Support

Weather

The Yahoo! Weather RSS feed for any city can be shown as an HTML page using an XML file and an XSLT stylesheet. These files ship on all NTBs made since V4.3.0 in June 2006.

Requirements

The NTB must be successfully subscribed to the Yahoo! Weather newsfeed for the city in question.
The newsfeed must be named "Yahoo Weather" (case sensitive)
The newsfeed must be playlisted in at least one Layout on the NTB.
There must be a file named "Weather.xml" and a folder named "Weather_files" in the "media/Weather" folder.

How to Change the City

Browse to Yahoo! Weather at http://weather.yahoo.com.
Locate your Country, State and City and view the forecast for your city.
Get the four-letter, four digit code for your city from the address bar in the browser. London, for example, is "UKXX0085" and Boston, MA is "USMA0046".
Browse to the "Yahoo Weather" newsfeed in the "Newsfeeds" on the NTB
Replace the existing city code in the URL for the feed with the new one.
Click the "Update" button for the newsfeed.

How to Switch Between Celsius and Fahrenheit

Browse to the "Yahoo Weather" newsfeed in the "Newsfeeds" on the NTB
Change the last letter in the URL from "c" to "f" or vice versa.
Click the "Update" button for the newsfeed.

How to Create the Yahoo Weather Newsfeed

Browse to Yahoo! Weather at http://weather.yahoo.com.
Locate your Country, State and City and view the forecast for your city.
Click the "C" or "F" to get temperatures in Celsius or Farenheit.
Click the orange "RSS" button to view the newsfeed for your city.
Copy the entire URL as it appears in the address bar of your browser.
Browse to the "Newsfeed Manager" on the NTB.
Create a new newsfeed named "Yahoo Weather" (exactly) and paste the URL in.
Set the refresh interval to 1 hour.
Click the "Add" button to add this newsfeed to the system.
Check the message to make sure the NTB was able to access the feed.

How PlayList the Yahoo Weather Newsfeed

Unfortunately the newsfeeds do not read well as scrolling text. Degree symbols, for example, are not included in the text.

Edit the Playlist of a Zone that can accept HTML and Scrolling text in the desired Layout.
In the PlayList (yellow-shaded) section, click all "Remove item" buttons that may be there to empty the PlayList.
In the Special Items (pink-shaded) section, locate the "Yahoo Weather" newsfeed.
Click the "Add" button to add the Yahoo Weather newsfeed to the playlist.
In the PlayList section, click the "Edit" button for the Yahoo Weather newsfeed.
Set the speed to 0 and the duration to 5 seconds.
Remove the tick from the "Description" box.
Click the "Apply" button.
In the Folders (blue-shaded) section, locate the folder "media/Weather".
In the Files (green-shaded) section, locate the file "Weather.xml".
Click the "Add" button to add "Weather.xml" to the playlist.
In the PlayList section, click the "Edit" button for "Weather.xml".
Set the duration to one hour (or more).
Click the "Apply" button.
In the "Layout Manager" page, click the "Activate Diary and Layouts" button to make the changes live.

How To Change the Appearance of the Weather Page

The weather page is an RSS newsfeed converted to HTML by an XSLT stylesheet.

The stylesheet is located in the "media/Weather/Weather_files" folder. Feel free to download it, modify it for your own purposes and re-upload it.

It will require some skill in XSLT stylesheets to modify the file. People with HTML only experience should, however, find it intuitive after reading the file.

Troubleshooterer

No text appeared in the weather zone.	Ensure that the NTB has internet access and that the Yahoo Weather newsfeed URL is correct.
The weather data shows "n/a"	You have probably subscribed to the URL for a small town. Try using a bigger city nearby.

Connecting Live Sensors

It is possible to connect sensors (temp, wind speed, etc) and to show these data on the display.

You need software running on another PC to read the data from the instruments and to publish the data in a web page or RSS newsfeed on a server. You then get the NTB to show the web-page or show the newsfeed. You can buy IP temperature sensors that publish the temperature as an XML feed. See www.papouch.com