The bbweather Handbook: Usage

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### 3. Usage

To use bbweather, you will need to know the station-ID of a weather-station to grab the information from. You can find out which stations are near you at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/siteloc.shtml. Note that you will need the 4-letter code and not the 5-digit code.
Once you determined the proper station, you need to run the perl-script "GrabWeather" with that ID as the first command-line parameter. Since you probably want to stay updated on the weather conditions, you might consider adding an entry to your crontab:
`

    0 * * * * /path/to/GrabWeather StationID

`
This will create a directory called ".wmWeatherReports" in your $HOME in which it will place the data-files. You can then run bbweather:
`

    bbweather StationID

`
If you prefer celsius over fahrenheit, pass the "-m" or the "--metric" option:
`

    bbweather -m StationID

`
If you left-click on bbweather, it will display detailed weather information in an xmessage much like wmWeather.
If you specify the `-c` or the `--cycle` option, bbweather will cycle through the first four items in the list below. Per default, it only shows Temperature and Humidity. To cycle through ALL items, pass the `-x` or the `--extra` option. When in extra-cycle-mode, the following information is displayed in a one-minute interval:

1. T: Temperature H: Humidity
2. W: Wind speed and direction
3. V: Visibility
4. General Conditions
5. P: Pressure
6. DP: Dew Point
7. As of: Time Data collected
8. In: location

Additionally, cycling can be toggled at any time by middle-clicking on bbweather. Alternatively, you can cycle through the information by hand by right-clicking on bbweather unless the information to be displayed is too long to fit into the window, in which case it will be scrolled until the current cycle is over.
Per default, bbweather starts in the top-left corner of your screen. If you prefer another location, you can either change the configuration-file (/usr/local/share/bbtools/bbweather.conf) or pass the geometry as a command-line option.
Per default, bbweather displays the time the data was last updated in UTC. You can specify the local timezone by using the '-z' flag in hours deviation from UTC. bbweather does not automatically determine the local time, since it may be desirable to display several windows with information from different locations, thus allowing you to specify the local times at those places, rather than the local time at your location.
For example, to make bbweather start in the bottom-left hand corner of the screen and cycle through ALL the information for the weather station in New York City's Central park, you would start it like this:
`bbweather -g +0-0 -c -x -z -5 KNYC`
(Note that `-z -5` is one argument with one paramter '-5', rather than two flags!)

If you run into any problems, if you encounter bugs, or if you have any other comments on this program, please don't hesitate to email me.

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