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Zara Radio temperature announcement


Wayne K

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On 3/6/2018 at 3:02 PM, k6ccc said:

OK, that statement confused me.  How are you getting audio from the show computer to the show (speakers and/or FM transmitter)?  I understand checking on your show from a remote location with TeamViewer (I largely switched from VNC to TeamViewer this year), but the audio is delayed enough it would not work for your show.

 

Hi k6.  I am not playing the show through Teamviewer.   I agree that would delay the audio.  I am simply usingTeamviewer to connect to the show computer in the garage and download any changes or updates from my development laptop to the show computer.  And sometimes I connect to the show computer to start or stop the show if I need to.

I don't need speakers on the show computer because all of my testing is on my development laptop.  I simply connect the FM transmitter to the audio out of the show computer.  And if I want to hear the music playing on the show computer, I hear it on my laptop via Teamviewer.   Yea it is slightly delayed, but I don't care since I just want to know if it is working without getting up and turning on the radio.    Hope that clears up the confusion.

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Hi Kevin & All,

I've released version 2.0 of my WeatherConditions console application.  This new version utilizes a template file for defining the style and layout of the output file.  So it should be able to create output files that will work for just about any application needed.  I've included sample template files for both the free version of Zara as well as a file that matches the spec Kevin listed for ZaraStudio v3.0.9.  For any WeatherConditions v1.0 users, please note that the WeatherConditions.xml file has been updated with a new parameter node called TemplateFile that holds the file name of the template file you wish to use.

You can download a copy of the new program/files via the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2ykc2gw719du1mm/AAB4GDgp1CJZjc3spfs5U8uQa?dl=0

Standard disclaimers apply (use at your own risk, minimal testing, blah, blah, blah.....)

Please let me know if you have any problems/errors with it and I will try to resolve them.

Joel

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Joel,

I've had to restart WeatherCondition2 on two occasions this week. Is there someplace where I could look on Windows 10 to see what occurred?

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On 11/28/2017 at 12:52 PM, Richard Hamilton said:

Yo Bill, just curious what version of Windows you are running ZaraRadio on?  I have used it for many years, but recently had to update my computer and came with Windows 10.  ZR 1.6.2 does not seem to run on my windows 10.  I'll probably post this info elsewhere as well to see if there is a solution.

Sorry, I don't get on this forum much.
I am using Zara on 2 different computers running Windows 10 with no problems!  I bought a lifetime subscription to the program from Mike. It installed and ran fine on both machines.

 
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Edited by beeiilll
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21 hours ago, Kevin Crutchfield said:

I looked at Events on applications and didn't see any for the app. So its a mystery. 

Hi Keven,

The only other place you might look would be the System Event Log, but I doubt there would be anything their either.  I'm assuming it didn't display any error messages on the console screen?  It's built to be pretty fault tolerant so that if it does run into an error it just recycles until the next wait time is over.  It may be getting stuck on the web call to get the weather data but even that should time out eventually.

Let me know if it keeps happening and I'll create a version with debug messages so that we can run it down.

Joel 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Joel,

As a follow up, I think the issue is resolved. It was human error. No one will confess but when I explained the app was running all the time and if you click on it don't close it. Its been running fine since.

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  • 7 months later...

Hi All,

I've just released version 3.0 of my WeatherConditions console application for getting current weather data for use in other programs (such as Zara).  You can download it from here:

Weather Conditions 3.0

I updated some of the error handing to be more fault tolerant if the results from the api call don't contain all of the expected information.

Please start using this version and let me know if you have any problems with it.

 

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16 minutes ago, jfuller8400 said:

Hi All,

I've just released version 3.0 of my WeatherConditions console application for getting current weather data for use in other programs (such as Zara).  You can download it from here:

Weather Conditions 3.0

I updated some of the error handing to be more fault tolerant if the results from the api call don't contain all of the expected information.

Please start using this version and let me know if you have any problems with it.

 

That's cool.  I've been using Weather Watcher Live for the past few years.   If you are familiar with that software, can you tell me how Weather Conditions 3.0 is different?  thanks

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Joel,

First off let me thank you for the solution to my weather problem.  I was using a some coding last season that was very clunky, it kinda worked but would fault out quite often.  I found this thread back in march and it solved my problem beautifully.  By the way it is working perfectly on windows 7 fyi.  this weekend I moved me show computer to the basement for the season and found that the weather wasn't updating. I couldn't figure out what the problem was the error had something to do with writing to the output file or something of that nature.  Anyway I found you newest release and that fixed my problem.  so after 2 hours of scratching my head a simple update fixed everything.  Thanks again for you work, the solution is awesome!!

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22 hours ago, Richard Hamilton said:

That's cool.  I've been using Weather Watcher Live for the past few years.   If you are familiar with that software, can you tell me how Weather Conditions 3.0 is different?  thanks

I used to use the free version of Weather Watcher myself but when they went to a paid model I decided I didn't want to pay for a full year when I only use it for a couple of months.  So instead I wrote my own console application to get the same basic info and put it into a format for Zara to use.  WWL has a great graphical interface and is far more pretty than mine.  If you're already using it, I wouldn't switch to mine unless you didn't want to pay the annual fee.

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9 hours ago, Greg said:

Joel,

First off let me thank you for the solution to my weather problem.  I was using a some coding last season that was very clunky, it kinda worked but would fault out quite often.  I found this thread back in march and it solved my problem beautifully.  By the way it is working perfectly on windows 7 fyi.  this weekend I moved me show computer to the basement for the season and found that the weather wasn't updating. I couldn't figure out what the problem was the error had something to do with writing to the output file or something of that nature.  Anyway I found you newest release and that fixed my problem.  so after 2 hours of scratching my head a simple update fixed everything.  Thanks again for you work, the solution is awesome!!

Hi Greg - I'm glad to know it's working for you.  I had just noticed the same thing on mine as well.  I think something just recently changed in the results from the call to OpenWeatherMap api but the new error handling seems to take care of it.  Let me know if you have any problems as I'm happy to help.

Joel

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  • 1 month later...

I never gave it a thought until a month or so ago. I have had my own Davis weather station on my main computer for several years. After digging around and getting into the template files and some examples and instructions in the weather station folder, and setting up a file sharing to my Christmas computer, I was able to produce the data needed for Zara to use. So I am using the temperature and humidity data from my weather station in Zara. Thanks everyone for the previous help.

Wayne

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On 12/22/2018 at 11:13 AM, Wayne K said:

I never gave it a thought until a month or so ago. I have had my own Davis weather station on my main computer for several years. After digging around and getting into the template files and some examples and instructions in the weather station folder, and setting up a file sharing to my Christmas computer, I was able to produce the data needed for Zara to use. So I am using the temperature and humidity data from my weather station in Zara. Thanks everyone for the previous help.

Wayne

A question just I understand what you are doing.  You are running ZaraRadio to perform this announcement task when your show is NOT running?  Right?

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3 hours ago, Richard Hamilton said:

A question just I understand what you are doing.  You are running ZaraRadio to perform this announcement task when your show is NOT running?  Right?

Yes, I run static display 45 minutes prior to the main show and 1 hour after the show and I have zara playing music and the time and temp and humidity every 5 or 6 songs during this static show.

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On 12/29/2018 at 11:49 AM, Wayne K said:

Yes, I run static display 45 minutes prior to the main show and 1 hour after the show and I have zara playing music and the time and temp and humidity every 5 or 6 songs during this static show.

Ah, ok.  Similar to what I do.  And during the day, I have it play other Christmas music until the show starts.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/19/2018 at 2:43 PM, jfuller8400 said:

I used to use the free version of Weather Watcher myself but when they went to a paid model I decided I didn't want to pay for a full year when I only use it for a couple of months.  So instead I wrote my own console application to get the same basic info and put it into a format for Zara to use.  WWL has a great graphical interface and is far more pretty than mine.  If you're already using it, I wouldn't switch to mine unless you didn't want to pay the annual fee.

I am a bit slow getting back on some threads, but since the holidays are over......   Joel, that's a nice little program you have.   Several years ago I paid for the one time fee for lifetime use of Zara, and it has been working great for during the day when my show is not running, otherwise I think you have a cool solution.

On a similar note to what you are doing, I wrote a small Windows program for announcing time and weather information from within LOR.   At the start of each show I call my program by using the "command line" feature inside LOR.  The program announces the time, temperature, weather condition and wind (in any combination I prefer) and then closes.  I pull the information from the WWL text file in the same way that Zara does.  And yes, if anyone wants it, I'll be glad to provide access.

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  • 1 year later...

So, I'm having an issue again. The last time this happened was a month or so ago. Joel's little app wasn't getting the required information back and when I looked at the output I'm getting the same thing. The last time (a month ago) it cleared up on its own. Here is what the output says. I'm suspecting its the weather source. Anyone else getting the same result from Zara 3 using Joel's Weather Condition 3.0?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-19 at 4.40.25 PM.png

Edited by Kevin Crutchfield
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Is there anyway to input a Lat and Lon info instead of the ZipCode?  This would be very helpful for us in Canada because it doesn't seem to work with our postal code system.

Thanks!

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