Author Topic: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?  (Read 66910 times)

Randall75

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #30 on: July 05, 2014, 01:25:54 PM »
Hi Jos
 NOAA style climate reports  are at the top of Stu's to do list he posted that just a few days ago

cheers
 [cheers1]

Blicj11

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #31 on: July 05, 2014, 08:29:20 PM »
NOAA style climate reports are at the top of Stu's to do list he posted that just a few days ago

Click here for that post: http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=944.msg10931#msg10931
Blick


JosBaz

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #32 on: July 06, 2014, 09:26:57 AM »
Excellent - thanks for the note.

FurryOne

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Davis Groweather support?
« Reply #33 on: June 19, 2015, 07:37:45 PM »
You've covered the other Davis stations, but I have the Groweather with a data logger that I'm currently using Weather-Display with, but the graphics are horrible and the program freezes my Mac Mini after a number of days.  I'm using a Keyspan serial-USB adapter.  Thanks.

elagache

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Appears to be discontinued. (Re: Davis Groweather support?)
« Reply #34 on: June 19, 2015, 11:44:35 PM »
Dear FurryOne and WeatherCat Davis fans,

First things first, . . . welcome to the WeatherCat forum! . . .

You've covered the other Davis stations, but I have the Groweather with a data logger that I'm currently using Weather-Display with, but the graphics are horrible and the program freezes my Mac Mini after a number of days.  I'm using a Keyspan serial-USB adapter.  Thanks.

Hmm, I didn't even know Davis made such a thing.  Alas, it appears they don't anymore:

http://davisnet.com/weather/products/weather_product.asp?pnum=07450

I don't know if there are enough users out there to justify supporting this station.  In addition, you've got a serious handicap in that Keyspan serial-USB adapter.  Support for these devices appears to be drying up as serial devices appear to be going extinct.  You might want to start saving up for a newer Davis station.  You'll definitely be happy with the improved data-link performance.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Blicj11

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #35 on: June 19, 2015, 11:58:32 PM »
Thanks for the post Furry. And welcome to the WeatherCat forum.
Blick


WCDev

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #36 on: June 20, 2015, 10:52:23 AM »
It *may* work to some extent with WeatherCat's Monitor/Wizard station driver but I couldn't give any guarantees.

FurryOne

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Re: Appears to be discontinued. (Re: Davis Groweather support?)
« Reply #37 on: June 22, 2015, 04:06:27 AM »
Quote
Hmm, I didn't even know Davis made such a thing.  Alas, it appears they don't anymore

They haven't for a long time.  I'm actually surprised mine is still running, and it even has the solar sensor.

Quote
I don't know if there are enough users out there to justify supporting this station.  In addition, you've got a serious handicap in that Keyspan serial-USB adapter.  Support for these devices appears to be drying up as serial devices appear to be going extinct.  You might want to start saving up for a newer Davis station.  You'll definitely be happy with the improved data-link performance.

I set up a wireless VP2 at work (Mac USB) with WeatherTracker which works well and has a good interface, but Dean has never written software for the really old systems, while Brian (Weather-Display) has been prolific in his support of stations, which is why I'm running W-D on my old Davis GroWeather.  As for Serial/USB, there's nothing wrong with using that type of adapter as long as Triplite's Mac drivers continue to work in future versions of OSX - but thanks for mentioning it.  Yes, I've looked at the possibility of upgrading to a VP2, but my location would result in degraded accuracy for wind, making the change not worth the investment.

FurryOne

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #38 on: June 22, 2015, 04:10:32 AM »
It *may* work to some extent with WeatherCat's Monitor/Wizard station driver but I couldn't give any guarantees.

Thanks!  My experience with weather software is that they query for the model and if they don't find a supported one they stop right there.  Of course it's possible that WeatherCat only goes by the operator input for what station is attached - I don't know.

Felix

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Davis Groweather support?
« Reply #39 on: June 22, 2015, 02:01:56 PM »
I set up a wireless VP2 at work (Mac USB) with WeatherTracker which works well and has a good interface, but Dean has never written software for the really old systems,.....

I thought Dean Davis had pulled the plug on AfterTen Software. Good to hear I was mistaken, there have been a lot of Mac users over the years who've used his WeatherTracker and WeatherMan software applications.

Of course, most of us are partial to LWC and The 'Cat but it's always good to have viable choices.

The Grand Poohbah

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #40 on: June 22, 2015, 08:11:14 PM »
My request is to add a general software mechanism for dynamically importing any external data to WeatherCat. By external data I mean data not from the weather station itself but from a separate software program.

Let me explain why: We Californians are in the fourth year of a serious drought and groundwater is becoming more and more crucial. I wonder how long it can last. I've decided to learn more about how our own well, our only water source, is functioning under these drought conditions.

I purchased the Well Watch 660 from Eno Scientific (http://www.enoscientific.com). This device sits on the well head and uses a sonar-like transponder to determine the top of the water level. When we pump water from the well, the water level drops and then, when we stop pumping, the water level eventually returns to it's "static" level. Simply measuring the change in water level over time can tell a lot about a well's performance.

There is no off-the-shelf Mac software that works with the Well Watch 660, so I've written my own Mac OS X program to capture, display, record, and analyze the water level measurements. Think of it as WeatherCat with only one measurement.  My program charts the level in real-time and analyzes changes in static level over time, the well recovery time, and so forth. The program also records the water level as an Excel-compatible spreadsheet so I can use all the power of spreadsheet analysis and charting.

I would like to import my own data in to WeatherCat. WeatherCat has a great infrastructure for posting information on my web site and sending it to WeatherCat clients. I'd like to take advantage of that capability by adding my own data.

Okay, so it's a stretch - it requires programming and stuff like that, but I thought I'd ask.

elagache

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Would AppleScript or SDK due? (Re: Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?)
« Reply #41 on: June 23, 2015, 12:05:34 AM »
Dear Grand and WeatherCat tinkerers and drought watchers, . . . .

Let me explain why: We Californians are in the fourth year of a serious drought.

You definitely ain't alone brother . . . .

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1392.0


My request is to add a general software mechanism for dynamically importing any external data to WeatherCat. By external data I mean data not from the weather station itself but from a separate software program.

Well, if you could use AppleScript as the "glue," WeatherCat already has a mechanism for importing data: Synthetic Channels.  I have one synthetic channel that computes the different between the actual monthly rainfall and the normal average monthly rainfall and displays that on a graph.  Here is the current graph and custom gauge:



Amazingly, we are well above average for June rainfall because of that 0.25 of rain we got on June 10 from the remnants of hurricane Blanca.

I also have a graph of WeatherCat memory use:



I have my WC Status Growler AppleScript get the memory use from the UNIX utility top and then it puts the value in a file that my AppleScript synthetic channel picks up to graph.

AppleScript is hardly an elegant language, but it should be able to do what you want.  The easiest way to bring your data into WeatherCat is indeed to have some small "breadcrumb" files containing the numbers you want have brought into WeatherCat and then have small AppleScript synthetic channels that open up the file, read the value and return that as the value.

You can read more about synthetic channels on page 56 of the current WeatherCat manual, and I'll gladly send you my AppleScript source if you want it.

If you want better control for inputting data, you could write a WeatherCat plugin.  I've wanted to convert most of my AppleScripts into WeatherCat plugins, but I don't have the Mac GUI programming experience and that's quite a curve for me to climb.  You might not find it much of a challenge though.  You can download the WeatherCat SDK at the bottom of this page:

http://trixology.com/weathercat/

or is the direct link to download it:

http://data.trixology.com/downloads/WeatherCatSDK120.zip

This definitely should be possible for someone with your skills.  The question isn't if, but which path you choose.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

The Grand Poohbah

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #42 on: June 23, 2015, 03:49:45 AM »
Synthetic channels or a plug-in - two great suggestions. Thanks Edouard.

SeanA

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Re: What Do You Want To See In A Mac Weather Program?
« Reply #43 on: August 23, 2015, 01:38:49 PM »
Sylvester to be able to post (tweet) custom alerts.

Cheers
Sean

elagache

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Doeable in AppleScript, but not easy (Re: See In A Mac Weather Program?)
« Reply #44 on: August 23, 2015, 10:55:14 PM »
Dear Sean and WeatherCat fans,

Sylvester to be able to post (tweet) custom alerts.

I assume you want something much easier to use than this suggestion, but as an FYI.  My AppleScripts can be used to post custom alerts to Twitter:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1039.0

Alas, these weary scripts are in very poor shape indeed.  However, if you were desperate and wanted something running ASAP, it can be done.  I'm posting custom alerts to my Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/EdouardLagache/

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]