Meteorologist Classic / Blog: Recent posts

The main feature added is internationalization (i18n) support. That means the app can automatically display text in your preferred language … if we have a localization (l10n) file of translated strings. If you would like to contribute a l10n, look for the Localizable.strings file in the svn repo. A consequence of i18n support is the visual layout of the interface elements and text strings. You will notice extra spacing to allow for translated text. If you notice some text is cut off, please send me a screenshot since I don't see what the app looks like in other languages.... read more

A long delayed release, this version fixes one crucial and several minor bugs. The delay actually reinforced itself by continually tempting me to rewrite even more code. Overall, the code is better organized, with many shortcuts replaced by better structured code. Some of the notable changes include:

• Fully remove Dark Sky references, which could cause crashes when adding locations.
• The Cycle and Refresh intervals should have better asynchronous operation. Consequently, I have removed the artificial limitations.
• WeatherAPI geocoding supports City parameter.
• NWS supports summary icon.

The weather service Dark Sky was bought by Apple, and DS's service was retired on 2023/03/31. Apple has developed the WeatherKit API to access the underlying DS data, but WeatherKit is tied to Apple's Developer subscription program. I have no plans to add support. This release removes DS support as well as fixing a handful of minor bugs. Two notable changes include:

• Visual Crossing changed its reporting values for humidity. MC has adapted to the new format.
• NWS occasionally reports null values. MC will handle these null values.

This version is mostly about bug fixes plus two new changes.

1. If you enjoy and want to continue using WeatherStack, you must upgrade to 1.8.4. Apologies for the inconvenience. WS has had consistent, extremely high demand, which seems irrational considering WS offers the lowest call allowance and least weather data, such that the call allowance is exhausted on the first day of the month. I wonder if some user(s) has installed MC, configured it with short update interval, and essentially forgotten about it. Thus, I have reset access to WS, so older versions of MC may no longer access WS. If you genuinely enjoy WS, I would be interested in hearing why.
2. Just to be as well behaved as a Mac app can be, MC will terminate faster, meaning faster shutdown or restart. This Classic is fast!

This release adds the remaining few minor features I had planned along with several bug fixes.

• Add preference options for displaying forecast periods inline, each on one line. These options may be useful for those with larger monitors.
• Add preference option for debug log. Probably not very useful unless you want to see the raw data from weather services.
• For geocoding, add visual cues. Weather services with geocoding will have indicators for supported/required options. Also, text fields are enabled/disabled when using Location Services.
• Display report coordinates if applicable. If you used coordinates or Location Services when geocoding, then your location's distance from the weather service's report location is displayed.
• Use system preferred language. For fresh installations or if you trash the Preferences file, the language preference will check your system's preferred language. One less preference option to reset.
• Fix version check. In v1.8.2, while cleaning the code, I effectively disabled the version check again, and then just discovered it on my first attempt at releasing v1.8.3. I immediately fixed it and then released v1.8.3 again. So sorry, but everyone on v1.8.2 will not be notified about this release.... read more

There are a few important bug fixes, along with a few new features.

• Automatic version check feature works now. While cleaning the code for v1.8.0 release, I inadvertently disabled it, and then only discovered it with the v1.8.1 release, sigh.
• Alert windows dismissed properly. In the haste of updating to v10.6 frameworks, I missed updating alert windows.
• The menubar menu now draws safely. With the new color coding, the menu could become corrupt and crash.
• The rotate locations feature can be disabled by setting the interval to zero.
• Locations and weather attributes now support drag and drop. Rearrange the order of how locations display, instead of always adding them in the order you wanted. Plus, you can Edit a location and rearrange the order of how its attributes display.
• Date processing for {WeatherAPI, NWS} is improved.
• Menubar will clear properly if all locations are removed.... read more

For most users, the main effective change is adding support for AccuWeather. The request allowance is low, but it is still higher than WS's average daily allowance. Supporting AW required some internal changes, so you may have to trash the Preferences file.

For users running on systems before macOS v10.8, you will need to download this version. I misunderstood some version requirements for Apple's Location Services. The result is that the minimum system is now macOS v10.6. On the plus side, the code can be updated and simplified for more modern frameworks.... read more

I am pleased to announce the release of Meteorologist Classic v1.8.0. The app has been rewritten while retaining most of the major features, some minor features will be added soon. In fact, it should look and feel the same, just better behaved from a programming standpoint. Much of the documentation will be updated soon, but its operation should be familiar enough with experienced users. Do not hesitate to ask questions on the Discussion forum. Enjoy!

Recently discovered a bug with the option "Prevent multiple Meteos from being launched." I think it was designed with the assumption that most Macs are single user systems. As a menubar applet without a dock icon, I could see how it was intended as a cute fix. I do not know if it ever worked as intended, but I now know it causes problems on multi-user systems. Even as intended on single user systems, it was an unreliable piece of code and not worth finding a solution, so I'm disabling it.... read more

A few minor bug fixes that I finally resolved.

1. Dark Sky weather alerts display in a modal window. The modal window should not cause any more crashes.
2. Dark Sky's service now requires OS X v10.9 for its encryption support.
3. Weather data timestamps, reported as Observation, now display in your local timezone.
4. The weatherstack service supports night status conditions, which is now reflected in the weather status icon.
5. The update interval now has a minimum of 60 minutes. Since weatherstack's service was added, it has been a very popular weather source. I see the statistics where its allowance of 1000 requests per month is used up within a week. Hopefully a minimum update interval extends its usefulness.

Unfortunately, another free weather service has downgraded. The weather service Apixu has rebranded as weatherstack, but the service looks almost completely rewritten, from a programming perspective. However, the major pain is from downgrading the free service by a factor of ten, allowing only 1000 requests per month. Even worse, weatherstack provides only current weather conditions, no forecast.... read more

The Weather Underground service has officially stopped. This release shuffles out the weather services Aeris Weather and Weather Underground but also adds Dark Sky. Yahoo Weather service has been updated to handle the new API. Besides these major changes, there were a few bug fixes affecting the display of weather data. You will likely need to remove and add locations to get them working.

Dark Sky offers 1000 requests per day, which is double what Weather Underground offered, so that will help tremendously. Their data covers almost everything Weather Underground provided but no more satellite maps.... read more

The main new feature is adding a precipitation forecast map in AW and updating the existing satellite map. Minor features include adding languages support in APIXU and reducing overall memory usage.

The biggest part of this update is adding a weather data service, Apixu (affiliated with World Weather Online). However, Apixu's zero cost allowance is 5000 requests per month, which on a daily average is less than WWO's original offering. But no gripes for something at zero cost, and it helps all of us just a little bit more. Please see the FAQ for details on using Apixu.

Other minor updates include:... read more

A bug was introduced way back in 1.5.0 where the new version check could remove all your locations under certain conditions, described below. Due to this bug, 1.7.12 will not be announced through the version check mechanism - do not want to trigger the bug again.

1. The preference option for new version check at launch was enabled.
2. Upon next launch, if a new version was available, a dialog box would present options to visit the web site or cancel.
3. Clicking to visit the web site would remove all your saved locations.... read more

Probably the most noticeable change is fixing the crashing bug when using World Weather Online and WWO returns empty data. Except, WWO is not a viable data source, so it is removed. You should remove locations using WWO; if your first location used WWO, it may immediately crash, in which case, you will have to trash the preferences file. Apologies for the inconvenience.

According to WWO's advertising on their web site, there should be a zero cost service, even though with a very limited number of requests. As far as I can tell, that is not the case. We were merely on a free trial period.... read more

The key new feature is the Preferences option to change the weather status icon size as seen in the forecast menus. The menubar has a fixed height, so its weather status icon size is already maximized. There were a few minor but important bug fixes including:

• crashing bug if World Weather Online returned empty results
• memory leaks
• missing forecast temperature lows on Yahoo Weather
• the weather URL now works on World Weather Online (ie, selecting the location's menu item or "Weather For ..." if in the menubar will open the location's weather report)... read more

Two notable features in this release.

• Added weather service World Weather Online.
• Using higher resolution icons.

After adding AW, users were exceeding its daily request limits very quickly, so I decided to add WWO. I wonder how quickly before we exceed its limits! Minor note: WWO's observation time seems to be synonymous with the update time; please let me know if you notice significant differences.... read more

I would really appreciate a beta test user with a 10.4 or 10.5 system to test one feature before I release the next version. Please either send me a message via sourceforge or leave an email address so I may contact you. Thanks!

This release fixes a few minor bugs. The most notable, in my opinion, is location search in AerisWeather. A bug in AW's server may not handle search queries properly, but I added a fix to work around it. The confusing part was that AW is now enforcing the daily request limit, so I was getting different errors. Anyway, for yours and everyone's sake, please do not use both AW and WU to track the same location.

Added Aeris Weather as a weather source. However, beware that AW's daily limit is less than WU. I expect that users would want to compare AW with the others. After comparing, please do not use both AW and WU to track the same location. Playing nicely helps everyone, including yourself!

You may always find a brief summary of new changes in the README.txt, and I just wanted to add a little detail on some of them.

One user commented how OWM's weather data was somewhat different than other services, but Kirkwood, CA was an interesting case. As I investigated, I realized a few things. First, OWM's zip search is unreliable. Second, OWM's city search for Kirkwood results in Kirkwood, MO. Third, OWM supports latitude/longitude search. Therefore, I have added latitude/longitude as a third search option and removed the hack for OWM's unreliable zip search. Now you can get at least proper locations from OWM using latitude/longitude search. Furthermore, I have improved the pressure reporting from OWM. Please visit the updated FAQ for some other info.

I am glad you found your way here. I will use this blog area for announcements and such. Please feel free to use the discussion area and say what is on your mind with other users. Contact me by clicking on my username 'jhom' (near the top left) and then click on Send Message (at the top right). Bear with me as I migrate to this project area, but let me know what I am missing (or how you might contribute!).