4. Weather Briefings

There are several tools available to help forecasters prepare and present weather briefings. The most commonly used tools are procedures and slide shows. Procedures allow forecasters to set up a sequence of forecast products that can be displayed in sequential or random order during a weather briefing. Once a procedure is set up, it can be used over and over again at different days to display the current data for that day. Forecasters can also display additional data (including graphical annotation) that is not part of the procedure without exiting the procedure. Another commonly used tools is a slide show that allows the forecaster to create a series of slides that can include AWIPS Displays, special purpose text slides and weather products downloaded from an internet server. Slides are created on FXC in JPG format and are custom made for each weather briefing. They are played back using the FXC slide show capability.

4.1 Using the Slide Show Functions

The slide show user interface is designed to allow users to create individual slides and assemble them into a slide show. It is envisioned that the user would create these slide shows prior to a presentation and then play them back for the actual presentation. Individual slides can be created from data displayed on the screen (e.g. a radar loop with lightning data), images loaded from local disk or Web, or html text template files. The slide shows can be easily modified to change the contents of a slide or to add or delete slides. A special Dialog Menu is provided to create, modify, and display slides in a slide show.

4.1.1 The Slide Show Dialog Box

The Slide Show Dialog Box is arranged so that you can move from top to bottom to create each slide in your slide show. Refer to Figure 36.

Slide Creation

In order to create a slide, the user must first select New Slide Show or Open Slide Show from the File Pull-down Menu and either give the slide show a name or select an existing one. This brings up the Slide Show Dialog Box that enables the creation and modification of a slide. The white area at the the top of the dialog box contains a list of all of the existing slides (i.e Bundles). This area will be blank if a new slide show is being created.
• Slides - This portion of the Slide Show Dialog Box lists the existing slides. When you initially open a new slide show, this portion is empty.

• Edit Slide - In this portion of the dialog box, you can define the type of slide you want to create, and modify existing slides.

• Select Slide Type - As shown in Figure 37, you can choose the type of slide you want to create from the Select Slide Type Options Menu.

Slide Types You Can Create

There are three types of slides that can be created:
1. Image Slide Only - An image-only slide creates a JPEG image slide of whatever is displayed on the FXC Screen. This could be anything "captured" from D2D, generated on the FXC Display, or an image or background file that you obtain via the GIF/JPEG/PNG Background option from the File Pull-Down Menu. Simply display the data on either D2D or FXC and click on the Create Slide Menu Button.

2. Text Slide Only - Text-only slides contain only textual or tabular information that is generated from pre-existing html template files. Once you choose this option, click on the Create Slide Menu Button. The Template Dialog Box will appear and guide you through directories and files of pre-made text templates. Once you choose a template file, click on the Edit Text... Menu Button to modify the text or font size or color. Refer to Subsection 4.1.1 for more information on how to create custom template files.

3. Image and Text - This option allows you to create a slide containing both a background image file and an html text template. For example, you could use a logo file for your image with textual information overlaid on top. Or you could have an image of satellite data and overlay text information.

Single-Frame Slide

This radio button option allows you to capture only one frame of a multi-frame loop of data. For example, if you load 12 frames of the ETA model family, but you only want to capture the 36-hour forecast, just step to that frame and then click on the Create Slide Menu Button.

Select Operations

Within this portion of the Slide Show Dialog Box are the control operations for manipulating the slides and the slide order.
Create Slide - When you choose this option, the contents of the screen will be converted to a JPEG image and stored. If you are creating a text slide, a listing of html templates will appear. Once you choose an html template file, the template will automatically be added to the slide show. To create a slide that contains an image background and text, first load the image background and then select Create Slide. This causes the Template Dialog Box to be displayed. After selecting a template, the background and text template will automatically be saved as a slide.

Slide Modification - Each slide can consist of two components, a background image and a text overlay. To edit either one, first select the little lever symbol, as shown in Figure 38, to the left of the slide to be modified and then click on the component of the slide that is to be changed.

Rename - A slide can also be renamed to give it a more descriptive name by selecting this menu button and entering the desired name.

Replace - To replace the background image, first load the new background and then select the Replace Menu Button. This will replace the background (only) for that slide.

Remove - To delete a slide, select the desired slide and click on the Remove Menu Button.

Edit Text... - If the text is to be edited highlight the Text Overlay portion of the slide. This will cause the "Edit Text" selector to be highlighted which brings up a dialog box with all editable fields for that slide.

Move Up/Move Down - To rearrange the order of the slides in your slide show, use the Move Up/Move Down Menu Buttons.

Show Slide - To view slides in a slide show during a weather briefing or presentation, double-click on the the starting bundle of the desired slide show, and then bring the main window to the foreground by clicking on the window frame. Press on the Load Menu Button to display the highlight slide, and use the Previous and Next Menu Buttons to manually go backward and forward through the slide show. If you want to advance through the slides automatically, the user can specify the time delay between slides and enable the Auto-Load feature.

4.1.2 Creating Custom Templates (Advanced Feature)

In designing the Briefing Tool, it was assumed that the creation of slide templates are an infrequent task and that generic templates can be generated that will meet the majority of needs. As a result, the creation of templates is considered an advanced feature and is not imbedded directly in the Briefing Tool.

The Briefing Tool templates are in HTML format. Several HTML editors, such as Netscape Composer & Word Perfect exist that simplify the creation of HTML files. Currently, the briefing tool can not display an image or other link that is imbedded in the HTML file.

The @@ symbol sequence is used to inform the Briefing Tool that it needs to parse the subsequent text for special instructions. A second occurrence of @@ terminates the text that is to be parsed. The following modifiable fields are supported by the Briefing Tool.

1. Simple text field:
   @@ text text text @@
   Example: @@Enter wind speed@@
   Example: Temperature:@@55 deg@@

2. Text field with color options (the first color is the default color)
   @@ |color1|color2|color3=text text text@@
   Example: @@|black|white=Hello World@@

3. Text field with color options (where the text is the name of the color)
   @@text text text~color1|color2=color1@@
   Example: @@Lightning~green|red=green@@

4. Text Matrices
   @@any valid exp@@ @@_any valid exp@@ (Note the "_" to continue a row)

   Example(2x3):	Rule 1 @@Now~green|red=green@@ @@_T0~green|red=green@@
   	Rule 2 @@Now~green|red=green@@ @@_T0~green|red=green@@
   	Rule 3 @@Now~green|red=green@@ @@_T0~green|red=green@@

The template files are stored in FXC\fsl\data\templates\---Range\--- . These files are a permanent reference and stay unchanged when the user modifies their contents. Users can add their own subdirectories and/or html templates for their specific application.

4.2 Using the Procedure Functions

Procedures are created and modified in a very similar manner to slide shows. A major difference is that procedure bundles consist of only one component (graphic product) and therefore are simpler to modify. Also, procedures always load the most current data from the server instead of predefined slides. The auto-load capability can be used to continuously sequence through the bundles. Each time a bundle is loaded, the most current data will be displayed. Like slide bundles, procedure bundles can also include frame animations.