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| Make/Model | Device Version | Connection Type |
| CQS/Weather Channel | N/A | Serial |
This driver allows you connect to The Weather Channel's XML data feed. This feed provides information on current conditions and future conditions forecasts. This driver will pull out basic condition information for the current day, and will extract four days worth of forecast data.
You must obtain a user id and license key from The Weather Channel to access this data feed. This information will be provided to the driver during installation. You can register for this information at:
At the end of the registration process (in which you will have to actively opt out of many advertisements), you will be e-mailed your information. Note that there are a number of restrictions involved in the use of this XML data feed, but they are really related to commercial use of the data. Use of the data within CQC is a bit ambiguous, since CQC does not use the data itself, and any use is your own person use, not commercial use.
So, we are taking the approach that, we will provide the driver. Your use of the data is between you and the Weather Channel, and you must get your own use id/license from them for your own use. If we can work out the issues with them, and get an official CQC user id/key that they will allow us to distribute, then we will do so. But, in the meantime, you must get your own.
You will be asked during driver installation for your 'postal code', which is used to query the data from the data feed. In the US this is just your standard 5 digit postal code. Outside the US, use the following procedure to figure out the code you should go to www.weather.com in your browser, and use the City Search feature. This will take you to a page for that city. If you then look at the URL in the address bar, it will have a code that will be the code you want to use. Here is an example for Brussels, Belgium:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/local/BEXX0005?from=search_city
The BEXX0005 code is the postal code number that you should enter.
You also indicate during installation whether you want standard or metric units. You can then expect that all values provided by the driver will be in the types of units you indicated.
The update times for data are restricted by agreement with The Weather Channel. Current conditions information is updated every 30 minute and forecast data every 2 hours.
This driver obviously requires that CQC be able to connect to The Weather Channel's XML server, so it must be able to make connections to the outside world, at least from the machine on which this driver is running, and external DNS services must be available so it can resolve the URL that provides the data source.
This section lists the fields that the driver makes available, their types, minimum and maximum values, etc...
Note that there are a set of current conditions fields, and a set of forecast fields. The forecast fields are in a consistent format of DayXWhatever, where X is the day from 1 to 4, and 'Whatever' represents the actual information in the field. Only one set are provided below, with X representing the day.
Name Type R/W Description/Limits CurAsOf String R A date/time stamp string which indicates the time at which the current conditions information was obtained. CurBaro Float R The current barometric pressure. CurBaroTrend String R A string that describes the current trending of the barometric pressure, such as 'falling', 'rising', etc... CurCondText String R A string of text that describes the current conditions, e.g. Cloudy, Sunny, Windy, etc... CurDewPoint Int R Indicates the current conditions dew point, as a numerical value. CurFeelsLike Card R What the current temperature 'feels like' when things like wind conditions and humidity are considered. CurHumidity Int R Indicates the current conditions humidity, as a numerical value. CurIcon Card R The current icon code, which can be used to display an image that represents the current condition. See the comments below. CurTemp Int R Indicates the current conditions temperature. CurVisibility Float R The current visibility as a distance, in the units selected during installation (i.e. miles or kilometers.) CurWindDir String R A string that describes the current wind direction, e.g. from the south west, from the north and so on. CurWindSpeed Card R The current wind speed in the unit type selected during installation, e..g mph or kph. ForecastAsOf String R A date/time stamp string which indicates the time at which the forecast information was obtained. DayXCondTextD String R A string of text that describes the daytime conditions for the indicated day. DayXCondTextN String R A string of text that describes the nighttime conditions for the indicated day. DayXHigh Int R The expected high temperature for the indicated day. DayXIconD Card R The icon code for the daytime portion of the indicated day. DayXIconN Card R The icon code for the nighttime portion of the indicated day. DayXLow Int R The expected low for the indicated day. DayXStamp String R A time stamp string that indicates the day/month and day of week of the indicated day. There is a specialized user interface widget which can be associated with the 'icon' fields of this driver. The Weather Channel Image widget will look at the icon field value and display the appropriate image.
Note that forecast info for the day time part of the current day will go away after 2pm due to the way the XML feed is generated. So that data becomes 'not applicable' in the XML stream. This causes the following things to happen:
The icon will be set the value 48 (one more than the maximum legal icon code.) The specialized widget discussed above will stop displaying an icon.
Numerical values will all go to 999, which you can use to cause them not to display or use Xlats to map them to "Not Applicable" or whatever other way you wish to deal with this.