New Belchertown v1.8
Lots of new options in this one!
Some changes in this release are potentially breaking changes, so make sure you read the release notes carefully!
⚠️ POTENTIALLY BREAKING CHANGES ⚠️
"Graphs" have been renamed to "charts" throughout the entire project
Before, there was a confusing mismatch: some options refer to "graphs," some to "charts." The language has been updated throughout the entire skin to refer to charts, since Highcharts refers to them that way, and technically not all of the charts in Belchertown are graphs.
That includes some options in weewx.conf. For now, the skin should emit warnings in the log and automatically switch the terminology, so users have time to find and update any settings. The most consequential change is that charts are now defined in charts.conf, not graphs.conf. At the moment, the skin will still check for a graphs.conf file and use it, but with a warning. Users are advised to rename graphs.conf to charts.conf right away to avoid issues in the future.
Earthquake updates
ReNaSS has been replaced by EMSC as the European earthquake source. EMSC uses ReNaSS as one of its data sources, but also has support for the rest of Europe, making it a better choice for users outside North America. If you have ReNaSS as a source, the logs will show a warning and the source will be set automatically, but make sure you update your config, since ReNaSS will officially be removed in the future.
This new source means that a magnitude limit can be set for all sources, not just GeoNet as before. The old geonet_mmi option, which only worked with GeoNet, has been removed. It's been replaced with earthquake_minmag, which sets a magnitude limit for all earthquake sources. This is a potentially breaking change, so make sure you update your config if you are using GeoNet!
aqiChart has been depreciated
There is no longer a special aqiChart observation. It's possible to get the exact same thing using the existing architecture, so to keep things simple, the "special" chart was removed. To get an AQI chart that looks exactly the same as before, use the following config:
[[exampleChart]]
title = AQI
type = gauge
[[[aqi]]]
name = AQI
rounded = 1
colors_enabled = 1
color1_position = 0
color1 = "#71bc3c"
color2_position = 51
color2 = "rgba(255,174,0,0.9)"
color3_position = 101
color3 = "rgba(255,127,0,1)"
color4_position = 151
color4 = "rgba(255,69,69,1)"
color5_position = 201
color5 = "#b16286"
color6_position = 301
color6 = "#cc241d"
yAxis_min = 0
yAxis_max = 500
The AQI category is still displayed, because the new AQI-handling code treats this as a unit.
NEW FEATURES
Records snapshot drop-down lists
The records snapshot section on the homepage now includes drop-down lists so users can change which time range they see without leaving the homepage.
New chart type: wind barb
This release adds support for a new type of chart, wind barb. An arrow represents the direction of the wind, and barbs represent the speed in knots. Each half-notch represents 5 knots, like so (from the NWS):
The simplest configuration gives a chart that plots wind speed and corresponding barbs:
[[exampleChart]]
title = Wind
[[[windBarb]]]
Note that because of crowding, Highcharts can't always display every single flag, so it will edit some out to save space. This will sometimes result in the barbs not showing the maximum wind speed (this chart shows a maximum wind speed of 26 mph = 22.6 kts, but the maximum barb shown is 15 kts, because Highcharts had to eliminate some barbs to save space). You can fix that by adjusting the aggregate_interval and type:
[[exampleChart]]
title = Wind
aggregate_interval = 2000
aggregate_type = max
[[[windBarb]]]
Now the barbs correctly show the maximum speed as two full notches (20-24 kts).
You can also choose if the wind barbs are calculated from wind speed or wind gusts by setting wind_obs. The default is wind speed.
[[exampleChart]]
title = Wind
aggregate_interval = 2000
aggregate_type = max
[[[windBarb]]]
wind_obs = windGust
You can combine wind speed and wind gusts into a single chart, like this:
[[exampleChart]]
title = Wind
aggregate_interval = 2000
aggregate_type = max
[[[windBarb]]]
wind_obs = windGust
[[[windSpeed]]]
Wind barb compass indicator option
Inspired by the wind barb graph, users can now choose to have a wind barb as the compass direction indicator on the main page. Two new options can be set in weewx.conf:
# Wind compass marker defaults
# wind_compass_marker = triangle, windbarb
# wind_compass_source = windSpeed, windGust
wind_compass_marker = "triangle"
wind_compass_source = "windSpeed"
When wind_compass_marker = "windbarb", the rotating triangle is replaced by a wind barb that updates with wind speed. Setting wind_compass_source = "windSpeed" means the barbs are calculated from wind gusts, otherwise the default is wind speed.
Bug fixes and improvements
- Languages: the skin now supports Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish. New languages can now be added easily through AI these days, so please let me know which other languages you would like the skin translated into. The goal is to have the skin work out of the box for almost any locale. As always, though, please open a pull request if you're a speaker and spot some poor translations!
- If a chart is not configured properly, the other charts snow show normally, instead of the entire thing crashing. A warning is inserted into the homepage so you can identify which chart is broken.
- Fix for missing current condition icons.
- AQI (plus other pollutants like ozone) is now automatically sourced from the forecast data when available, so you can use them as observations and graph them normally even if you don't have those observations in your database, as long as your forecast (either PirateWeather or Xweather) provides that data. UV index was also sourced from forecast data in previous betas, but that was leading to odd results like showing a UV index after sunset.