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Cumulus.ini (preserving history): Difference between revisions
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Cumulus.ini (preserving history) (view source)
Revision as of 07:20, 15 June 2021
, 07:20, 15 June 2021→Mark Crossley era
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[[Category:Configuration Files]] | [[Category:Configuration Files]] | ||
This page has been renamed to preserve the early history | This page has been renamed from "Cumulus.ini" to preserve the early history of that page. | ||
The information that was on this old Cumulus.ini page has been moved into separate pages for Cumulus 1, MX early releases, and MX latest releases. | |||
=History of this page= | =History of this page= | ||
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{| class="wikitable" border="1" | {| class="wikitable" border="1" | ||
|- | |- | ||
!style="width: | !style="width:400px" | Legacy Software 1.x.y releases | ||
!style="width:200px" | Beta builds of legacy software | !style="width:200px" | Beta builds of legacy software | ||
!style="width:200px" | Cumulus 2 alpha releases | !style="width:200px" | Cumulus 2 alpha releases | ||
!style="width: | !style="width:300px" | MX beta 3.0.0 | ||
|- | |- | ||
| This page was created for the legacy Cumulus 1 software (up to 1.9.4). If you look at the history tab of this page, user '''Shamrockspider''' created this page at 12:55 on 27 August 2009 for the purpose of '''Documenting the cumulus.ini file content and its function.''' | | This page was created for the legacy Cumulus 1 software (up to 1.9.4). If you look at the history tab of this page, user '''Shamrockspider''' created this page at 12:55 on 27 August 2009 for the purpose of '''Documenting the cumulus.ini file content and its function.''' | ||
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== Mark Crossley era== | == Mark Crossley era== | ||
* Cumulus.ini content has changed drastically, and therefore the documentation page called "Cumulus.ini" has also had to change drastically | |||
* There was a period when it was possible for one page to document both the legacy Cumulus 1.9.4 and all MX releases, but that has long gone. | |||
* | |||
{| class="wikitable" border="1" | {| class="wikitable" border="1" | ||
|- | |- | ||
!style="width: | !style="width:300px" | MX beta releases 3.0.0 to MX release 3.4.6 | ||
!style="width: | !style="width:250px" | MX releases 3.6.0 to 3.7.0 | ||
!style="width:400px" | MX releases 3.8.0 to 3.9.7 | |||
!style="width:200px" | MX releases 3.10.0 to 3.11.4 | !style="width:200px" | MX releases 3.10.0 to 3.11.4 | ||
!style="width: | !style="width:250px" | MX release 3.12.0 onwards | ||
|- | |- | ||
| | | | ||
* Until MX release 3.4.6, people using MX needed to refer to the page now called [[Cumulus.ini_(Cumulus_1)]], which was called "Cumulus.ini" at the time, and the beta page, [[Cumulus.ini_(Beta)]], as MX still used most of the parameters that the legacy software used and just a few new parameters. The latter still contained information from the last Cumulus 1 beta relating to Proxies section of Cumulus.ini, as that had not been finalised. | |||
* When Mark Crossley brought MX out of beta, he started adding new features to MX: | |||
** Some features represented functionality in the legacy software that MX had lacked, these used parameters that had been used for the legacy software | |||
** For other new features, like interfaces with new weather station types and new sensors, he created new parameters, and the beta page began to rival the legacy page in the number of parameters it covered | |||
* The information about MX on the beta page stayed there until April 2020 | |||
| | |||
* Release 3.6.0 was when the functionality of MX first started to exceed the functionality of the legacy software | |||
* Between April and June 2020, information on the beta page was slowly moved across to the main page, it took some time as it needed to be verified because as MX developed configuration file content was changing | |||
* Suddenly, a lot of people were migrating from the legacy software to MX | |||
* To help people migrating, from June 2020, all settings (for both the legacy software and MX) were covered on a single "Cumulus.ini" page | |||
* As people migrated, they could see on that single page clearly which parameters in their '''Cumulus.ini''' file were still valid, and what new parameters were needed when they migrated | |||
* For those using MX, the page was recording the new parameters that were being added to the file as MX developed | |||
* Now the history of all the changes at that time can be viewed on this page, as this was originally the page that once held that combined information. | |||
| | |||
* From release 3.8.0, the pace of change in MX was so fast, and the contributors to the Wiki so few, the page then called "Cumulus.ini" (with its previous content) stopped being maintained. | |||
*# The main problem was somebody needed to do a lot of research, and devote a lot of time, to track what the developer was changing. | |||
*# There was a second problem, it was clear that it was too complicated to use the same page to describe configuration for the legacy software, older MX releases, and the latest MX release | |||
* Consequently, the "Cumulus.ini" page had to change, and the first move meant accepting MX and the legacy software could not be documented any more on the same page | |||
** A new page was created [[Cumulus.ini_(Cumulus_1)]], and all the information specific to the legacy software was split off from this page | |||
* This still left the problem that this page, at that time called "Cumulus.ini", had information that related to a release that had been superseded | |||
** Another new page was created, [[Cumulus.ini (MX_3.0.0_to_3.7.0)]], and all the MX information was moved there. | |||
* Finally, this old "Cumulus.ini" paqe, with the attached history, but without any parameter information in the main page, was renamed to its current name, so it has preserved the history of the old page that had been split into two new pages, neither of which had the past history | |||
| | |||
* At release 3.10.0, the settings pages in the admin interface were given a significant makeover, and huge numbers of new settings were created, while many others became redundant | |||
* It was clear the old [[Cumulus.ini (MX_3.0.0_to_3.7.0)|MX "Cumulus.ini"]] page was badly designed for the way 3.10.0 operated | |||
* That old page was already out of date as it had not been updated for 3.8.0 changes | |||
* It became obvious it was easier to start a new page that would would be based around 3.10.0 MX release, but would incorporate changes from 3.8.0 onwards, and would ignore anything that was now redundant | |||
* The other change was a redesign of the page, so it focussed on explaining how to change the settings using the admin interface, rather than just documenting what each parameter in the file was used for | |||
| | |||
* As MX was developed, its settings pages were being redesigned, and so where you changed particular parameters in the file was modified making the documentation that already existed obsolete for people using latest release, but still valid for people who were using an older release. | |||
* As release 3.12.0 was planned to add many, many more parameters to the Cumulus.ini file, and the Settings pages get another redesign, it was decided the documenting of the changes in 3.8.0, 3.9.2, and 3.10.0 would be delayed until it became clearer what might change in 3.12.0 | |||
* The new [[Cumulus.ini]] page to cover all these recent releases was created in June 2021, a year after the last big change to a page with that name. | |||
|} | |||
=Original content of this page= | |||
==How this page used to be laid out, and why== | |||
For both [[Cumulus.ini_(Cumulus_1)|Cumulus 1]] and [[Cumulus.ini (MX_3.0.0_to_3.7.0)|early MX releases]], the content on this page was arranged assuming people were editing the file directly. | |||
Therefore, the file was described by working through the sections on the file, and explaining the parameters that could go in each section. | |||
* | |||
* | For the longer sections, parameters might be split into separate tables to make it easier. | ||
* | Before release 3.10.1, there were two types of parameters in Cumulus.ini. | ||
* | #"read-only" settings were made directly in the "Cumulus.ini" file, there was no way to adjust these parameters using the settings screens/pages | ||
#"read-write" settings could be changed in two ways, either by editing the file with Cumulus stopped, or by finding the parameter on a setting screen (for MX, these are in admin interface). | |||
:You will see in the two pages split off from this page ([[Cumulus.ini_(Cumulus_1)]] and [[Cumulus.ini (MX_3.0.0_to_3.7.0)]]), how the parameters had to identify themselves as read-only or read-write. | |||
==Why has this original "Cumulus.ini" page been renamed, cleared of old content, and made historic?== | |||
#One big change in 3.10.1 is that (almost) all settings are now made via the [[MX Administrative Interface|Admin interface]]. | |||
#*Therefore it makes no sense any more to organise this page how someone editing the file directly might want. | |||
#*The replacement [[Cumulus.ini]] page is now organised by how you change settings in the admin interface (i.e. similar to how settings have been explained in [[MX_Administrative_Interface#Changing_Settings]]). | |||
#Another change is that some of the settings that used to be made on the “Station Settings” page, are now made on different pages in that interface. | |||
#Yet another change is that what you pick in some settings can affect what settings are shown later on the admin interface page. | |||
#*You could say the settings pages have become intelligent. | |||
#*For example, when you select a weather station type it ensures only parameters that relate to that weather station type are shown. | |||
#*As another example, you can opt in or out of the default web site design, so that determines which parameters relating to web sites are shown. | |||
#A final change is that some parameters are grouped as “Advanced”, so that novices can avoid those. | |||
