Your Stations Weather in your (or your visitors) system tray

[jassing]

Version  1.0.6.3 released http://aiweather.com/files/aiTrayWeather.zip
(This is a "weather in the system tray" application you can customize and provide to your visistors for your website)
Online help http://aiweather.com/help/AIWeather.htm

• Major changes include move to using an sqlite database, support for tides (current, next high & low)
• supports WeatherDisplay files natively
• tool tip placement is now adjutstable.
• Fixed an annoying bug that if you did NOT include tide data in your .txt file; nothing would get updated.
• Minor changse are a few bug fixes and hopefully the end to the random "tooltip hop"
• Important changes are that some time factors are altered to seconds or minutes rather than miliseconds.
• If you're an existing user; be sure to read the hep file & readme -- some ini file sections have changed, should happen automatically for most items.
• Fixed a nasty bug if a tag was present for data that didn't exist
• ..and various other bugs/improvements.

History
A while back I had wanted to provide users something other than a commercial or ad-based software to display simple weather in the system tray...

After a sleepless night I decided to finally do it myself (I had tried to contract it out; but that didn't work)
Anyway - I have a VERY ROUGH 1st version that I'd like to share.

Mostly for comments, like "This is worthwhile; I'd offer it on my website" or "Good, but it needs...." to the other end "utterly worthless, don't waste more of your (or my) time on this..."

You can downlaod and try it here: http://aiweather.com/files/aitrayweather.zip
it requires no install -- just unzip "with directories" and review the ini & txt file; There is a help file as well.

due to some reports of being unable to open the CHM I created a hlp file since we know that doesn't work in vista; I also put the help file here:
http://aiweather.com/help/aiweather.htm

future versions will not have .hlp version of the help; but wil continue with the .chm &webpages.

I look forward to any comments/suggestions/gripes -- My goal was to make a very small, installerless "tray weather" application w/o ads, etc -- "just the weather".

Thanks for taking a minute to try it & let me know your thoughts.

-josh

[Mark / Ohio]

Cool!!   

[jassing]

Cool!!   

Thanks Mark.  Easy enough to configure for fairfieldcountyweather.com?  Any suggestions?

[Mark / Ohio]

...
Thanks Mark.  Easy enough to configure for fairfieldcountyweather.com?  Any suggestions?

Yes, no problems with the configuring.  I'm already running a demo version of WeatherFlash to feed data via .php every 2 second to my web server for use on the main page.  I did however need to additionally configure VWS to upload the data.csv file every 5 minutes.  Here's my .ini if you need another for testing:

[url]
WeatherFlashDIR=http://fairfieldcountyweather.com/Data/
VWSFile=http://fairfieldcountyweather.com/data.csv
StormTracURL=
HomePage=http://fairfieldcountyweather.com

I checked Ken's page but did not see the storm track script.  Maybe I'm looking at it and just can't see it.   

[jassing]

My mistake -- wasn't ken's it was tom's (carterlake)
http://www.carterlake.org/weatherphp.php
"Trackreportshort.php"

I updated the code to play a lightning/thunderstrike sound when a storm is detected; now to get a strike to happen in "reality" ...

Also based on a suggestion, adding in code to allow "any file" to be read & parsed so that someone using "something else" can still configure a datafile (thru htx template) and use it w/o me knowing the file name...

Another suggestion was to use a "local data file" but I didn't see the point in that....

[jay_hoehn]

Josh,

This is a cool thing you have created.  I have configured it for my site and it works great.  One suggestion would be to resolve the barometer to 2 decimal places.  A barometer reading of 30 has little meaning.

Thanks,

Jay

[jassing]

Thanks for the feedback.
The current version (I'm working on) includes an ini file entry of "Rounding=-1"  -1 says to act like it does now.  Reduce as much as possible
30.00 = 30
30.10 = 30.1

A change of 1 would leave it as 30.0 or 30.1

A change to 2 would leave it as 30.00 or 30.10
(changing it to 4 wouldn't 'add on' any extra....)

This is "global" on all #'s read in.

The reason why I trim it as much as possible is to reduce the # of characters in the tool tip -- if there's "too many" the tip is cut off when displayed.

I got an email asking about it -- again; this is going to be freeware ("donations accepted") with very little restrictions (if any) on it's use.  The idea is that anyone that has a personal weather station (and website) can allow users to put weather information in their tray.  You do the conifguration (ini file changes) and then offer it to the user (either create an installer or just instructions) -- for instance, there's a few people on AI that want it -- as the 'commercial' or ad-driven softwares available don't use the weather on the island, but on the mainland; which is different (raining but sunny here, 5 to 10 degrees difference, etc)

The only thing that won't be released (at least initially) is the source code, mostly becuase it's ugly and I don't want to support questions on configuration *AND* how something is done...

[jay_hoehn]

Thanks Josh.  Let us know when it is available.

Jay

[jassing]

Will do -- I appreciate the time to make the suggestions.
-josh

[jassing]

version 1.0.0.39 is ready (same url http://aiweather.com/files/aitrayweather.zip)  It's approaching my own size limit goal of sub 1 meg.   If I add more features, might have to keep growing...

• Now supports asci characters (like the degree symbol)
• Added support for an mp3/wav file to be played for your weather (WeatherVoice or other)
• Prepared the base code for a generic data file to be usable thru the ini file (ie: an "unknown" data file)

Your existing ini files won't work; but can be easily changed -- I've included a couple of files to help

• sample\default.ini shows what the defaults are so you can change them if you don't like them -- it shows ALL options
• config\aiweather.ini - this is a shell required to get config\aiweather.txt working "as is" -- you only need one data file; so you can edit the txt file and then only include that file in the ini file -- this speeds up refreshes for users on dialup.
• sample\aiweather.ini shows my configuration

My plans remain the same, I just got distracted more interesting things...

• Have conditional variables, such that you can display "HOLD ON!" if the wind is over 60mph etc.
• Help file or improved readme.
• Get better icons, the ones I use don't 'shrink down' to tray size nicely...
• conditional that will automatically 'pop up' the weather tooltip.
• Optionally show a window "always on top" (or not) that is updated instead of just a tooltip
• As well as any suggestions I'm given.. this is probably the last version I'll publish for a bit (real work gets in the way)

[jay_hoehn]

Josh,

I tried the new version.  It did not show up in my sys tray.  It was showing as running in task manager.  Also, I'm not sure where to put the edited aiweather.ini file.  Does it go in the config folder?

Jay

[jassing]

Jay:

"RATS" is all I can say... 
Yes; the aiweather.ini goes in the .\config folder
are the icons in .\icons\*.ico?

The zip file must be extracted "with directories" or else it won't work...

I suppose I could change it to be directory-less...

[jassing]

Got some time to poke around with it -- and confirmed that it isn't showing the tray icon on "clean" machines -- so something is fubar'd; I'll dig in to it and get a fix uploaded tonight.

[Mark / Ohio]

Not sure exactly what you mean by "Clean" machine but it quit showing in mine too with the new version.   

[jassing]

By clean I mean no other 'junk' loaded -- something on my dev box makes it work; the same exe/files on another doesn't allow it to work; so something I did made it "specific" to my dev machine...

I think I have found it... "stay tuned!"

UPDATE:   The reason it failed is that I introduced a new file "icon.txt" that maps the icon field to an icon file.... I failed to include that in the zip file...
I'm in the middle of testing the rest of the changes I made so I can upload a new version -- still hoping for tonight.

[jassing]

Jay: please give the latest a try.
If you can -- please IM me on any issues so I can walk thru them w/ you...

ICQ: 2080313 (prefered)
Jabber/gMail: jassing@jabber.org
Y!: josh_assing
SKYPE: joshassing
AIM: FoxProDev
MSN: aisailor@hotmail.com

[jassing]

Just posted a new version; zip file trimmed down and a proper help file (well; a help file) is included instead of the spastic text files.
I hope it helps.  As always; please do let me know any issues, comments, suggestions.  Once I get the "base" code down; I'll move on to the "todo" list I have...

[Mark / Ohio]

New version up and running. 

One thing I noticed is most of the time the tool tip covers the task bar but sometimes it will move up further on the desktop further until it disappears.  Seems like clicking on a desktop icon or links in the web browser will cause it to do that.  But not every time.

[jassing]

New version up and running. 

One thing I noticed is most of the time the tool tip covers the task bar but sometimes it will move up further on the desktop further until it disappears.  Seems like clicking on a desktop icon or links in the web browser will cause it to do that.  But not every time.

Glad I was able to fix the 'no show' of the icons...
I had an instance where I couldn't get the tool tip to go away; but it was a loop issue that I fixed; there is, of course, the possibity that I missed something.  If you can find a way to reproduce it fairly reliably I would be happy to look into it.

The tooltip pops up on mouse-over the icon.
Once there; it pauses for 5 seconds; then tracks where the mouse is; and once the timeout expires (30 seconds) or the mouse moves a certain distance; it closes the tooltip.

I have seen where if the mouse moves at "just the right/wrong time" the tooltip jumps from where it was to where its until the 30 seconds expire.  but I can't reproduce it enough to be able to track it down... but that is on my list of 'things to fix'.

Thank you for the feedback.

[Mark / Ohio]

...I have seen where if the mouse moves at "just the right/wrong time" the tooltip jumps from where it was to where its until the 30 seconds expire.  but I can't reproduce it enough to be able to track it down... but that is on my list of 'things to fix'.

Thank you for the feedback.

That's the same thing as I was seeing.  Still have not figured out a way to get it to act up every time.  Could just be another one of those Windows hidden features that only works when you need it the least.    

[jassing]

Give the latest a try and see if it helps at all... I got it to happen again on an x64 system; but otherwise, it's only happened once on my laptop -- hopefully some of the changes made will help...

[Mark / Ohio]

Still acting up for me but I do think it took more tries for it to happen.  This on my laptop, XP Media Center SP3.

[jassing]

Thanks; I'll put it on my 'known issues' list..
it's not "hanging on" in that it does go away after a hop or two, right?
It's working fine otherwise?  Speed ok?

[Mark / Ohio]

It's hopped several times on one occasion in this latest release until I clicked on my browser window and it went away.

In the latest release I see for the first time <err:1> instead of my current conditions.  Not sure yet if that is on my end (missing data) or not.

[jassing]

It's hopped several times on one occasion in this latest release until I clicked on my browser window and it went away.

Weird; becuase it has nothign to do with IE or a browser....

In the latest release I see for the first time <err:1> instead of my current conditions.  Not sure yet if that is on my end (missing data) or not.

did you use the .txt from the zip file?
Does the txt file have <func:vwscondition> or <map(<vws1:19>):vws19>?
(I changed it, going to a more generic plan of using 'map' files)  I thought I pointed that out in the help file; but could be I forgot to compile the chm before I zipped up...
(sorry)

INDEED:  I was a moron; sorry -- late night I guess... forgot to include the newest aiweather.txt -- reuploaded with the right one; but it's here:

Code:

<ini:HomePage>
At <wf1:1> it is <map(<vws1:19>):vws19>:<wf2:270>/<wf2:274> @ <wf1:9><asc:176>
Rain 24 hr: <wf2:256>; <wf2:255>/hr
Wind: <wf1:2> @ <wf1:4> mph / max <wf2:31> mph @ <wf2:59>
Barom: <wf1:25>" and <wf2:272>
(<var:aiwexe> v. <var:aiwver>)