Super simple skin

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 1:20:49 PM11/3/20

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Hey, y'all!

(Running WeeWX 4.1.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3-something and a Vantage Vue, if that matters. See my station at http://robcranfill.net/weather, if you'd like.)

(I searched to see if this sort of question has been asked before; didn't find quite this question anytime recently; apologies if I missed something, just send me the right link and I'll go away. ;-) )

I want to create a super-simple display for an Android tablet I'll set up running in my living room as a non-interactive display. I've looked at the docs, it looks like I need to create a new skin? So I do this entirely from scratch? (I can of course look at other skins to see how they do it.)

Let's say I just want a skin that shows the current temperature in a nice big bold font. That seems like a good place to start. So I'd just read the WeeWX Customization Guide and hack it on out? Or is there a better place to start?

Thanks for any suggestions!

rob

(I am reasonably proficient in hacking on WeeWX, and in Python, and in other Linux-foo. Just not sure where to start with this :-) )

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 1:27:04 PM11/3/20

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OK, I do find this https://groups.google.com/g/weewx-user/c/UvM_lOYT1y4/m/5zMCy3IKBwAJ but I'm still interested in "rolling my own". :-)

vince

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Nov 3, 2020, 1:40:26 PM11/3/20

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On Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 10:20:49 AM UTC-8, Rob Cranfill wrote:

Let's say I just want a skin that shows the current temperature in a nice big bold font. That seems like a good place to start. So I'd just read the WeeWX Customization Guide and hack it on out? Or is there a better place to start?

Make a simple index.html.tmpl file like the examples in weewx. Include just the one temperature element. Set a CSS look'n'feel to whatever you like.

Take the example at https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_howto.asp for how to do simple style sheets.

Should be super easy.

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 6:15:24 PM11/3/20

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Don't I have to tell WeeWX, via a skin, to process that file? As per http://www.weewx.com/docs/customizing.htm#Which_files_get_processed_

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 6:25:15 PM11/3/20

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The top-level docs at http://weewx.com/docs.html say

Customization Guide

Describes how to ... create and customize skins. ...

Does it, though? Can someone point to the appropriate section? Sorry if I'm just being dense.

vince

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Nov 3, 2020, 7:04:40 PM11/3/20

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It does indeed.

Your specific gravity 'is' perhaps a 'little' high today, but not really :-)

It is definitely a bit of a slog for the initial learning curve until you get your feet wet and realize you're probably over-thinking just like everybody else does initially.

Look at the CheetahGenerator section for how it works for defining what is processed when and how.
Then re-re-re-re-read Tags therein for how to specify things in a template file.
If you look in the Tags section there is even an example index.html.tmpl file that's very close to what you're looking to do.

A totally minimalist index.html.tmpl file would look like:

<html>
<body>
<h1><center>$current.outTemp</center></h1>
</body>
</html>

It's really that simple. One tag in a minimalist HTML file.

Once you have that working hard-coded, up the ante and style it with CSS to set colors and font sizes to salt to taste for you, along the lines of the CSS example link I posted for you earlier.

One 'that' works, I'd *strongly* recommend packaging your custom skin as something the wee_extension installer can install. That way you will be able to easily rebuild your system and reinstall your custom skin in one command. It's a little more time investment, but generally worth it.

vince

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Nov 3, 2020, 7:58:48 PM11/3/20

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ok Rob - I cooked up a minimalist demo skin that is installable via the wee_extension installer that should do the right thing for you.

Grab it from https://github.com/vinceskahan/weewx-demo-skin and use wee_extension to install it. Instructions for that are at http://www.weewx.com/docs/utilities.htm#wee_extension_utility

Go appropriately wild :-)

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 8:49:54 PM11/3/20

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Thanks! I will check that out. I've got something started already, but I'm sure what you've pointed to will be helpful.

(Here's my initial take, to be tweaked upon mercilessly:

Er, that came out rather large. My apologies! (Must be my 4K screen ;-] )

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 3, 2020, 8:51:17 PM11/3/20

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(The image I pasted didn't work. Sorry. You're not missing much. I'll post something when I have a more-nearly finished product.)

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 4, 2020, 12:45:11 AM11/4/20

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I'm on my way; thanks again, Vince!

http://robcranfill.net/weather/Crandard/

(Based on "Standard", hence the name. :-) )

Sven Täveby

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Nov 7, 2020, 4:33:44 PM11/7/20

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Can You share that skin?

Exactly what I want (except maybe units).

/Sven

Rob Cranfill

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Nov 7, 2020, 6:30:05 PM11/7/20

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Sven, if you're addressing me, I've got it posted at

https://github.com/RobCranfill/Crandard

Does that work for you?

/rob

PS - I've gotten a little sidetracked from updating the code, because 1) I can see that I will indeed be able to do what I want with WeeWX, but 2) the hardware I was going to use to display it is proving to be a problem, so I'm re-thinking that. :-]

Sven Täveby

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Nov 8, 2020, 3:14:41 PM11/8/20

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Thx. Will check it out.

/Sven

Sven Täveby

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Dec 27, 2020, 10:17:27 AM12/27/20

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A big Thank You!
Made some changes and transladed to Swedish. Maybe I'll change the name to STandard? :-)

http://teff.se/v2/Crandard

Outdoor/indoor/max ut/min out/rain today/rain totalt last 7 days/last updated.

Looks great on my wall, using a Raspberry Pi touchscreen (and a BME280 sensor to report indoor temp to weewx on the master Pi.

Cheers

/Sven

Screenshot_2020-12-27_161629.jpg

Sven Täveby

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Dec 27, 2020, 10:23:32 AM12/27/20

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Also added autorefresh to web page...

/ST

Den söndag 27 december 2020 kl. 16:17:27 UTC+1 skrev Sven Täveby:

A big Thank You!
Made some changes and transladed to Swedish. Maybe I'll change the name to STandard? :-)
http://teff.se/v2/Crandard
Outdoor/indoor/max ut/min out/rain today/rain totalt last 7 days/last updated.

Looks great on my wall, using a Raspberry Pi touchscreen (and a BME280 sensor to report indoor temp to weewx on the master Pi).

Rob Cranfill

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Dec 27, 2020, 5:54:52 PM12/27/20

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I’m glad you found it useful! Thanks for letting me know. Yes, STandard would be quite appropriate. :-)

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Rob Cranfill

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Dec 27, 2020, 6:06:27 PM12/27/20

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I have pared it down it even more - perhaps too much. ;-) The wind alternates between current speed and recent (30 minute) max. (The stylesheet background/border needs to be fixed a bit.)

http://robcranfill.net/weather/Crandard/

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Rob Cranfill

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Dec 27, 2020, 8:27:14 PM12/27/20

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Altho, once again, my station is offline due to the dread WeeWX time sync issue....:-/

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