Weather Providers and Locations

Weather Providers and Locations

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Step Action Result
Select Weather Provider Choose your preferred weather provider. Providers.jpg
Weather content and images may vary by provider. Some weather providers require an API key. If required, you must contact these providers directly to request a key.
Search Weather Location You can select up to 20 Current Weather Locations to be displayed on the page. SearchingLocations.jpg
Search Results The results appear in the drop down so when you click the Add button, the results will display.

Results.jpg
To add a new location:

  • Type the name of the city in the Search Weather Location text box. Cities matching the search criteria are displayed in the Search Results list.
  • Select the desired city from the Search Results drop down list.
  • Click Add.

To change the order in which locations are displayed on the page:

  • Check the box at the end of the weather location row to select it.
  • Click Up or Down to move the location in the display list.
  • To remove a weather location:
  • Check the box at the end of the weather location row to select it.
  • Click Remove.

To customize the display name for a location:

  • Enter a custom display name in the Display Name box.
  • Leave this box blank to accept the default display name.

To display the weather in Celsius and/or Fahrenheit

  • Select the appropriate check box (C or F) for each location. Selecting both boxes will display both temperature formats.
  • The temperature display will default to Fahrenheit if no option is selected.

To add a hyperlink to the location:

  • Enter a URL in the Link box. This URL will be opened in a new browser window when you click on the location name.
  • Leave this box blank to default to a Bing Maps view of the location.

To add an RSS feed to a location:

  • Enter an RSS feed location in the RSS Feeds box. RSS feed contents will be displayed when you click the RSS Feeds icon (Icon-RSS).
  • For more information about how to enter RSS feeds, click here or click the RSS Feeds column name.
Weather Preferences

Select the Show Weather checkbox to display current weather data.

  • Choose a Detailed forecast time period to be displayed when you click on the Detailed Forecast icon

  • Select the Show Country/Province checkbox to display the location name for the selected location.

showResults.jpgIn the example here, we are displaying the weather in diverse locations across the globe. Since Europe and Asia use the Celsius measurement for temperatures, we are displaying temperatures in Celsius for those countries while showing temperatures in Fahrenheit for locations in the US. We also show the country and province for the location in this example.

Special Effects for World Clock and Weather

Special Effects for World Clock and Weather

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World Clock and Weather has two special effects that you can select: Rain or Snow.

Step Action Result
1. You can customize the density of the effect using the scroll bar.

HW17_SpecialEffectsWPP.jpg

NOTE: Enabling these effects will consume additional CPU resources on the client machine.

2. You can also display a holiday greeting message by entering text in the Show holiday message box. The message will scroll once across the Web Part after the page is loaded. HW17_HolidayMessage.jpg

Show Upcoming Events in World Clock and Weather

Show Upcoming Events in World Clock and Weather

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To display a link to the next five events in a SharePoint Calendar list at the top of the web part:

Step Action Result
1. Check the Show Upcoming Events box. HW17_LocalEventsWPP.jpg
2. Enter the URL for the site that contains the events calendar, and click the green arrow to retrieve the Calendar lists from that site.
3. Select the events calendar from the drop-down list.
4. Select a list view from which to show events.
5. To change the display name for the Upcoming Events link in the web part, enter new text. HW17_LocalEventsLink.jpg

Show Weather

Show Weather

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BambooWCW.jpg One of the great features in World Clock and Weather is the flexibility you have in showing weather, forecasts, locations, and/or date/time in the web part display. In this example, Bamboo is showing weather across six areas of the globe and we are also showing the date and time as well as the Country and/or Province for which the weather and date and time are being displayed. For globally diverse enterprises, this is such a useful way to let your users know at a glance the time and weather in another office of your company.

Breakdown.jpgEach section of the weather has characteristics that can be set based on your preferences. We’ve enlarged one location’s weather to show the areas that you can configure.

Step Action Result
1. Show Weather: Click to set the checkmark on this box which will now display an icon representing the current weather in that location.
ShowWeather.jpg
2. Detailed forecast in: Other than None, you also have a choice of forecasts for two, three or five days.
Forecasts.jpg
When you choose to show the forecasts, a plus symbol displays on the upper right of the location which will then provide the mechanism to see more days of weather based on your number of days in the forecast.
3. Show Country/Province: Check this box to display the city and state or province.
4. Show Date and Time: The date and time for that location will display based on the format you select next.
5. Date and Time Formats: Because there are a variety of ways to display time, Bamboo provides a variety of choices in how you prefer to show the date and time in the web part.
TimeFormats.jpg
6. Update date and time every minute This does not appear in the web part; it is a setting on the tool pane you can configure. Just remember that it will use up server resources to update the web part every minute.
7. Cache Weather Data This setting allows you to cache recently pulled weather data to reduce calls and speed up display of data when the same location is called again.

Show Clocks in World Clock and Weather

Show Clocks in World Clock and Weather

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Step Action Result
1. In order to display the clock, you must first uncheck the Show Weather checkbox. Now, you can select the Show Clocks checkbox to display current local time data.
HW17_ClockWPP.jpg
2. Select the digital or analog clock. Customize the clock style using the Select Skins drop-down list.
3. Check Hide seconds display on digital clock if you only want to display hours and minutes.
4. Clocks are displayed using JavaScript by default. If you want to display the clock using Silverlight technology, check the Use Silverlight check box.
5. Users must have the Silverlight client installed in order to view the clock. HW17_Clocks.jpg
Clocks displayed using Silverlight will use an additional 10-20% of the available CPU resources to perform real-time updates. The JavaScript client will use fewer CPU resources.

Location Arrangements & Text Styles for World Clock and Weather

Location Arrangements & Text Styles for World Clock and Weather

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Location Arrangements
HW17_LocationArrangementsWPP.jpg Step Action Result
1. Size

Select Medium or Small from the Size drop-down list.

  • Medium images measure 96×64.
  • Small images measure 36×36.
2. Orientation Select Horizontal or Vertical from the Orientation drop-down list. This option will arrange multiple locations in a row (horizontal) or in a column (vertical).
3. Alignment Select Right, Center or Left from the Alignment drop-down list. This option will align the icons within the Web Part zone.
4. Maximum locations to display per row Select the maximum number of locations that you want to display per row, using the drop-down list.
5. Enable Scroll If you select the Enable scroll checkbox, the maximum number of images will be displayed with scrollbars instead of in multiple rows.
Text Styles
Format the Location, Temperature, and Date/Time text by clicking on the icon to display the Text Formatting dialog box.
HW17_TextStylesWPP.jpg

FontDialog.jpg
Font Dialog: The Font dialog box appears with six combo boxes of a simple style, a group box that contains the font label, a combo box of a drop down font style, and a size box for the font size. Below these combo boxes are more style boxes to generate foreground and background colors as well as more font styles such as superscript or all uppercase fonts.

The box below is a preview box so that when you click apply, you can see how your choices will look before you commit them. Click OK when you are finished formatting the text.

Location Borders
Define the color of the border line around each location. Select the color or provide a hexadecimal value for the color of the border around each location.

Add RSS feed links to a World Clock and Weather Web Part location

Add RSS feed links to a World Clock and Weather Web Part location

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These instructions apply to World Clock and Weather 2.3 and higher. This article contains the following topics:

Adding an RSS feed for a World Clock and Weather location

001.jpgStarting with World Clock and Weather version 2.3, locations can be configured with connections to RSS feeds. If a location is configured with an RSS feed, the RSS feed icon is displayed on the web part’s location image, as shown here.

To add an RSS feed to a location, configure the Web Part properties:
  1. To modify the web part properties, select Edit (or Modify) Web Part from the drop-down menu of the World Clock and Weather configuration tool pane.
  2. Enter the RSS feed URL in the RSS Feeds column for the location.
  3. Click OK to save changes and close the Web Part properties.
  4. To view the results of the RSS feed, click the RSS feed icon displayed on the location image.

002.jpg

Finding RSS feed URLs

RSS feed URLs are specific to the content provider, and are not provided by Bamboo. Here are some tips for finding RSS feeds:

  • Many web sites offer RSS feeds. For example, Bamboo offers an RSS feed for Bamboo Nation content. CNN offers RSS feeds for several news sections. If a web site or content provider offers an RSS feed, it is usually indicated somewhere on the web site, with a link labeled “RSS”, “XML”, or the RSS icon. Icon-RSS

  • Click the link or icon for more information, which may include the RSS feed URL. For example: Clicking the RSS icon in the “Latest News” section of the Bamboo Store main page will take you directly to the RSS feed URL for Bamboo Nation (http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/MainFeed.aspx). You can copy this URL into the RSS Feeds column in World Clock and Weather.

003a.jpg003.jpg

  • If an RSS feed is available for the content on a specific web site, most current browsers indicate this by displaying the RSS icon somewhere in the browser navigation or menu bar. Click the RSS icon for more information. In most cases, clicking the RSS icon will take you to the RSS feed URL, which you can copy into the World Clock and Weather RSS Feeds column. The example below is from the CNN site.

005.jpg006.jpg

If you are having problems finding an RSS feed URL, please contact the content provider for assistance. Bamboo Support will not be able to help you with specific RSS feed problems.

Authenticated RSS Feeds

  • Authenticated RSS feeds are RSS feeds that require a username and password. In most cases, these types of feeds are not supported by World Clock and Weather (or even by most common RSS readers, including the ones included with many popular browsers). The only exception is for feeds that allow the username and password to be included in the URL. For example: https://USER:PASS@site.com/rss.xml. If the RSS feed is a SharePoint RSS feed that requires authentication, it will probably not work in World Clock and Weather.

If you are having problems connecting to an RSS feed that requires a username and password, please contact your content provider. Bamboo Support will not be able to help you with specific RSS feed authentication problems.

Connecting to RSS feeds from an HTTPS environment

  • If your SharePoint server uses HTTPS, you may encounter problems with non-HTTPS RSS feeds. For example: If your RSS feed returns text and images, the text may display fine but the images are broken. This is because the images are most likely links to HTTP (not HTTPS) locations. The server will not return non-HTTPS data.

    If you encounter problems with non-HTTPS RSS feeds in an HTTPS SharePoint environment, please contact your content provider for assistance. Bamboo Support will not be able to help you with specific RSS feed problems in an HTTPS environment.

Slow RSS feed response times

  • When you click on the RSS feed icon, the web part will attempt to retrieve the RSS data using the RSS feed URL you configured in the web part properties. Response time is determined by the response time for the specific RSS source, not by World Clock and Weather. If response time is slow, check the configured RSS feed. If you get the message “No news from this feed”, it may mean that your RSS feed URL is not configured correctly, or that the site requires additional authentication that is not supported by the World Clock and Weather (see above).

Please contact the content provider for assistance with RSS feed response times. Bamboo Support will not be able to help you with specific RSS feed problems.