How to Format Your Weather Discussion for the Web Interface

Note: all uses of YYYYMMDD below represent the year, month, and date of your weather discussion.

  1. Familiarize yourself with the Weather Discussion page: /data/wxdisc.cgi.

    This may provide all of the weather data you need in your discussion and you can then skip the rest of this information.

  2. Select and Load the SAMPLE discussion under the "Other Links" section.

    Note the use of You may wish to add all of these features to your discussion. See below for the methods used in each of these.

  3. Edit the ~wxdisc/YYYYMMDD/links.html file for your discussion date.

    Your original ~wxdisc/YYYYMMDD/links.html file will look like this: 
    ##
## NOTE: this file is not accessed directly, but is read by
## http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/viewer.cgi
## as called by the Weather Discussion Page: /data/wxdisc.cgi
## and is added to the dynamic Web page that the viewer.cgi script
## generates.  Use standard HTML, but you may also add comments if the
## line starts with '#'.
##
## Start each new link line with "<LI> " to keep it looking nice.
##
## Questions should be referred to David Ovens (ovens@atmos, 5-8108).
##
##
## Leave this link alone.
<A HREF=/data/wxdisc.cgi><IMG SRC=/icons/back.png ALT=Back>Back to Weather
Discussion Main Page</A>
<p>
##
## EDIT BELOW HERE, REMOVE COMMENT CHARACTERS '##' BEFORE <LI> TO DISPLAY.
<h2>Additional Links for Today's Discussion</h2>

<ul>
See Item 1. below
##
## A SAMPLE LINK:
##<LI> <A HREF='http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/SREF/SREF.html'> NCEP Short Range Ensemble Page </A>

See Item 2. below
## A SAMPLE LOOP. For each loop, create a subdirectory of 
##  /home/disk/funnel/atmos/data/wxdisc/YYYYMMDD (where YYYYMMDD is the 
##  date of your discussion) for all images to be looped. 
##<LI> <A HREF='/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?/home/disk/funnel/atmos/data/wxdisc/sample/2003123012fcsts+all'>Long Range Forecasts of Snow Storm</A>

</ul>

##
## The viewer.cgi program automatically displays any
## image files in this directory below this portion of the
## html page.
See Item 3. below
SAMPLE SLIDE SHOW IMAGES:
    As launched from the "Load" button on the Weather Discussion Page this displays like the SAMPLE.

    Adding Links, Loops, and Slide Show Images


    Item 1. Additional Links You Want Accessible:

    1. As in the sample links page above found in your directory as links.html, your links will be added using standard HTML in the <LI> tags.

    Item 2. Multiple Images You Want to Loop:

    1. Create subdirectories for each image type in ~wxdisc/YYYYMMDD and copy your images into that directory. The looper can handle multiple image types, but needs the size of the image in pixels to be the same. If you have permission problems, contact David Ovens (ovens@atmos.washington.edu).
    2. As in the sample links page above found in your directory as links.html, your links will be added as <LI> items.
      For example, say you create a subdirectory called shradar, put lots of *.gif files in there, and want to create a link called "Rain Shadow Base Reflectivity Loop" that will loop them in the browser. Here's the syntax for a discussion given on 20031118:
      <LI><A HREF='/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?~wxdisc/20031118/shradar+all'>Rain Shadow Base Reflectivity Loop </A>

    Item 3. Single Images Viewable in Slide Show Format:

    1. Simply copy images into ~wxdisc/YYYYMMDD and they will be AUTOMATICALLY displayed on the page with thumbnail links and sorted in alphanumeric order. If you have a different sorting order in mind, you should prepend XX to the file names where XX = 00 - 99. Again, note the SAMPLE.

  4. Examples


  5. Bookkeeping:

    David Ovens will attempt to change permissions on the ~wxdisc/YYYYMMDD directories a week after the discussion. If you wish to go back and change things after that time, contact him for permission.