WeatherFax ...

[rgleason]

Pavel, I took me half the time to check wxfaxes. I've joined Uwe's work on xml (Thank you Uwe, good job!) and have checked everything in no time.

Will release a beta with new XML tomorrow.
Unfortunately the DWD site isn't working well now, however I can bring the URLs up in my browser. Will need some feedback / suggestions on that.

[mrm]

Originally Posted by rgleason

With respect to Passage Weather:

1. Tried complete alignment and reorganization of Passage Weather, such that

• Checked all xml code to see that everything was closed properly, etc. -used notepad++ View> Collapse level 1,2,3 extensively.

Rick,
for future reference, there are online XML validators. They can save a ton of tedious work.

1. https://www.xmlvalidation.com/
2. https://codebeautify.org/xmlvalidator

The second link also has a converter from XML to JSON which IMHO is a nicer format to parse and easier for Humans to modify. Have a look at attached conversion example. I had to replace ' & 's with ' and 's in your XML source, as the converter complained about improper xml... (btw, one of the validators complained about them too).

Marius

[nohal]

Oh yes, we are very lucky TinyXML used in the weatherfax plugin is not a validating parser.
I will fix the files to actually be XML once the current frenetic activity finishes, now I'm a bit lost in which file is which and it of course makes no sense to invest any time in something that already is superseded by some new version somewhere...

Pavel

[rgleason]

Thanks MRM and Pavel.
The parser found Australian bom ampersands in the title. Changed those to "+" just to conform. The parser should be smart enough to know that that is content!

"..it of course makes no sense to invest any time in something that already is superseded by some new version somewhere..."

That is, of course, the Achilles heel to this plugin.... ongoing changes. Why couldn't we promulgate a new standard for all MET offices that contains a record for the coordinate? Call it a Kap file or a Geotiff or whatever... but write all the met offices and ask them to include the coordinateset in a separate URL space!

Then we would include that standard in the plugin as they gradually provide that service.

[nohal]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Thanks MRM and Pavel.
The parser found Austrailian bom ampersands in the title. Changed those to "+" just to conform. The parser should be smart enough to know that that is content!

Rick, DO NOT DO THIS, please. DO NOT replace the ampersands with '+' or other harakiri stuff again just because you do not know what is the correct way to fix it, the only effect is you will generate more work for me.

[HUR450502]

Hi Rick,

just read your post as of yesterday 20: xx ...

DWD works fine with me. ...

And, as it is - somehow I must have missed one calibration in the Australian date. To make it easier, I just put again the complee Australian set into the attachment (it is in txt-format, just for the amount of 1.8kB I renamed it to .doc ....).

Further I realized, that the date from Singapore still is available via the internet, however, the info is outdated (August 2017)

What do you think about a kind of Browser Plugin, that could be used to automate building or updating information to go into the CoordinatSets.xml / WeatherfaxInternetRetrieval.xml ?? This could help easing the update of information in my opinion. ....

Best regards,

Uwe

[rgleason]

Uwe: I like this idea it has a better chance than getting all the METS to include coordinatesets data with their images. I would also really like to see a way to update the xml files with chartdownloader, and a way to maintain and keep a wxfax "catalog" that is the two files coordinatesets.xml and weatherroutinginternetretrival.xml online so certain editors can update the catalog.

Its a tall order I am afraid. I would also like shorter names.. ie coords.xml and wxfxinet.xml

What do you think about a kind of Browser Plugin, that could be used to automate building or updating information to go into the CoordinatSets.xml / WeatherfaxInternetRetrieval.xml ?? This could help easing the update of information in my opinion. ....

[nohal]

Originally Posted by rgleason

coordinatesets.xml and weatherroutinginternetretrival.xml online so certain editors can update the catalog.

Its a tall order I am afraid.

It is trivial. I just don't see any reason why do it in chartdownloader if it can be done with the same few lines of code in weatherfax directly.
The files already are online. On github. Contributing is simple, even you do create the pull requests already.

I would also like shorter names.. ie coords.xml and wxfxinet.xml

What would this be good for?

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by nohal

Rick, DO NOT DO THIS, please. DO NOT replace the ampersands with '+' or other harakiri stuff again just because you do not know what is the correct way to fix it, the only effect is you will generate more work for me.

I can change it again. OK I can just eliminate it, the & or I could put the regular ampersand notation & since it is the content area.
I suppose a "-" is just as bad but not if I use ¬

All from Html Characters
HTML Ampersand Character Codes

Pavel, what do you want? I won't change code &'s for sure.

[nohal]

Originally Posted by rgleason

I can change it again. OK I can just eliminate it, the & or I could put the regular ampersand notation & since it is the content area.
I suppose a "-" is just as bad but not if I use ¬

All from Html Characters
HTML Ampersand Character Codes

Pavel, what do you want? I won't change code &'s for sure.

Rick..
Just ignore that you know "there is a problem with ampersands", use them happily where they belong exactly like you did until yesterday.

Pavel

[rgleason]

Uwe, I might have fixed those urls. I know I checked a bunch of them and redid the coords of a few. Let me do a beta release and you can check it, if not right I'll get your files and fix it.

----
Everyone using Weatherfax

I am attaching a file with the main URLs that are problematical that we don't yet have working adequately or don't utilize all that they offer. They represent an significant part of the world:

Most of these sites have implemented the dreadful strdate format which makes things very difficult for us. Stelian has written some code to address the problem which needs to be tested and implemented. We were trying it with Singapore I believe, but I don't have that configured correctly yet.

Anyway, we need to identify the main URL's with the Weatherfax Surface Information and Sat Images, preferably B&W that always work for these sites.
Then we need to confirm and save the image URL's for UTC+0 UTC+6 UTC+18 etc. so that we know the pattern of the filenames. Then using Stelian's strdate routine perhaps we can get it working. One little problem is the routine requires perl which most window users don't have, but it can be converted to C++ once we know what works.

I need some help identifying and validating the MET resources that are now available, see attached please.

Focus on these METs

• Australia BOM - additional resources
• France MET - not working
• Singapore Met - not working - old dates
• India Met - not working
• UK Met - not working completely
• Japanese Met

If there are other resources out there that are good and don't use strdate it would be good to know them.

[rgleason]

Pavel, got this weatherfaxinternetretrieval.xml has LF and coordinatesets.xml has CTLF. I thought we needed CTLF at the ends, why is git changing coordinatesets.xml to LF here?

Also have changed & to amp&; in proper places and it works fine.

C:\Users\Frederick\Documents\GitHub\weatherfax_pi> git add data/CoordinateSets.xml
warning: CRLF will be replaced by LF in data/CoordinateSets.xml.
The file will have its original line endings in your working directory.

C:\Users\Frederick\Documents\GitHub\weatherfax_pi> git status
warning: CRLF will be replaced by LF in data/CoordinateSets.xml.
The file will have its original line endings in your working directory.
warning: CRLF will be replaced by LF in data/CoordinateSets.xml.
The file will have its original line endings in your working directory.
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes to be committed:
(use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

modified: data/CoordinateSets.xml
modified: data/WeatherFaxInternetRetriev

al.xml

[bcn]

The Spanish AEMET issues forecasts as well:
El Tiempo. Mapas con frentes - Agencia Estatal de Meteorología - AEMET. Gobierno de España

The single charts can be retrieved.
The series from today
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_gpx0a000.gif
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_gpx0a200.gif
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_g1x0a212.gif
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_g1x0a2d1.gif
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_g1x0a2c2.gif
http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_d/eltie...w_g1x0a2d3.gif

[Hakan]

Rick or anyone..
I'm not a racing sailor and have not looked further into Tactics_pi. Consequently I've never produced a polar for my boat. Rick, I'm a lazy man. Could you offer a file for your boat I could use for a start? I think our boats would be rather similar.


Oops, Wrong thread, not Weather routing, but anyhow.....

Thanks
Håkan

[rgleason]

Have created a PR xml-updates-full to Sean. Fixed the ampersand &amp; in Australian bom section.

The German Met DWD does not work for me but it works for Uwe. I am also finding that the ABORT and Pause do not work very well while I am hung up on that website!

I think there is something very wrong about this URL, or the website or the program but I cannot identify what the problem is. I know it did not do this before, and we got it resolved with Dirk and Stelian, ..Uwe earlier. I think this should be fixed or removed as new users will think the plugin does not work if they go direct to here.

Anyway the beta release for windows is available "xml-updates-full" and it also has Pavels magical fix to speed up filtering the files so it should be almost instantaneous.

Thank you Hurbert, we will get Spanish AEMET into the xml's when we republish. Uwe may have some changes too.