Category:Cumulus MX: Difference between revisions

This article was originally comparatively short, as it gets longer I have moved some parts out. You may have suggestions for what else can be moved out of this article into separate articles?

*When this article was first created in 2017, Cumulus 1 was still recommended for most users.

*It had extensive help screens built into the package, it had an installation package, and produced a main screen when it was running that summarised the weather and gave access to all the settings and editors.

*In 2017, Cumulus 3 also known as MX, was experimental and it had limited functionality, much less that was available in Cumulus 1.

*Even now in 2020, there are many, many more people using Cumulus 1 than are using MX.

* During 2020 much extra functionality has been added to MX, and MX is now able to persuade Cumulus 1 to make the swap to MX.

*Steve Loft who wrote and developed Cumulus 1 and MX, no longer offers any support.  

*The source code for Cumulus 1 is not available, and it was developed using a coding environment that is no longer available.

*Consequently, Cumulus 1 functionality can not be changed, and without knowledge of how it was written, there is no ongoing support, just the experience of those who have used it, or are still using it.

It would be wrong not to say here - '''MX is still not bug free, there is a lot more to correct as well as all the enhancements to cope with new weather station hardware'''.

=== Cross-reference to [[What to do when I have a problem with MX]] ===

The text that was here has been moved to a separate article, that makes it more accessible, please see [[What to do when I have a problem with MX|What to do when I have a problem with MX article]]

=== Cross reference to issues relating to Cumulus on devices running Windows, including [[Moving from Cumulus 1 to MX]] ===

This has also been moved to a separate article, so those not interested don't need to read it.

Please note that the same article [[Moving from Cumulus 1 to MX|Issues re Cumulus 1 and MX]], covers a lot of information about installing Cumulus MX on Windows; as well as issues when moving from Cumulus 1 to MX.

A new FAQ for MX has been started at [[Cumulus_MX_FAQ|another page]].

Many MX specific questions, such as those related to installation are now covered by the updated text on this "Cumulus MX" page.

The [[MX Issues|Cumulus MX Known Issues]] article is based on [https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=12943 Steve Loft's forum post], but there has been an attempt to update the contents. Anyone willing to check it and do a further update?

Because If you are doing an update you don't want to read a long article, this topic has an article to itself, reached from link in heading for this section.

Cumulus MX initiates a web server, to do this it may need administrative access, consequently to avoid having to run MX as an administrator you can issue a command that allows all users to bind to port 8998 which is the web server it initiates (this is used for the Cumulus MX user interface). Note that if you plan to change the interface port by using the port parameter in your launch of MX, you should change the 8998 to whatever port you are planning on using. To enter the command, first open a command window as administrator. One way to do this is to right click the windows symbol at the start of the windows task bar. The option to choose there (on windows 10) is '''Windows PowerShell (admin)''', but an option called '''Command Prompt (Administrator)''' will also work. Once that opens a new window type:

You only need to do that once. After than you can initiate MX from any user, you don't need to run as administrator.

Talking about command windows, if you want to check that the port is open for listening (when MX is running, the port is used for the administrative interface) type <tt>netstat -an | findstr 8998</tt> into the command window.

After you have done this you can run CumulusMX.exe normally without Administrator rights and therefore you can create a short-cut to run MX when your PC starts (put your user name where I have put ...), the shortcut should point to T:\CumulusMX\CumulusMX.exe (where T is used here only to denote the drive on which you have installed MX as it does not need to be the same as where your operating system is):

With this you might want to right click on that shortcut, select properties, then you can set the starting position for the command window, the colours and font it will use, and even choose to start minimised, amongst many other selections.

There are 3 ways on Windows to create a way to run MX, you can't just click on the executable in file manager, because Windows needs to be told the path for loading all the related .dll files.

You can also add  '''CumulusMX.exe -debug''' (to have full debugging turned on as MX starts), '''CumulusMX.exe -Logging=1''' (for the Davis specific logging).  

Cumulus MX uses library software for a lot of the standard functionality. The library software is largely included in the distribution zip.

#*Alpaca software is effectively a programming language extension to help people design forms like those MX uses for all its settings, and as a Cumulus user you really don't need to worry about it.

#*It is used for most settings screens. See http://www.alpacajs.org/ for more information. The latest version there is 1.5.27 released on 14 May 2019.

#* MX uses Alpaca Release 1.1.3 from https://github.com/gitana/alpaca which was on 15 May 2014, although some individual components have been updated on that github, and others.

#'''Bootstrap'''

#*Also known by some as ''Twitter Bootstrap'' which gives a clue as to its origins as an internal tool for those building Twitter, that company still keep making updates as it is now the most popular styling library of all those available widely.

#*The simplest way to think about this package is as a standard set of styling promoting easy responsive (means adapts to screen dimensions) web site design.

#*To give just a few examples, it defines a standard way to represent buttons, form components, lists, navigation, and breadcrumbs.

#*MX uses Bootstrap v3.3.7 (http://getbootstrap.com), which is very restricted in what it offers compared to the current Bootstrap version 4.5.0 (Bootstrap 4 released as alpha in August 2015, beta in August 2017, and with fully working releases frequently from January 2018 has been very widely praised for its improved functionality, and ability to work with latest jQuery and multiple modern devices/browsers).   

#*MX does not implement colouring text according to what it represents (primary, secondary, information, warning etc.), nor does MX obey modern HTML standards as it makes no provision for screen readers and other accessibility aids.

#'''dataTables'''

#*When MX sends out multiple lines of a log file to view or edit, the application programming interface (api) that transfers the information from the MX engine sends it in dataTables format for display on the web page in the admin interface.

#*Thus dataTables does all the work of providing the ability to move between multiple pages needed to allow MX to just send 10 lines of a log file at a time to the admin interface.

#*The free version of dataTables used by MX lacks the most useful functionality that needs a subscription licence. For example, editing functionality requires a subscription.

#*This is an editing tool that can read what is in dataTables, create what it calls a modal (a pop-up dialog) where rows can be added, edited or deleted individually.

#** MX when it added editing of log files at version 3.4.5 - Build 3069 (Friday 13 March 2020) adopted this software as it was free (although Mark Crossley said in his release notice: "The main thrust of this release is to add some log file editing capability to Cumulus MX. It works on all three log file types, but it is fairly basic at present. You can edit or delete lines in the files.  The editing has to be done via pop-up dialog. I only found two libraries that support JQuery dataTables editing, one is very comprehensive - but costs $$$ - the other is free.  The free version does not currently support in-line editing of the table which is a shame.  If any web guru out there can come up with a better solution please post about it on the forum, or send a pull request."

#**The single line of fields that is result of an edit or deletion done on the modal is sent back via another api to the server (the MX engine in our case) and that then regenerates the dataTables in the state after whatever action was done, sending back again up to 10 lines for the same page as before.

#*As it happens there is another JQuery dataTables editing tool, but it has not been maintained since 2012. It is found at https://github.com/NicolasCARPi/jquery_jeditable, but the documentation is now only available in an archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200615000000*/https://appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable.  It is designed for editing table cells, so it does not involve any pop-up dialog.

#'''datepicker'''

#*Although modern browsers generally will generate a calendar type interface when they meet an entry field defined as a date, this date picker software ensures all MX users see exactly the same interface for date selection needed for both the standard log and the extra sensors log which are monthly log files (a new one is created each month). It is used for picking which standard (monthly) log or extra (monthly) log is to be viewed by selecting a month and year only.

#*It is also used for selecting individual days in the weather diary editor.

#'''editable grid'''

#*As the name perhaps suggests MX only uses this for the extra web files screens where you can make selections within a grid like interface.

#*I suspect it could enhance some other functionality in the future.

#'''handlebars'''

#*Put simply this is a simple HTML generator based on templates.

#*I have not found any file in the admin interface actually using this, but I am scared to delete it just in case it stops something working.

#*The admin interface uses version 1.9.1 of this javaSript based library. At the time of typing this, the current jQuery is version 3.5.1.

#*Of all the old versions of jQuery, only one version, 1.9.1, has a serious error in its code, because it tries to load another script that does not match, and therefore the authors of jQuery strongly advise all 1.9.1 users to move to a later version.

#*Unfortunately, there are interdependencies between all the library code used by MX, so you cannot simply update this component.

#'''SteelSeries'''

#*MX uses a hacked version of the [[SteelSeries Gauges|steel series]] library described elsewhere for all the gauges (see dashboard and gauges tabs) in MX.