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Outdoors plugin idea for developers.


jachin99

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jachin99

Feel free to move this thread if it isn't in the right forum.  I think it would be useful to display solunar data in Emby, or Kodi.  Right now I use Tides4Fishing to look up hunting and fishing active times but the site is bloated, it takes a while to load.  I think looking this data up would be much more convenient, and I would miss fewer active times if I could put it right in front of me in my media centers.  I have found one command line tool on github that can calculate solunar data, and if someone is looking for a unique project then putting this data in emby could be very useful for those of us who enjoy the outdoors.  The github project is located here https://github.com/kevinboone/solunar_cmdline  

 

Now I'm not entirely sure if the complied code would work on Windows because it appears to require cygwin if built on a Windows PC.  I'll keep looking to see if there is a Windows variant but if anyone else out there is developer and enjoys the outdoors then you too can probably see why this would be a useful Emby plugin.  

 

@@chef

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chef

Where would we find that info @@jachin99

 

Would this be a page in the server, or a channel plugin that out the data out to clients.

 

Also, we are talking about fishing.. right?

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jachin99

I use the solunar theory for fishing but it applies to wildlife in general so it could be useful for hunting, or even bird watching.  Here is the wikipedia entry for the solunar theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solunar_theory

 

I'm pretty sure lunar cycles are on a set schedule that can be tracked years into the future.  Here is an example of the lunar cycles for 2050 for  instance https://www.calendar-12.com/moon_phases/2050 but if I'm reading things right, the plugin would have to be aware of when the moon is rising, and setting.  It would also have to know when the moon is directly overhead, or directly underneath of a given location.  This would also mean the plugin would need location awareness. Fish are also seem to be more active at sunset, and sunrise.  Tide charts for high tide, and low tide are important especially in coastal areas.  The last thing I need to figure out is how all of these moving parts are put together to find the best time of day to fish or maybe hunt (but most hunters i know stay out for quite a while).  If you look under solunar scoring on that github page it goes into some detail about how the best time of day each day is calculated but on the tides4fishing site I currently use, there is also a score for the whole day. 

 

I think the plugin would be its most useful if it pushed data out to clients instead of displaying data on the server dashboard.  I would like to find something that already does the calculations for you but If not, then I'll have to find APIs that keep track of the sun, the moon, and the tides.  I did quick search for lunar data APIs, and I found this https://www.programmableweb.com/category/astronomy/api so that gives me some hope.  I think the next step is really understanding the solunar theory, and finding reliable data sources.  

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chef

Okay, interesting stuff.

 

Two ideas come to mind. An alert system in Emby which pushes popup notifications to different clients which contains the data you'd like to see. Or, we build a channel plugin which hosts the data. This would put a new library type on the dashboard of clients.

 

But because we are dealing with media here, I'm not entirely sure how we should set up the channel plugin to show this type of data.

 

Channel plugins will show thumb images or primary images for media items, like any other library.

 

We could create thumb images which show the different cycles, and then display a weeks worth like we were view a library of items... Like a calendar

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jachin99

I think I'm more familiar with a channel plugin.  Would the alert system work via the regular messaging system in Emby where you can send a client a message via the dashboard?  A channel plugin might do the best job of displaying the most useful information.  In particular I look for the time of day, and general fishing conditions.  If I wanted to plan a trip in the next two weeks for instance then I would want to see which day in that timeframe has good conditions, and what the times are for example.  I would also want to know what the tide cycle is because that dictates where I can go fishing in tidal waters.  

 

I kind of pictured this as a few different pages, or channels.  One page for the next 24 to 36 hours, one for the next week or two, and another one for a month.  I'm not sure if each of those pages would be a "Channel" or if each weather condition (Moon phase, Moon position, sun phase, tidal phase, etc) would have to bee a channel.  Channels show thumbs but it will also need values for time to display when the tide is up, or the best times to fish are for example.  I hope that helps.  

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