Weather Today in a Ruby CLI

So I made my first gem Yay. It was challenging. It was hard. It took me a long time.

I decided to build an app that took data from three different APIs. Why? Well I wanted to make it a bit challenging.

This CLI was built to give a quick update of the weather either by your current location or any location you ask for. Also It provides headlines of BBC news as a plus.

Check it out

So how do I build it?

The first step was to identify the API's to use:
so I signed for these awesome ones:

• OPENWEATHERMAP. To get the good weather data.
• NEWSAPI. To get the news.
• Abstract. To get a precise timeZone on the location enquiry. They've got a free plan too. So all cool.

So let's write the code:

I needed to get the data for the weather first so I built one Class for the IP location and one Class for a city search. I used HTTParty to get the data and JSON to parse it.

def self.api_location(unit)
response = HTTParty.get("https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?lat=#{lat}&lon=#{lon}&appid=#{ENV['API_KEY']}&units=#{unit}")
        data = JSON.parse(response.body, symbolize_names: true)
        @weather_today = self.new
        @weather_today.location = data[:name]
        @weather_today.time = Time.at(data[:dt])
        @weather_today.temp = data[:main][:temp].to_i

same for the search per city.

def self.select_name(units, location)
response = HTTParty.get("http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=#{location}&appid=#{ENV['API_KEY']}&units=#{units}")
      data = JSON.parse(response.body, symbolize_names: true)
      @weather_today = self.new
      @weather_today.response_code = data[:cod]
      if @weather_today.response_code === "404"
        spinner = TTY::Spinner.new("[:spinner] cod")
        spinner.error("404")
        return
      else
      @weather_today.location = data[:name]

Once I located all data I needed for current weather and also forecast I started bulding my CLI. I wanted to get the following results:

• Check the current weather at current location and Forecast for the next 5 days

• Check the current weather and Forecast for the next 5 days at any city you name in the world plus a link to the city location on Google Maps. It only will work with city names.

• It gives you 3 unit system to choose from:

  • Default (temperatures in Kelvin)
  • Metric (temperatures in Celsius)
  • Imperial (temperatures in Fahrenheit)

• Read and open in your browser the latest world headlines from BBC News.

• Gives you a funny quote according to weather conditions courtesy of the AUTHENTIC WEATHER APP.

• Also a Big GoodBye.

"Voila" you are ready to check the weather and news.

Well not so Easy. I wanted to make it more user friendly so on my CLI I added a few TTY components that are really handy.
Especially TTY-Prompt, TTY-Box & TTY-Tables. Want to check them all click Here. They are easy to implement and you can find plenty of documentation online. So give it a try if you like them.

class WeatherToday::CLI

    $prompt = TTY::Prompt.new(active_color: :cyan)

    def call
        welcome
    end

    def welcome
        puts Rain.go 
        puts Intro.go 
        sleep (3)
        puts"
                                             .-. .-.  ,---.   ,-.     ,-.      .---.   
                                             | | | |  | .-'   | |     | |     / .-. )  
                                             | `-' |  | `-.   | |     | |     | | |(_) 
                                             | .-. |  | .-'   | |     | |     | | | |  
                                             | | |)|  |  `--. | `--.  | `--.  \ `-' /  
                                             /(  (_)  /( __.' |( __.' |( __.'  )---'   
                                            (__)     (__)     (_)     (_)     (_)     
    ".colorize(:cyan)
         units_selection
         puts ''
         puts "World's News"

All right. Once my CLI was running and the hard part of the project was done I decided to add some art ;). Well not exactly but something like a ASCII art. There are plenty of resources online so you won't get lost.

Well I know it is a lot but It was fun. What I learn:

• API can be tricky and hard to work with but once you are in the Matrix It becomes easier.
• I need to improve my level of abstraction but for the first project I wasn't so bad I believe.
• There is so much you can do but overtime. It's hard to learn all at once.
• Finally it is cool to add something else you love ... like Art for example. It makes coding more enjoyable.

Thanks for reading ..

So long