Author Topic: Release: sWeather (tray-based weather app) (Read 755,706 times)

skwire · « **Reply #275 on:** January 08, 2014, 04:06 PM »

Quote from: kilele on January 08, 2014, 04:02 PM

works fine after a reboot, thanks!

If it does that again, please send me your config.ini file before rebooting or shutting down sWeather.

Brothbeard · « **Reply #276 on:** March 10, 2014, 11:39 AM »

[attach]

Dirge · « **Reply #277 on:** June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM »

I’ve encountered four minor bugs with sWeather v1.5.2.1:

1) When the mouse cursor is placed over the current Wind readout in the main window, the conversion message in the status bar at the bottom of the window says “Converted visibility: [...]” instead of “Converted wind: [...]”, though it does give the properly converted wind speed.

2) When the text message (“PM Thunderstorms,” “Few Showers,” “Scattered Thunderstorms,” etc.) in the extended forecast box for a given day is more than two lines/rows of text long, the additional lines are cut off and can’t be read; all that can be seen is the top two or three rows of pixels of the third line of text. Perhaps a change could be made to show the complete text in the status bar when mousing over such truncated text(?).

3) When the main window is displayed and the mouse cursor is off to the side (not hovering over the window), the message in the status bar doesn’t always display “Conditions as of: [date & time of last Yahoo! update]” (as I suspect it should); it often displays the Converted temp of some random day of the week.

4) The “Feels like” temperature displayed on the main window is always the same as the actual current temperature (for all locations) and does not reflect the “Feels like” temperature on the Yahoo! Full forecast Web page.

While I’m at it, I have three simple (to me, pains in the butt to you) feature requests:

1) The ancient mariner in me would like to see latitude and longitude displayed in degrees° minutes' seconds" N/S E/W format.

2) A Moon Phase indicator in the main window, preferably an icon with text (e.g., “Waxing Crescent”), but text-only would get the job done too.

3) A Precipitation indicator in the main window showing the amount of precipitation received in the last 24 hours or since midnight (or both). The Yahoo! Full forecast Web page doesn’t seem to show this info, so I don’t know if this info is available in its feed, but the associated Weather Channel page does provide this info.

I like the simple and efficient nature of sWeather, especially as I have an old, out-of-date computer that doesn't handle lots of fancy graphics too well. Thanks for going to the trouble of providing the program.

* * *

Windows XP (SP3)
Athlon XP CPU (w/SSE but not SSE2 and above support)

skwire · « **Reply #278 on:** June 30, 2014, 08:30 PM »

Hi, Dirge, and welcome to DonationCoder.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

1) When the mouse cursor is placed over the current Wind readout in the main window, the conversion message in the status bar at the bottom of the window says “Converted visibility: [...]” instead of “Converted wind: [...]”, though it does give the properly converted wind speed.

Nice catch. I'll fix this.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

2) When the text message (“PM Thunderstorms,” “Few Showers,” “Scattered Thunderstorms,” etc.) in the extended forecast box for a given day is more than two lines/rows of text long, the additional lines are cut off and can’t be read; all that can be seen is the top two or three rows of pixels of the third line of text. Perhaps a change could be made to show the complete text in the status bar when mousing over such truncated text(?).

I'll see what I can do.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

3) When the main window is displayed and the mouse cursor is off to the side (not hovering over the window), the message in the status bar doesn’t always display “Conditions as of: [date & time of last Yahoo! update]” (as I suspect it should); it often displays the Converted temp of some random day of the week.

This requires a bit of explanation. For sWeather to change the statusbar text like it does, it captures the WM_MOUSEMOVE message. What you're seeing is when you move the mouse away from the main form fast enough that it doesn't capture all those messages (which tells the app where the cursor is). Once the mouse it outside the main form, it no longer receives those messages. I suppose I could put a timer on there to watch for such but that seems like overkill, IMO, for this issue.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

4) The “Feels like” temperature displayed on the main window is always the same as the actual current temperature (for all locations) and does not reflect the “Feels like” temperature on the Yahoo! Full forecast Web page.

I've noticed this as well. Unfortunately, the Yahoo! RSS feeds powering sWeather don't have quite the same data as their Full Forecast pages. You'd think they would...but they don't.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

1) The ancient mariner in me would like to see latitude and longitude displayed in degrees° minutes' seconds" N/S E/W format.

2) A Moon Phase indicator in the main window, preferably an icon with text (e.g., “Waxing Crescent”), but text-only would get the job done too.

3) A Precipitation indicator in the main window showing the amount of precipitation received in the last 24 hours or since midnight (or both). The Yahoo! Full forecast Web page doesn’t seem to show this info, so I don’t know if this info is available in its feed, but the associated Weather Channel page does provide this info.

1) I can add an option for this. To save me some research time, is there an easy way to convert the current data to this format?
2) The Yahoo! RSS feed does not contain this data.
3) The Yahoo! RSS feed does not contain this data.

Quote from: Dirge on June 30, 2014, 05:25 PM

I like the simple and efficient nature of sWeather, especially as I have an old, out-of-date computer that doesn't handle lots of fancy graphics too well. Thanks for going to the trouble of providing the program.

You're very welcome. Thanks for giving it a thorough tryout.

skwire · « **Reply #279 on:** July 01, 2014, 03:03 PM »

Quote from: Brothbeard on March 10, 2014, 11:39 AM

Installed this last night and found this on my screen this morning. Presumably something missing but not sure what.

Welcome to DonationCoder, Brothbeard, and apologies for missing your post. I'll have this issue fixed in the next build. Thank you.

Dirge · « **Reply #280 on:** July 01, 2014, 05:00 PM »

>> 1) The ancient mariner in me would like to see latitude and longitude displayed in degrees° minutes' seconds" N/S E/W format.

> 1) I can add an option for this. To save me some research time, is there an easy way to convert the current data to this format?

Thanks for the quick reply.

Converting from decimal degrees to degrees/minutes/seconds is a simple but tedious little process; there’s probably a pre-written subroutine floating around to accomplish it in whatever language/framework you’re using, but I don’t know where you’d get such a thing. (The last time I wrote any code or did any programming, Jimmy Carter was in office and FORTRAN and punch cards were the computer status quo.) I thought that Yahoo! might provide feeds in both formats and that you could simply choose between them.

cschw · « **Reply #281 on:** July 01, 2014, 10:29 PM »

Decimal degrees = DD.dddd°

Convention:
Lat: +N/-S
Long: +E/-W

Assuming absolute values:
(DD.dddd - DD)*60 = MM.mmmm
(MM.mmmm - MM)*60 = SS.ssss

DD° MM' SS.ssss"

Wikipedia recommends using truncate and modulo....

skwire · « **Reply #282 on:** July 02, 2014, 06:43 AM »

Here you go, Dirge:

Website | Download v1.5.3 - 2014-07-02 + Added DMS (degree, minute, second) format option for latitude and longitude readings. (Thanks, Dirge) ! Fixed missing "na.ico" file in the Fat Cow tray condition theme. (Thanks, Brothbeard) ! Converted wind speed text string was incorrect. (Thanks, Dirge)

Ath · « **Reply #283 on:** July 02, 2014, 07:41 AM »

Quote from: skwire on July 02, 2014, 06:43 AM

! Fixed missing "na.ico" file in the Fat Cow tray condition theme. (Thanks, Brothbeard)

I recall to have seen other themes with missing .ico files in the past (add-on I can't recall where I got them from, presumably this or another sWeather thread) and I just stopped using them

.
Could adding idiot-proof errorhandling to the routine that shows the icons be helpful as being a more generic solution?

skwire · « **Reply #284 on:** July 02, 2014, 08:11 AM »

Quote from: Ath on July 02, 2014, 07:41 AM

Could adding idiot-proof errorhandling to the routine that shows the icons be helpful as being a more generic solution?

Sure, that would be the logical thing to do but we can't have that in a Skwire Empire app, can we? The Expectations Bar™ would be moved slightly up and I like to keep that thing at a nice low level.

Dirge · « **Reply #285 on:** July 03, 2014, 11:32 PM »

Quote from: skwire on July 02, 2014, 06:43 AM

Here you go, Dirge:

Website | Download v1.5.3 - 2014-07-02 + Added DMS (degree, minute, second) format option for latitude and longitude readings. (Thanks, Dirge) ! Fixed missing "na.ico" file in the Fat Cow tray condition theme. (Thanks, Brothbeard) ! Converted wind speed text string was incorrect. (Thanks, Dirge)

Excellent ... I’m feeling more nautical already.

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #286 on:** July 05, 2014, 11:09 AM »

Nice piece of software!! I love to have it in my tray... I've two questions...
I live in Dubai and i'm from Lisbon, i always have the temperature and the icon visible. When i change the location to Lisbon and then back again to Dubai, normally the icon changes but not the temperature in the tray. It'll stay reflecting the Lisbon temperature still...

Second question: Normally temperatures here go easily above 40 degrees Celsius, but the "tray temperature" it seems to stop around 38/40... never shows the 43 our 44 (for example). The tray temperature does not refresh (will attach a Print Screen).. probably it's the same problem as in my first question. I don't know.. It changes to the current temperature if i choose a different font color

skwire · « **Reply #287 on:** July 05, 2014, 04:45 PM »

Hi, NunoEspadinha, and welcome to DonationCoder.

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 05, 2014, 11:09 AM

When i change the location to Lisbon and then back again to Dubai, normally the icon changes but not the temperature in the tray. It'll stay reflecting the Lisbon temperature still...

I have seen this happen on my wife's computer (W7/64) but I don't experience it on my computer (W7/64) nor did I see it when I ran XP. Frustratingly, I've never been able to track down WHY this happens so sporadically. I've debugged the hell out of this issue and I'm 99.9% certain that the code is fine. I have a hunch it's due to some Windows 7 tray icon handling bug or something. As you have found, you can have better luck using certain tray temperature themes (try the Simple White and Simple Black). Also, if you don't mind, could you switch over to the Windows Classic theme and see if the problem persists? I use the Classic theme whereas my wife does not.

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 05, 2014, 11:09 AM

Second question: Normally temperatures here go easily above 40 degrees Celsius, but the "tray temperature" it seems to stop around 38/40... never shows the 43 our 44 (for example). The tray temperature does not refresh (will attach a Print Screen).. probably it's the same problem as in my first question. I don't know.. It changes to the current temperature if i choose a different font color

I'm pretty sure this issue is caused by or, at least, related to the issue above. Again, frustratingly, I don't see the issue on my computer.

Ath · « **Reply #288 on:** July 05, 2014, 04:57 PM »

Hm, tested here on W7/x64 with Aero theme, and it updates the numbers in the tray every time I change in my list of ~6 locations. Can this be related to having just 2 locations in the list ? (the off-by-1 anomaly)

skwire · « **Reply #289 on:** July 05, 2014, 05:01 PM »

Quote from: Ath on July 05, 2014, 04:57 PM

Hm, tested here on W7/x64 with Aero theme, and it updates the numbers in the tray every time I change in my list of ~6 locations. Can this be related to having just 2 locations in the list ? (the off-by-1 anomaly)

Thanks, Ath. Yeah, this is the maddingly frustrating thing about this issue...how sporadic it is.

I have over 70 locations in my list and I've never experienced the issue.

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #290 on:** July 05, 2014, 05:28 PM »

I can add one more location and test the suggested above.. I'll keep you posted..

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #291 on:** July 16, 2014, 06:03 PM »

Ok.. here's some news. I've added London so now i have 3 cities, and it works A LOT better.. almost no problems at all.. not even after hibernation or screensavers.. It seems to be working perfectly!! Will keep checking, and any other update i'll let you know.
One thing i've noticed.. everytime i restart windows the icon (sun, rain, etc.) always disappear from the tray.. back to the "Only show notifications" status. The temperature one is always there on the tray without problems
BTW.. it would be a good idea to put a link for this forum at the Help tab (for example)

Keep it up!!

skwire · « **Reply #292 on:** July 16, 2014, 06:15 PM »

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 16, 2014, 06:03 PM

One thing i've noticed.. everytime i restart windows the icon (sun, rain, etc.) always disappear from the tray.. back to the "Only show notifications" status. The temperature one is always there on the tray without problems

When it does this, what happens if you choose the Options > Reset tray icon positions from the menu?

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 16, 2014, 06:03 PM

BTW.. it would be a good idea to put a link for this forum at the Help tab (for example)

In the Help > About box, there is a Forum button.

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #293 on:** July 16, 2014, 06:35 PM »

My bad about missing the forum button

Will try the reset thingy tomorrow and will post the result here

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #294 on:** July 20, 2014, 02:44 AM »

Ok.. tried again and again.. The icon always disappears from my tray after a re-start and the "Reset tray icon positions" does not solve the problem. Tried in the menu and with the right click/reset in both icon and temperature... also the F6
All the rest is working perfectly after adding a 3rd location..

skwire · « **Reply #295 on:** July 20, 2014, 02:49 AM »

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 20, 2014, 02:44 AM

Ok.. tried again and again.. The icon always disappears from my tray after a re-start and the "Reset tray icon positions" does not solve the problem. Tried in the menu and with the right click/reset in both icon and temperature... also the F6
All the rest is working perfectly after adding a 3rd location..

Thanks for thoroughly testing this.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to fix it.

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #296 on:** July 20, 2014, 02:57 AM »

It's not a major issue, specially if it's only happening with me

I really like the program, and your support to it. Will keep on following your developments! Thanks!

skwire · « **Reply #297 on:** July 20, 2014, 03:44 AM »

Quote from: NunoEspadinha on July 20, 2014, 02:57 AM

It's not a major issue, specially if it's only happening with me I really like the program, and your support to it. Will keep on following your developments! Thanks!

Thank you, for your efforts. I've sent you a PM regarding sWeather. =]

NunoEspadinha · « **Reply #298 on:** July 20, 2014, 03:54 AM »

msteph · « **Reply #299 on:** August 25, 2014, 03:49 AM »

ghacks today (8/24) has a review of 9 desktop weather apps and Martin gives sWeather the top recommendation.

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/08/24/the-best-desktop-weather-programs-for-windows/

Mike S.