format. How do I change this in the script?

2) 'Updated' times are given in EST. Again, GMT is our flavo(u)r - can I change this too?

Otherwise, great job! I got totally peed off with weather.com changing their html every few days and messing up my settings. Hopefully this should sort things...

Any help appreciated!

~David (XML? Not a clue, mate!)

[Rick Fox]

In the functions FormatForecastStringHTML and FormatForecastStringSpeech modify the following 2 lines to meet your needs.

tempdate = formatdatetime(date, vbLongDate)
tempdate = Right(tempdate, (len(tempdate) - (len(day) + 2)))

Be sure to keep the variable tempdate, it is used in the next line. Also let me know what you did and I will include it in the script.

Rupp:
I will include that in the next release.

[Rupp]

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

-Rupp
...One Nation Under GOD, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.

[Rick Fox]

I fixed the date problem and created a seperate .ini file for the settings. To install over an existing system:

1. Remove the location section from HS settings.ini
2. Run the new script and answer the questions.

That's all.

Rick

[Bulletcom]

Rick,

Thanks for the reply - it's not quite sorted it. I've ended up making the following amendments to the sections you recommended like this :

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>function FormatForecastStringHTML(day, date, high, low, condition, rain)
dim forecast
dim tempdate

tempdate = formatdatetime(date, vbLongDate)
' tempdate = Right(tempdate, (len(tempdate) - (len(day) + 5)))
forecast = "&lt;B&gt;&lt;U&gt;&lt;br&gt;" & day & " " & tempdate & "&lt;/B&gt;&lt;/U&gt;"
forecast = forecast & "&lt;BR&gt;High:&nbsp;" & high & "&deg"
forecast = forecast & "&lt;BR&gt;Low:&nbsp;" & low & "&deg"
forecast = forecast & "&lt;BR&gt;Condition:&nbsp;" & condition
forecast = forecast & "&lt;BR&gt;Precipitation:&nbsp;" & rain & "%"

FormatForecastStringHTML = forecast

end function <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So simply remarked out the second 'tempdate=' line and I get the full date as required. The only problem is it's still reading days as months, as you can see from this screengrab...



Help!

[Rupp]

How often is this XML data being updated?

-Rupp
...One Nation Under GOD, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.