Webtags (preserving history): Difference between revisions

Webtags (preserving history) (view source)

Revision as of 09:01, 31 July 2021

3,017 bytes added , 09:01, 31 July 2021

m

no edit summary

Sfws

5,838

edits

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 If you are using a Oregon Scientific weather station, then you should read [[#Web tags mentioning (outside) temperature]] in the optional reading section.
+====Inconsistency of tag names====
+For both the legacy Cumulus and for MX, it is vital that you use tag names exactly as they are listed.  That would be easy had Steve Loft created a naming standard and stuck to it.  To be fair, when he first created tag names, Cumulus could only report current values and the summary for the day so far; Steve did not anticipate, back then, that later he would add extreme record monitoring. The legacy tag names for this month and this year were all introduced in a single release and they remain consistent apart from what MX added later!  However, they are not consistent with the naming of the all-time extremes introduced much earlier.
+This great inconsistency in the naming, gives rise to a problem as it very easy to spell a tag_name incorrectly (and I apologise if any such mistakes creep into the tables) as you naturally expect there to be a standard pattern.  Some tags are all lower-case, some are camel-case, and some start with a capital letter. Have a look yourself at just how much inconsistency is present in the names in the tables below.
+=====Inconsistency in use of "Y"=====
+The character "Y" has been selected to denote yesterday in tag names.  The inconsistency is where it appears.  In his oldest tag names (e.g. <#rfallY>, <#windrunY>, <#avgtempY>), Steve used this Y as a suffix. In newer tag names (e.g. <#Ybeaufort>, <#YSunshineHours>, <#Ychillhours>), Steve changed to using Y as a prefix.
+=====Consistency becomes inconsistency for this month and this year=====
+The legacy tag names for this year and this month were all introduced together by Steve in one release, with consistency in how they were named then, "Month" or "Year" was used as a prefix (this was after he had started using "Y" as a prefix for his new yesterday tag names) e.g. <#YearLongestDryPeriod>.
+The development of MX broke this consistency, as Mark adds "Year" as a suffix e.g. <#SunshineHoursYear>.
+=====Inconsistency in use of "T"=====
+I said above, that early versions of Cumulus only had tag names for current values and for today-so-far.  Therefore it could be assumed that <#beaufort>,  <#temp> and <#press> all represented current values while <#avgtemp> and <#rfall> represented today-so-far values just by looking at their names.
+The current value tag names could be used as the basic part of tag names with  "TH" and "TL" added as suffixes to represent daily highs and daily lows, (e.g. <#tempTH>, <#tempTL> and <#pressTH>, <#pressTL>), which made a lot of sense.
+But that naming convention was broken when the extreme <#Tbeaufort> used "T" as a prefix, not suffix, and did not include a "H". Continuing looking at today-so-far tag names, we discover a prefix "T" is not just used for values, it is also used for time-stamps e.g. <#TtempTH>.
+The use of "T" as a prefix for time-stamps continues in the tag names for all-time extreme records. However, when you look at time-stamps for extremes in this-year, the time-stamp denoting "T" is added as a suffix e.g. <#YearTempHT>.
 ====General Tip====
-''This sub-section applies to releases up to 3.11.4.'' (From 3.12.0, use the admin interface and Station settings → Common Options → Advanced options, to get to where you change this setting, instead of editing the file as described below).
+''This sub-section applies to releases up to 3.11.4.'' (From 3.12.0, use the admin interface and Program settings → General options, to get to where you change this setting, instead of editing the file as described below).
 The tag names available in the release/version/build you are using, can be listed (in Cumulus 1 or Cumulus MX) by adding the following line to [[Cumulus.ini#Section:_Station|Cumulus.ini]] in the [station] section...