METEOTEMPLATE N E W S L E T T E R LAST WEEK METEOTEMPLATE.COM WEBPAGE UNDERWENT A COMPLETE REDESIGN THAT

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Donald Atkins
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1 04 Jul 2016 METEOTEMPLATE N E W S L E T T E R LAST WEEK METEOTEMPLATE.COM WEBPAGE UNDERWENT A COMPLETE REDESIGN THAT WILL HOPEFULLY NOT JUST LOOK BETTER, BUT ALSO BE EASIER TO USE, APART FROM THE DIFFERENT DESIGN THERE IS NOW A MUCH BETTER WIKI. END OF LAST WEEK THEN MEANT UNEXPECTED UPDATE OF MANY PAGES AND PLUGINS, INCLUDING A RELEASE OF IMMEDIATE BUG FIX, DUE TO CHANGES IN THE GOOGLE MAPS API. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THOSE OF YOU WHO KINDLY SENT ME THEIR FEEDBACK FOR THE TEMPLATE AND YOU CAN FIND YOUR COMMENTS IN THE REFERENCES SECTION ON THE NEW METEOTEMPLATE.COM HOMEPAGE.

2 N E W W EB JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

NEW WEBSITE Last week a COMPLETELY REDESIGNED WEB WAS MADE PUBLIC. However, the change does not include just a NEW DESIGN, but also some completely REWORKED SECTIONS. Meteotemplate.

3 NEW WEBSITE Last week a COMPLETELY REDESIGNED WEB WAS MADE PUBLIC. However, the change does not include just a NEW DESIGN, but also some completely REWORKED SECTIONS. Meteotemplate.com was originally created as my personal website and since I quite like dark tones, dark themes etc., that is also how I made that page. I never would imagine that in less than a year there will be close to 200 users and that the traffic to the site will increase over 100 times. I came to the conclusion that the page should get some MORE PROFESSIONAL AND CLEANER LOOKING APPEARANCE and being a fan of the Google s so-called material design, I created my own version of it and implemented it to all the pages. The sections in the menu remained the same, the most important change in terms of content is a BRAND NEW WIKI. Before I talk about that, here is just a brief summary of some of the new/changed things. One of the new things you will find on basically all pages is that I included a little SUBMENU ON THE LEFT, where you can quickly jump from one section of the page to the next. This replaced the originally quite long pages. For example, in the Downloads section, there is now a menu on the left, where you can quickly jump from the main template download to updates, bug fixes or menu.php download. This layout makes it much cleaner and also EASIER AND FASTER TO NAVIGATE. Same menu is now also included in the Blocks section, Plugins section, Extras, FAQs, Translations and Users. It basically replaces the original subheadings on the pages. Blocks section remained pretty much the same, just like the Plugins. The only one thing you might now find easier is getting information about the individual plugins. Instead of opening a new site, the documentation for each opens directly on that page in a DIALOG WINDOW JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

4 One more change I made is in the Users section, where the USER MAP IS NOW FULL- SCREEN. There is now quite a few of you so this larger map makes it better to see all the markers at once JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

5 Now I finally get to the NEW WIKI. In terms of the design, it nicely fits to the rest of the site. It is now MUCH EASIER TO NAVIGATE THROUGH AND SEE EXACTLY WHERE TO GO NEXT, what part of the Wiki you are currently in and go back if anything is not doing what it should. The wiki is now divided into NINE SECTIONS, which can be directly accessed from the MENU ON THE LEFT. These GUIDE YOU STEP-BY-STEP THROUGH THE PROCESS OF INSTALLATION AND SETUP. In the text you will find DIRECT LINKS TO DEFINITIONS of some basic terms, that will show up in a little dialog box directly on the page. I also included MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS of some things, which you can open by clicking a link in the text. This way the wiki is easy to follow for less experienced users, while those of you who need/want more information can simply display more if they want to. On the right then you see another NAVIGATION PANEL. This panel shows you where exactly you are currently on that page. It is a clickable numbered outline of all the headings and subheadings on that page and when you scroll it will follow you and highlight the current section you are viewing. Of course you can also click particular link and the page will auto slide to that section. In terms of content I added some things and also UPDATED THE TEXT to reflect the most recent changes. In the original Wiki there were still parts of text that were no longer relevant because they were changed in the newest version and so only causing confusion. At this point I would like to thank in particular to Alrik for helping me with proof-reading and tweaking the text JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

Let me know if you find any of the parts still confusing or feel that it should be changed.

6 The actual text is of course ACCOMPANIED BY EXAMPLES AND SCREENSHOTS of how to proceed and set up everything. Let me know if you find any of the parts still confusing or feel that it should be changed. Otherwise I hope this will make it easier especially for new users to set up the template from scratch or for existing users as a reference JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

C U R R E N T C O N D I T I O N S U.S. A new block last week was the CURRENT CONDITIONS UNITED STATES block. This block allows you to choose a combination of UNLIMITED NUMBER OF U.S. CITIES and then display their CURRENT WEATHER CONDITIONS in the block.

7 C U R R E N T C O N D I T I O N S U.S. A new block last week was the CURRENT CONDITIONS UNITED STATES block. This block allows you to choose a combination of UNLIMITED NUMBER OF U.S. CITIES and then display their CURRENT WEATHER CONDITIONS in the block. This includes for example the temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, current conditions including an icon, dew point etc. The information is taken from the METAR reports. Data is cached and you can specify the cache interval as well as specify the maximum age of the report to still be displayed. B U G F I X E S P A C K A G E A N D P L U G I N U P D A T E S One unexpected CHANGE IN GOOGLE MAPS API meant I had to quickly prepare a BUG FIXES PACKAGE and UPDATE OVER 60 PAGES of the template. On Jun 22 nd, Google changed the way you authenticate yourself in the Google Maps API. THE ORIGINAL ANONYMOUS AUTHENTICATION NO LONGER WORKS FOR NEW USERS AND FOR EXISTING USERS WILL ONLY WORK FOR ANOTHER 90 DAYS, after which you must update your code to include also an API key. EXISTING USERS if you have installed Meteotemplate prior to June 22 nd 2016, your maps will work for another 90 days. I released a bug fixes package, which you do not really need because it is likely that before the 90 days elapse, I will come up with a new version of the template, which will have this implemented already. However, you can of course use it to update your site and most importantly, you will need to update the plugins, which are updated separately from the actual template. During the process of updating you will need to get an API key for Google maps and instructions where and how to do it have been added to the Wiki. The Bug Fixes package 7.1 includes a readme file with information how to apply the patch. USERS WHO INSTALLED THE TEMPLATE AFTER JUNE 22ND 2016 your maps will not be working unless you get an API key for Google Maps. Instructions where and how to do it have been added to the Wiki JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

8 PLUGINS THAT NEED TO BE UPDATED (i.e. will stop working after 3 months for everyone, so if you have these working right now, there is no need to rush, but sooner or later you will need to update them or the maps will stop working): usextremes 1.1 earthquakes 2.2 disasters 2.2 cityconditions 2.2 usermap 1.2 countrydetail 1.1 climateus 1.1 climatecanada 1.1 isstracker 1.2 winddirection 1.1 marine 2.1 Mostly the update only consists of the fix for Google Maps, in a few cases there are also some minor bug fixes. Q /A A N D C O M M E N T S I RECEIVE MANY QUESTIONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE RELATED TO PARTICULAR WEBSITE OR PROBLEM, SOME OF WHICH, HOWEVER, ARE MORE GENERAL AND ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION COULD POTENTIALLY BE INTERESTING TO OTHER USERS AS WELL. THESE ARE THE KIND OF QUESTIONS I WILL ALSO INCLUDE HERE FOR THOSE INTERESTED. IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN QUESTIONS, YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO SEND IT TO ME AND I WILL REPLY TO YOU BY AND IF I THINK IT WOULD BE WORTH INCLUDING IT HERE, AND OF COURSE GIVEN YOUR PERMISSION, I WILL ALSO PROVIDE THE ANSWER IN THIS NEWSLETTER SECTION. SAME GOES FOR COMMENTS AND GENERAL FEEDBACK. Q: Hello, can I use free webhosting for your template? A: Hi, theoretically there is no difference between a paid and free webhosting. However, most of the times, the free webhosting tends to be very limited in terms of supported features, webspace and bandwidth. The most important thing for you to check is support for PHP 5.3 or higher and support for MySQL database. In my experience the free webhosting also tends to be very slow. Remember that Meteotemplate is not a simple page, free webhosting is ideal for a very simple blog page or personal page with a few images and written mostly in pure HTML. Q: Can I also contribute to the Newsletter? A: Yes of course, and I would only encourage you to do so! JACHYMCZ@GMAIL.COM

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