Weather Software > Station Software Development

Ambient Weather Windows Store (UWP) Dashboard APP

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galfert:
It is coming along really nice. Just an idea... if you do get bored you could add additional screens with graphs!
Software is never complete is it? :)

I sent you PM to become beta tester.

cheeroip:

--- Quote from: galfert on December 21, 2020, 03:00:40 PM ---It is coming along really nice. Just an idea... if you do get bored you could add additional screens with graphs!
Software is never complete is it? :)

I sent you PM to become beta tester.

--- End quote ---

I'm Still worried/fighting with different (undocumented?) JSON versions that the ambienteweather.net API return  and how fonts are managed... graphs could be a thing if I could find a decent UWP library..;

I think UWP apps are a bit like mobile apps that are suppose to be simple. Maybe I could do complete separate app ( graphs don't need  fresh data as often as a dashboard app and deserve their own logic) I'm sure there are plenty or more serious desktop apps that can manage weather graphics much better.
This is more a joyful toy that fill the PC client void. Plus I definitely dont want piss the hardcore weather geeks that would want be interested in graphs.

galfert:
Some feedback...

- I think the application needs to more clearly let the user know that this application requires a station that reports to Ambientweather.net
- The user must create an API key in Ambientweather.net ( some instructions for this or a link would be helpful)
- In the case that the user has more than one device on Ambientweather.net (as I do) it is necessary for the application to be able to pick which device to use. For me it defaulted to on of my devices but it wouldn't have been the one I would like have picked.
- Once connected to my device via API key I never got any data. The time showed up for a second and then blank, but temp showed 88°F and no other data filled in. After a couple seconds the app closed itself. Under Settings API key it showed all the live data. So not sure why the display didn't work.
- The app opens up with extra white space at the bottom

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cheeroip:

--- Quote from: galfert on December 22, 2020, 12:21:17 PM ---Some feedback...

- I think the application needs to more clearly let the user know that this application requires a station that reports to Ambientweather.net
- The user must create an API key in Ambientweather.net ( some instructions for this or a link would be helpful)
- In the case that the user has more than one device on Ambientweather.net (as I do) it is necessary for the application to be able to pick which device to use. For me it defaulted to on of my devices but it wouldn't have been the one I would like have picked.
- Once connected to my device via API key I never got any data. The time showed up for a second and then blank, but temp showed 88°F and no other data filled in. After a couple seconds the app closed itself. Under Settings API key it showed all the live data. So not sure why the display didn't work.
- The app opens up with extra white space at the bottom


--- End quote ---
Thanks for trying it out. Not sure how interesting would be for the forum to share these boring progress but I don't mind.

API KEY:
I didn't put any efforts into trying to explain how the APIkey works. It is a geek things and it will stay a geek things for a  while. Ambient Weather and pretty much every company/product that offer an API don't make any efforts into simplify or explain anything. It's account/username/password VS APIkey.
Of course in the final version I'll point the user to the ambientweather.net and from there I let them decide how manage their users. Plus Ill point to my own page I created to support the android dashboard app and the widget app.

MULTIPLE STATIONS:
I didn't even considered the fact that people could own multiple stations and the API would return multiple results...
I'll ask you to send me your JSON or idially to let me use your APIKEY.

DATA NOT SHOWING:
I'm surprised it even parsed enough JSON to show anything in the setting recap considering that I didn't build any array for multiple stations. The app crash probably because the JSON try to return multiple stations. I could easily intercept all the exceptions and avoid crashes but that would  assume I know exactly what expect from an app and exactly what expect from an API...
In general I much prefer a crash than returning wrong values (even if it make me and the application look bad... the user is never right anyway).

GRAPHIC ISSUE:
It's the most fun and frustrating part of the app. I'm using a very underutilized automatically resizable layout.
The dashboard graphic is suppose to have a fixed aspect ratio. I'm not using any advantage of a flexible modern interface.  it's being dull by design. There is going to be empty ugly spaces, it's not that other UWP apps are much pleasant anyway. Maybe I'll automatically resize the  application window but that would be an even uglier hack.
When I'll add the NOAA forecast I'll probably use some space to show some extra data. Not my priority so far.

If anybody want design a different Layout I'm more than happy to provide a vector template and discuss what the framework allow or not.

It's always nice to work together on a project and a learning tool for everybody involved.

 
 

galfert:
If you would rather deal with bugs and feedback privately let us know. I submitted the feeback in public because I thought it would drive excitement in the developing process and maybe cause others to want to jump in on helping with the project as discussing it creates buzz. So either way let us know what you prefer.

I agree with you that people don't need to know what an API key nor how it works. What I'm saying is that when you buy and Ambient station and you see that it sends data to Ambientweather.net it will not be immediately obvious that the API key need to be requested and generated. Some people will get lost and so all I'm saying is to have some simple instructions in the application to guide them to ensuring that they have an API key and where to find that on Ambientweather.net as I stumbled myself to find where it was.

I sent you PM with my Ambientweather.net API key so that you can have a looksee of what that looks like with multiple stations. I have 7 devices defined (not all active).
 

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