WebCalTides

WebCalTides is a neat little Ruby/Sinatra server for putting tides, currents, solar and lunar data on your calendar.

Written to replace sailwx.info's "Tide calendars to go" (http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/), which was awesome for what it was but doesn't seem to work anymore. Who knows, maybe it'll come back... but in the meantime, enjoy!

This service can be found at webcaltides.org.

Setup

First, install the dependencies with bundle install.

Environment Variables

The easiest way to configure API keys is to create a .env file in the project root:

# .env
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_google_api_key_here
GEONAMES_USERNAME=your_geonames_username
GEOAPIFY_API_KEY=your_geoapify_key

The .env file is gitignored for security. Alternatively, you can set these as shell environment variables.

Timezone Lookups

For accurate timezone lookups (lat/lon → timezone), configure one of these services:

Google Maps Time Zone API (recommended):

1. Go to Google Cloud Console
2. Create a project and enable the "Time Zone API" (and optionally "Maps Static API" for map thumbnails)
3. Create an API key and restrict it to these APIs
4. Add GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_key_here to your .env file

Geonames (free fallback):

1. Register for a free account at Geonames
2. After registration, log in and enable web services access (one-time)
3. Add GEONAMES_USERNAME=your_username to your .env file

Google API is preferred (50x faster), but Geonames works as a fallback. Without either, timezone lookups will use region metadata and longitude approximation.

Map Thumbnails (Optional)

Station cards can display location map thumbnails. Two services are supported:

Google Maps Static API (if you already set GOOGLE_API_KEY above, this works automatically)

Geoapify (free alternative):

1. Register at Geoapify (free tier: 3,000 requests/day)
2. Copy your API key from your project
3. Add GEOAPIFY_API_KEY=your_key_here to your .env file

If no map API is configured, a placeholder icon will be shown instead.

OR, just use this one at webcaltides.org!

Invocation

rackup (development) or RACK_ENV=production puma -C puma.rb (production). Writes to a cache directory, basically stores every bit of intermediate work to minimize impact on external services.

TODO

Check server.rb header.

Bugs/Patches

Use GitHub for issues, patches welcome.

LICENSE

Free as in beer, IFF you give me visible credit! Mmm, beer..

CREDITS

Originally written by Jordan Ritter, with contributions from Paul Schellenberg to support Canadian stations.