Weather widgets

Applies to Elementi 2016 and later.

Introduction

These data-driven widgets are useful for displaying the current weather or the forecast for up to 15 days. The weather information can be retrieved from various weather channels, such as: AccuWeather, Open Weather Map, World Weather Online, etc. The list of weather providers might change in time, as we add or remove some of them, so make sure you are always using the latest Elementi version and player firmware.

Most weather providers require a paid API key to use their services - this can be obtained after registering on their website. SpinetiX offers at least one free-data, no-API-key-needed channel (named "default" starting with Elementi 2018 Update 3) - the data update frequency of such channels might be limited (currently at one hour); if you need a lower update rate, you should get an API key from one of the weather providers.

Getting started

Click the "Projects" tab in the Browse panel.
Create a new Elementi project or open an existing one.
The project's main index file is opened by default. If needed, open the file that should contain the widget.
Click the "Widgets" tab in the Browse panel to find all the collections of widgets included with your Elementi version/type.
Elementi 2025 X widgets
Double-click the "Weather" collection and find the widgets delivered with Elementi.
Weather widgets
Select the widget that best fits how you want to present the data.
Drag that widget from the Browse panel and drop it into the Edit panel (or the Preview panel) to create a new media layer within the opened document. The built-in widget is automatically copied into your project files.
Double-click the widget's layer in the Edit panel to find its properties.
Configure the widget's properties and layout to display your data.

Included in Elementi

Elementi software comes with several weather widgets accessible from "Widgets" tab within the Browse panel:

Widget	Description
Icon of the “Current Weather” widget of Elementi. Current Weather	Displays the current weather conditions from the selected location.
Icon of the “Forecast” widget of Elementi. Forecast	Displays the weather forecast for the selected location using a table layout with a configurable number of rows and columns.
Icon of the “Horizontal Forecast” widget of Elementi. Horizontal Forecast	Displays the weather forecast for the selected location using a horizontal table layout.
Icon of the “Vertical Forecast” widget of Elementi. Vertical Forecast	Displays the weather forecast for the selected location using a vertical table layout.

Elementi 2023 enhancements

The weather widgets were updated in Elementi 2023, as follows:

Added the “Forecast” widget, with a table-like layout and configurable number of rows and columns.
The look of all weather widgets has been updated to use ARYA-style icons for the weather conditions, and their default location is set to Geneva, Switzerland.

The “Current Weather” widget shows min/max temperatures, beside the current temperature value.
All forecast widgets have a new option to skip the current day from the forecast, to facilitate combining them with the “Current Weather” widget.

Configuration

Widget properties

The weather widgets provide some customization options under the "Properties" tab.

The following properties apply to all widgets:

Data
Click on the button (it opens the Data Properties dialog for Weather data). This let the user select the location (city name, country, ...) for which the weather should be displayed.
Locale
Select the locale used for displaying dates and numbers.
Color
Select the color of the weather icon shape.

The forecast widgets have some additional properties:

From
Select “Today” or “Tomorrow” to include or skip the current day data from the forecast.
Header
Customize header text using data placeholders (e.g., [[location]])

Delay per column / Delay per row / Delay per cell
Enter the number of seconds to wait before displaying the next cell of the table.
Number of rows / columns
Enter the number of rows and columns. Applies to “Forecast” widget only.

Note:

To modify the format, duration, or background color of the widget, click on the

icon from the toolbar to open the "Document Properties" dialog.

Data source setup

The "Data Properties" dialog allows changing the following:

Service/Channel
Select the weather provider.
Refresh
Specify the period after which the widget should automatically refresh the weather data; either select one of the provided options ("When document opens", ... , 24h) or enter a number, optionally followed by s (implicit), m or h. Using "When document opens" will refresh the data only when the widget is re-opened.
API Key
Enter the API key that you got after registering on the selected weather provider website; currently, only the default channel (your usage is included in our billing plan) and Yahoo! Weather can be used without an API key.
Location
To select the location for which the weather should be displayed, click on the "Change" button, enter the city name or part of it, and then click on "Search" button. In most cases, entering the country code after the city (e.g., "New York,US") would yield better results.
Days (forecast only)
Select the number of days of forecast to be shown. Although the number of forecast days can be configured as high as 15 days, the support varies among weather providers; for instance, the default data provider offered freely by SpinetiX is limited to only the next four days.
Units
Select between Metric or Us Customary unit to display temperature and other measurements.

Notes:

The weather data is automatically stored in the player local cache and the update frequency might be limited.
At any point, the data source configuration can be tested by clicking on the "Test..." button.
Searching for well-known cities, like New York, might yield results that are in different regions. If using OpenWeatherMap, you might want to search first on their website and find the nearest weather station based on Geo coordinates (you can check them on this map).

Channels

The weather information can be retrieved from various weather channels:

Default
Added in Elementi 2018 Update 3, this is a no-API-key weather channel that you can use for free; the channel subscription is being paid by SpinetiX. The data update frequency is currently limited at one hour.
AccuWeather
API key is required - see pricing.
OpenWeatherMap
API key is required - the pricing starts at $40 per month, but you can get a free API key which you can use with the "Current Weather" widget, but not with the forecast widgets.
World Weather Online
API key is required - the pricing starts at $5 per month, with 60-day trial offered for the Premium API key. Free API keys with limited calls & data are given upon request.
~~Yahoo! Weather~~ (removed)
~~Weather Underground~~ (removed)
~~Dark Sky~~ (removed)

Layout

The data retrieved from the weather data source is displayed using a layout composed of text & media layers, each containing one or more data placeholders (e.g., [[location]], [[temp]] etc.), which are automatically filled out with data retrieved from the weather data source when the widget is running. The layout can be edited in Elementi from the Preview panel (mostly for design changes) and / or from the "Layers" tab in Edit panel (gives access to all the layer properties).

To edit the layout within the Preview panel, follow these steps:

Click once within the Preview panel to enter into "Edit mode". The widget is paused and the actual data are replaced by the fallback values (if any were defined) or the layer predefined content.
Click on a layer to select it. The layer predefined content is displayed - usually that contains only the data placeholder.
It is now possible to modify the position / size of the selected layer or remove it. If it's a text layer, it can also be edited.
Click the play button to resume the playback and display the actual weather data.

To edit the slide layout within the Edit panel, follow these steps:

Click the "Layers" tab to list all the layers composing the widget layout.
Click the button to open the "Layer Properties" dialog and edit that layer properties.
Click the "OK" button to apply the changes.

Icons

By default, the weather icons are loaded from the SpinetiX server, through a media layer set to [[href]]. Click the "Test" button when configuring the data source and you'll find within the results set a column named "icon" and one named "href" - the latter is composed of the path to icons location on SpinetiX server, the value from the icon column and the png file extension.

If you want to change the icons set, follow these steps:

Optionally, download the weather icon set and modify / replace the icons as you want.
Import the new / modified icons inside your project.
Open the weather widget and click the "Layers" tab.
Click the button of the [[href]] media layer.
Replace [[href]] with something like /icons/[[icon]].png.
Click the "OK" button to apply the changes.

Troubleshooting

Known issues

You get this message when publishing a project: Problem detected with target device. Widgets using channels will not work properly. Are you sure you want to continue?
This warning message about channel authorization is erroneously showed by Elementi 2018 Update 3 when publishing a project containing weather widgets onto a player - this warning has no consequences on the display of the widget data.

This got fixed in Elementi 2018 Update 4.
Yahoo! Weather stopped working
Starting with Jan 3, 2019, Yahoo made important changes regarding the Yahoo Weather API: the previous end-points were retired and replaced by a new one, a new process for app whitelisting, and all requests and responses are now using the RSS format. As a consequence, the widgets configured to use Yahoo! Weather as provider stopped working for a while.

Our team implemented the new API, so Yahoo! Weather works again starting with Elementi 2018 Update 3.
Multiscreen usage
These widgets can be used in multiscreen projects only if displayed on a single screen - if you need to span the widget over multiple screens, then use a data feed widget instead.

API deprecation

Yahoo! Weather

As announced on Yahoo Developer site, starting with June 1, 2021, the free Yahoo Weather API will be retired and will cease to function. Unfortunately, Yahoo will not be offering a replacement API, and there will be no paid alternative. This provider has been removed from the channel list starting with Elementi 2021 Update 6.

Weather Underground

According to this announcement, all Weather Underground API keys stopped working on February 15, 2019, unless otherwise agreed upon with Weather Underground. This provider has been removed from the channel list.

Dark Sky

Dark Sky is no longer available as a weather provider, since Dark Sky no longer makes the data available. Projects using Dark Sky as provider for weather information are now transparently redirected to the default provider. This provider has been removed from the channel list starting with Elementi 2021 Update 8.