Weather Dial

I would like to have realtime weather dials that show the weather conditions at my home. I've been looking for something open source, but all I can find are "graphs". Graphs are good for historical data and will be part of the final site, but I really want animated dials for a realtime display. I can not find anything opensource. All the tools that I've found are not open source. So I'm off on a journey to learn dhtml and ajax techniques...

Javascript Based

This whole section should probably move to an AJAX page

Java Frameworks

Direct Web Remoting - Easy AJAX for Java; has both client and server push; server push is ideal for updating the dials

Basic dhtml and ajax examples

• AJAX Getting Started - Best, thorough introductiory example
• Your First AJAX Application
  • Source Code
• Javascript Tutorials - Lots of tutorials but rather annoying adds
• Javascript GIF Animation Example - moves the same GIF
• 80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding

Javascript Debugging

Probably need to move this to a Javascript page at some point

• Insert watch points: javascript:alert("Made it to here");
• Debugging Javascript programs - Good techniques with sample object inspector code

Advanced dhtml and ajax examples

• Javascript Development - Assumes a good understanding of XHTML/CSS
  • Prerequisites for this is understanding of the DOM, understanding of basic CSS, and understanding of modern web development or design paradigms
  • Author's Blog - has lots of articles
• Dynamic Images Tutorial - Zooming images w/ great multi-browser support
• script.aculo.us - Good visual effects examples
• monzilla development center / AJAX

Google Gadgets

• Tutorial
• World Clocks - Example code
• World Clocks - Example code

WPF/E - Silverlight

Microsoft's latest experiment in web graphics. Let's see if they try to screw all the other browser makers like every other time they've created a "cross platform" environment; otherwise this might end up a decent alternative to flash or javascript based graphics.

Implementation

Conceptual Goal Version 1

• Back end datastore on server

Server based backend application updating a datastore (e.g. file or database) with weather information. One of the parameters in the datastore should be the update interval so that the client can know how often to poll.

• Web server serving javascript enabled pages

Client javascripts requests a PHP based page that reads the datastore and returns information an XML structure

• Javascript based client that polls datastore and updates the screen

Basic weather dial page renders all the graphics statically (jpgs) minus the dial pointers. The the javascript application polls the server rendering the dial pointers for each update.

First Application Psudo Code, etc.

Concentrate on the hard part... Get the user interface graphics working first by building just a wind speed and direction indicator. This will be a simple dial for the direction N/S/E/W with two digital indicators for speed in the middle (average / gust).

• Back end datastore on server

Create a cron job that updaes a faked XML file containing the direction, instant speed, gust speed, and update rate.

• Web server serving javascript enabled pages

Create javascript container page that renders the dial; imbed the script in the page for now; will probabily create a library eventually. Create a winddial.jpg and a dialpointer_black.jpg

• Javascript based client that polls datastore and updates the screen

Page that renders just the one dial then updates the dial based on the update rate in the XML file.