Weather widgets

From SpinetiX Support Wiki

Applies to Elementi 2016 and later.

Introduction

These data-driven widgets are useful for displaying the current weather or the forecast for up to 15 days. The weather information can be retrieved from various weather channels , such as: AccuWeather , Open Weather Map , World Weather Online , etc. The list of weather providers might change in time, as we add or remove some of them, so make sure you are always using the latest Elementi version and player firmware .

Most weather providers require a paid API key to use their services - this can be obtained after registering on their web site. SpinetiX offers at least one free-data, no-API-key-needed channel (named "default" starting with Elementi 2018 Update 3 ) - the data update frequency of such channels might be limited (currently at one hour); if you need a lower update rate, you should get an API key from one of the weather providers.

Getting started

Getting started is easy; download Elementi software, launch it and create away! Just follow the 4 quick steps below:

Get Elementi .
Open Elementi and on the main window, click on the "Widgets" tab within the Browse panel .
Scroll down and double-click on the "Weather" folder. Pick a widget.
Include that widget into your project and configure it .

Weather feed widgets

Elementi software comes with several weather widgets accessible from "Widgets" tab within the Browse panel of the Elementi GUI .

Current Weather

Displays the current weather conditions from the selected weather provider.
Horizontal Forecast and Vertical Forecast

Displays up to 15 days of weather forecast. The number of forecast days varies among weather providers.

Note:

These widgets can be used in multiscreen projects only if displayed on a single screen - if you need to span the widget over multiple screens, then use a data feed widget instead.

Configuration

Properties

Current Weather properties

Forecast Weather properties

The following properties, found under "Properties" tab, can be used to customize the widget:

Click on the

button ( it opens the Data Properties dialog for Weather data ). This let the user select the location (city name, country, ...) for which the weather should be displayed.

Locale

Select the locale used for displaying dates and numbers.

Delay per column/Delay per row (forecast only)

Enter the number of seconds to wait before displaying the next cell of the table.

Header (forecast only)

Customize header text using data placeholders (e.g.,


        [[location]]

)

Note:

To modify general properties of the widget, click on the

icon from the toolbar to open the "Document Properties" dialog .

Data source setup

The "Data Properties" dialog allows changing the following:

Channel

Select the weather provider .
Refresh

Specify the period after which the widget should automatically refresh the weather data; either select one of the provided options ("When document opens", ... , 24h) or enter a number, optionally followed by s (implicit), m or h . Using " When document opens " will refresh the data only when the widget is re-opened.
API Key

Enter the API key that you got after registering on the selected weather provider website; currently, only the default channel (your usage is included in our billing plan) and Yahoo! Weather can be used without an API key.
Location

To select the location for which the weather should be displayed, click on the "Change" button, enter the city name or part of it, and then click on "Search" button. In most cases, entering the country code after the city (e.g., "New York,US") would yield better results.
Days (forecast only)

Select the number of days of forecast to be shown. Note that some providers do not provide more than 5 days of forecast.
Units

Select between Metric or Us Customary unit to display temperature and other measurements.

Notes:

The weather data is automatically stored in the player local cache and the update frequency might be limited.
At any point, the data source configuration can be tested by clicking on the "Test..." button.
Searching for well-known cities, like New York, might yield results that are in different regions. If using OpenWeatherMap, you might want to search first on their website and find the nearest weather station based on Geo coordinates (you can check them on this map ).

Channels

The weather information can be retrieved from various weather channels:

Default

Added in Elementi 2018 Update 3 , this is a no-API-key weather channel that you can use for free; the channel subscription is being paid by SpinetiX. The data update frequency is currently limited at one hour.
AccuWeather

API key is required - see pricing .
OpenWeatherMap

API key is required - the pricing starts at $40 per month, but you can get a free API key which you can use with the "Current Weather" widget, but not with the forecast widgets.
World Weather Online

API key is required - the pricing starts at $5 per month, with 60-day trial offered for the Premium API key. Free API keys with limited calls & data are given upon request.
~~Yahoo! Weather~~ ( removed )
~~Weather Underground~~ ( removed )
~~Dark Sky~~ ( removed )

Layout

The data retrieved from the weather data source is displayed using a layout composed of text & media layers, each containing one or more data placeholders (e.g., [[location]], [[temp]] etc.), which are automatically filled out with data retrieved from the weather data source when the widget is running. The layout can be edited in Elementi from the Preview panel (mostly for design changes) and / or from the "Layers" tab in Edit panel (gives access to all the layer properties ).

Editing the weather layout

To edit the layout within the Preview panel , follow these steps:

Click once within the Preview panel to enter into "Edit mode". The widget is paused and the actual data are replaced by the fallback values (if any were defined) or the layer predefined content.
Click on a layer to select it. The layer predefined content is displayed - usually that contains only the data placeholder.
It is now possible to modify the position / size of the selected layer or remove it. If it's a text layer, it can also be edited.
Click the play button to resume the playback and display the actual weather data.

To edit the slide layout within the Edit panel , follow these steps:

Click the "Layers" tab to list all the layers composing the widget layout.
Click the button to open the " Layer Properties " dialog and edit that layer properties.
Click the "OK" button to apply the changes.

Icons

By default, the weather icons are loaded from the SpinetiX server, through a media layer set to [[href]] . Click the "Test" button when configuring the data source and you'll find within the results set a column named "icon" and one named "href" - the latter is composed of the path to icons location on SpinetiX server , the value from the icon column and the png file extension.

If you want to change the icons set, follow these steps:

Optionally, download the weather icon set and modify / replace the icons as you want.
Import the new / modified icons inside your project.
Open the weather widget and click the "Layers" tab.
Click the button of the [[href]] media layer.
Replace [[href]] with something like /icons/[[icon]].png .
Click the "OK" button to apply the changes.

Troubleshooting

Known issues

You get this message when publishing a project : Problem detected with target device. Widgets using channels will not work properly. Are you sure you want to continue?

This warning message about channel authorization is erroneously showed by Elementi 2018 Update 3 when publishing a project containing weather widgets onto a player - this warning has no consequences on the display of the widget data.

This got fixed in Elementi 2018 Update 4 .
Yahoo! Weather stopped working

Starting with Jan 3, 2019, Yahoo made important changes regarding the Yahoo Weather API : the previous end-points were retired and replaced by a new one, a new process for app whitelisting, and all requests and responses are now using the RSS format. As a consequence, the widgets configured to use Yahoo! Weather as provider stopped working for a while.

Our team implemented the new API, so Yahoo! Weather works again starting with Elementi 2018 Update 3 .
Multiscreen usage

These widgets can be used in multiscreen projects only if displayed on a single screen - if you need to span the widget over multiple screens, then use a data feed widget instead.

API deprecation

Yahoo! Weather

As announced on Yahoo Developer site , starting with June 1, 2021, the free Yahoo Weather API will be retired and will cease to function. Unfortunately, Yahoo will not be offering a replacement API, and there will be no paid alternative. This provider has been removed from the channel list starting with Elementi 2021 Update 6 .

Weather Underground

According to this announcement , all Weather Underground API keys stopped working on February 15, 2019, unless otherwise agreed upon with Weather Underground. This provider has been removed from the channel list .

Dark Sky

Dark Sky is no longer available as a weather provider, since Dark Sky no longer makes the data available. Projects using Dark Sky as provider for weather information are now transparently redirected to the default provider. This provider has been removed from the channel list starting with Elementi 2021 Update 8 .