Subject: Re: PurpleAir Graph Problem
Your images are being generated. They just aren't being linked into the page.
Look at your own log. At 08:25 the FTP generator uploaded daypurpleair.png,
weekpurpleair.png and monthpurpleair.png (items 3, 13 and 14 in the upload
list). Nothing is wrong with your ImageGenerator stanza. Browse directly to
daypurpleair.png on your site and I expect you'll see a perfectly good plot.
The reason it doesn't appear on index.html is the auto-provisioning feature of
the parameterized Seasons skin. For each plot group, index.html.tmpl does
something like this:
#for obs in $getobs($plot_name)
#if $recent.check_for_data($obs)
#set $show_plot = 1
check_for_data uses the report's default binding, which is wx_binding, i.e.
weewx.sdb. Your pm2_5_cf_1 lives in purpleair.sdb, so the check comes back
false, show_plot is never set, and no img tag is emitted. Tom described exactly
this on weewx-user a while back and opened issue #803 to track it: there is
currently no way to tell the auto-provisioning logic to look at a different
database.
The workaround is Tom's: edit index.html.tmpl and change that test to
#if $recent.check_for_data($obs) or $plot_group == "purpleair"
Same edit in statistics.html.tmpl if you want it there too.
One other thing while you're in there: you have purpleair in plot_groups and
year in periods, but there is no [[[yearpurpleair]]] stanza under
[[year_images]]. The Year button will point at a file that never gets built.
On the data_binding placement, it doesn't matter. In your email you had it
under [[[[pm2_5_cf_1]]]] and in the skin.conf you sent it's under
[[[daypurpleair]]]. Both work, because options accumulate downward from the
plot to the line. The plot-level form is what the extension's readme shows.
As to your actual question: with the bakerkj weewx-purpleair extension the
separate database isn't optional. That extension writes to its own database by
design, and its schema uses fields like pm2_5_cf_1, pm2_5_atm and pm10_0_cf_1,
none of which exist in wview_extended. wview_extended has only pm1_0, pm2_5 and
pm10_0. That mismatch is also precisely why Seasons can't auto-provision the
plot for you.
Which brings me to a guess about your vacation-home setup. The fact that you
remember no separate database, and that a graph appeared automagically,
strongly suggests you were running a different extension then - perhaps my
weewx-purple extension, which populates the pm1_0, pm2_5 and pm10_0 columns in the main
archive. Once the data is in those columns, Seasons finds it and puts the plot
up with no configuration from you at all. That would explain both of your
memories exactly.
So you have a choice. Patch the template as above and stay where you are, or
switch extensions and get the old behavior back. Two things to weigh if you
switch: the history already in purpleair.sdb would be stranded, and
weewx-purple stores the EPA-corrected PM2.5 rather than the raw pm2_5_cf_1
you're displaying now, so your numbers will shift a bit.
John
