Blue BuddyTopic: Adding in New Widgets - A Limited Solution
I have been playing a little bit with my Chumby One and Infocast 3.5 and found a way to have them display my Clock and Temperature widget continuously, as well as weather radar images on demand.
Essentially, my "solution" is based on the "Mixing Local Widgets into a Channel" section on the wiki (http://wiki.blueocty.com/index.php?titl … _a_channel).
The main difference is that rather than putting the profile.xml file on a USB drive, I stored it in the /mnt/storage directory on the C1 and I3.5. Here is a copy of my profile.xml file:
<profile>
<widget_instances>
<widget_instance id="1">
<name>Durham Radar</name>
<widget>
<name>Durham Radar</name>
<description>Loads single jpg from specified URL.</description>
<version>1.0</version>
<mode time="30" mode="timeout"/>
<access sendable="false" deleateable="false" access="private" virtualable="true"/>
<user username="ehertz"/>
<thumbnail href="file:////mnt/storage/Durham_Radar.jpg" contenttype="image/jpeg"/>
<movie href="file:////mnt/storage/Radar_Image.swf" contenttype="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>
</widget>
<access access="private"/>
<mode time="10" mode="timeout"/>
<widget_parameters>
<widget_parameter>
<name>PREVENT_CACHING</name>
<value>true</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>IMAGE_URL</name>
<value>http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/weather/doppler5000/2006/08/07/1001055/ice_2011_dd5k_durham_orange-640x480.jpg</value>
</widget_parameter>
</widget_parameters>
</widget_instance>
<widget_instance id="2">
<name>NC Radar</name>
<widget>
<name>NC Radar</name>
<description>Loads single jpg from specified URL.</description>
<version>1.0</version>
<mode time="30" mode="timeout"/>
<access sendable="false" deleateable="false" access="private" virtualable="true"/>
<user username="ehertz"/>
<thumbnail href="file:////mnt/storage/NC_Radar.jpg" contenttype="image/jpeg"/>
<movie href="file:////mnt/storage/Radar_Image.swf" contenttype="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>
</widget>
<access access="private"/>
<mode time="10" mode="timeout"/>
<widget_parameters>
<widget_parameter>
<name>PREVENT_CACHING</name>
<value>true</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>IMAGE_URL</name>
<value>http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/weather/doppler5000/2006/08/07/1001060/ice_2011_dd5k_central_nc-640x480.jpg</value>
</widget_parameter>
</widget_parameters>
</widget_instance>
<widget_instance id="3">
<name>Clock and Temperature</name>
<widget>
<name>Clock and Temperature</name>
<description>This is a digital clock and temperature indicator.</description>
<version>1.10</version>
<mode time="45" mode="timeout"/>
<access sendable="false" deleateable="false" access="private" virtualable="true"/>
<user username="ehertz"/>
<thumbnail href="file:////mnt/storage/ClockTemp.jpg" contenttype="image/jpeg"/>
<movie href="file:////mnt/storage/ClockTemp.swf" contenttype="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>
</widget>
<access access="private"/>
<mode time="10" mode="timeout"/>
<widget_parameters>
<widget_parameter>
<name>colorDateStr</name>
<value>#CC0000</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>colorTimeStr</name>
<value>#FFFF00</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>tempTypeStr</name>
<value>F</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>colorBackStr</name>
<value>#000000</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>locationStr</name>
<value>27713</value>
</widget_parameter>
<widget_parameter>
<name>colorTempStr</name>
<value>#66FF00</value>
</widget_parameter>
</widget_parameters>
</widget_instance>
</widget_instances>
</profile>This particular code adds three widgets to the channel being served by the new system: two weather radar images and a clock with temperature display. To make this work, I also added five additional files to the /mnt/storage directory:
Durham_Radar.jpg
NC_Radar.jpg
ClockTemp.jpg
Radar_Image.swf
ClockTemp.swf
I found that in order to look at one of the radar images, I could go to the Control Panel and then select the appropriate widget. It will then display.
To use the Clock and Temperature widget, I have pinned that to the display by clicking the Stay icon.
I use this alternative to the USB offline solution primarily because I have all of my Chumbys hardwired into my networks. I find that works much better for me to listen to streaming radio than the wireless capability built into the Chumby.
There are still a few unresolved issues:
- This solution does not work on the Chumby 8. I don't know why. I assume its firmware does not look in /mnt/storage for the profile.xml file. - It appears this functionality is part of the Chumby 8's firmware and can't be fixed.
- The widgets will not step through the display. In other words, once the Space Clock comes up, the Chumby stays on that forever. The other widgets do display in turn, if you start with a non-Space Clock widget.
- Youstreams does not work (yet). But I assume I can make this work in the same way with a little more effort on my part.
Obviously, this is not nearly as satisfactory as the system we had up until this week. But, at least it resolves one or two of my issues.
If someone else wants to try the same solution, as I am sure you already understand, you will need to make some adjustments in the parameter values included in the profile.xml file to reflect the image you want to display. You will also need copies of the swf files. Let me know if you want those.
