Author Topic: Share Your Gages  (Read 13402 times)

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Share Your Gages
« on: July 01, 2014, 09:21:33 PM »
The arrival of gages on WeatherCat is a milestone event, and worth making a little fuss over. I was already hurting for screen space and had acquired a Thunderbolt Display to handle some of the chart display duties. Still, It seemed as though I needed even more screen space. With the new Cat gages, I had to reinvent my presentation dynamics. I hadn't used spaces much, but was thrust into it by this new feature of the Cat, because I needed more ? well ? space. What I settled on is two spaces on the iMac's desktop, one for other program use and the other for just the gages. All of my graphs went to 3 spaces on Display 2 (Thunderbolt Display). The 1st space is all 1 Day Charts. The 2nd space is all 7 Day Charts, and the 3rd space is everything above in duration.

After puzzling over how to properly display my measured variables for both my use and visitors to see and understand, I settled on this arrangement. That was after spending almost a week with all the temperatures in the same dial gage under different pointers. Switching to multiple gages afforded more visibility through the use of daily high and low pointers for each temperature.

Please use this thread to share your own adaptation to this major change in the Cat.

Herb

Randall75

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 1332
  • CWOP-CW6734 WeatherUnderground-KOHNEWAR6
    • CW6734
    • KOHNEWAR6
    • Randy's Weather On The Hill
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus.iMac i5 OS High Sierra 10.13.6 8GB Ram, WeatherCat 3,Logitech 9000 Pro Web Cam
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2014, 02:12:14 AM »
Hi Herb
here what I am running:


cheers


 [cheers1]

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2014, 08:01:40 PM »
That's pretty amazing, Randall! Looks like you got just about everything covered. Reminds me of my days as an Industrial Instrument Technician, and a certain CO2 compressor I used to have to perform instrument calibrations on.

I suppose you are using spaces for your charts as well?

Herb
Herb

elagache

  • Global Moderator
  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 6494
    • DW3835
    • KCAORIND10
    • Canebas Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro-2, Mac mini (2018), macOS 10.14.3, WeatherCat 3
Aimed for compactness and readability. (Re: Share Your Gauges)
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2014, 11:11:30 PM »
Hi Herb, Randall, and WeatherCat fans,

Well, . . . . I would like to show you my gauges . . . but my WeatherCat space is such a mess!  :-[  I still haven't done anything since adding gauges as Stu added features.  The one thought I wanted to share was my attempt to make as compact and readable a gauge as I could come up with.  Here is an example in the Blancy-Criddle ET gauge I made:



Here are the settings I used to produce it:



With those settings, I could squeeze the gauges down to about 200 pixels.  Anything smaller was impossible to read.

Sorry if spoils the party a little, but I find the custom gauges much harder to read than even the standard gauge console if you make the gauges small enough so that you can keep then all in one space and only have 1920x1200 pixels of display space.  Right now I'm running 16 gauges and because I keep the graphs on the same space this virtual desktop is horribly cluttered.

It appears that there is nothing Stu can do, but it sure would be great if we could spread all the WeatherCat windows across 2 or 3 spaces.  Alas, I don't think there are many applications that have this sort of need, so Apple isn't likely to upgrade OS X to accommodate this.

 Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Steve

  • Global Moderator
  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 1555
    • DW8454
    • KOHAVON11
    • Avon Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless VP2 Plus w/24 hr FARS, Leaf & Soil Station, 2023 Mac mini M2 Pro, 32GB RAM, Mac OS 14, WeatherCat 3.2
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #4 on: July 03, 2014, 01:16:23 AM »
Here are a couple of test pages I did when the private beta version first added them. I haven't fiddled with them since, so they are a bit dated as to testing the full list of options. )Steel Series are simply images for comparison, and not current data.)

http://www.avon-weather.com//gaugetest.html

http://www.avon-weather.com//gaugetest2.html

Steve
Steve - Avon, Ohio, USA


CWOP: DW8454 - WU: KOHAVON11 - AWEKAS - CoCoRaHS
PWSweather - WeatherCloud - Twitter - Facebook

Blicj11

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 3941
    • EW3808
    • KUTHEBER6
    • Timber Lakes Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus | WeatherLinkIP Data Logger | iMac (2019), 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9, 40 GB RAM, macOS Ventura 13.6 | Sharx SCNC2900 Webcam | WeatherCat 3.3 | Supportive Wife
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2014, 01:15:48 AM »
Here is my wee set based on Edouard's synthetic channel tracking for when to open and close the windows. How did I ever handle this duty without a WeatherCat email reminder?
Blick


Mtn.Marty

  • Gentle Breeze
  • **
  • Posts: 91
    • EW4707
    • KNCASHEV25
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Vue
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2014, 08:01:01 PM »
So excuse my ignorance, but these gauges I assume are done with version 2, right? I'm assuming they're customizable? I'm assuming you can select which ones to show?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2014, 08:19:26 PM »
Hi Mtn.Marty. Yes. The gauges are part of the WeatherCat version being beta tested at this time. So far, it is working very well!

The gauges are as optional as the charts and even more customizable, since you can opt to fix the scale on a gauge to what you desire. Use one pointer or all four. Select pointer styles, colors and parameters such as highest, lowest or average.

Try the download. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Herb
Herb

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2014, 08:31:30 PM »
Edouard, I started using multiple spaces with version 2.0. WeatherCat uses 1 desktop on monitor 1, and 4 desktops on monitor 2. All the monitor 2 desktops are showing charts. The first one is 1 day charts. The second is 7 day charts. The third is 28 day charts and the forth is annual charts. That way I can keep the gauges and calendar clock window visible on monitor 1 while shuffling through the four pages of charts on monitor 2.

As for restarts, it's not too bad. They do all end up on the same page, but if you drag each one to the icon for its desktop, it goes right back to the originally designated screen position. Takes less than 2 minutes. Annoying? Yes. But easily overcome.

Herb
Herb

elagache

  • Global Moderator
  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 6494
    • DW3835
    • KCAORIND10
    • Canebas Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro-2, Mac mini (2018), macOS 10.14.3, WeatherCat 3
Drag'em how? (Re: Share Your Gages)
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2014, 10:51:36 PM »
Howdy Herb and WeatherCat desktop real-estate expanders,

As for restarts, it's not too bad. They do all end up on the same page, but if you drag each one to the icon for its desktop, it goes right back to the originally designated screen position. Takes less than 2 minutes. Annoying? Yes. But easily overcome.

Huh?  How are you doing this drag?   The only way I know to move things in between spaces is to use F8 function key to reveal all the spaces and then manually drag each window one at a time.  How are you doing this?  Can you point me to some OS X documentation that I've overlooked?

Signed, . . . . very curious!!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2014, 01:30:42 AM »
In Mission Control's System Preferences, I assigned Control UpArrow to enter the Spaces (Mission Control) window. (Note: There is also all those pesky option enabler radio buttons. Choose the ones that apply to your situation.) To move a window from one desktop to another, even across monitors, first select that desktop where the errant Finder window lies. If OS X is in Mission Control at the time you select a Spaces desktop, OS X will go back to normal Finder mode. Control UpArrow to re-enter Mission Control. Your Spaces desktop that you just selected will be the active space. Any Finder window in the middle of the screen can be dragged, from the active Spaces desktop, to the icon for any other desktop. It will fall at the same screen coordinates it had, but in the new Spaces desktop.

Since a restart places all gages and windows on the same desktop, just start from there and remove all that doesn't belong, dragging and dropping on the Spaces thumbnail for the desktop where it does belong. This only takes about a minute.

I'm still not sure how you are doing it, if not the same way I am. This area of development needs some language expert to come up with a better vocabulary for the various elements. It is difficult to describe, since so many of the nouns are used interchangeably for different things. I had to go back and edit several times for greater specificity. I hope I found and eliminated all the ambiguity.

Herb
Herb

elagache

  • Global Moderator
  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 6494
    • DW3835
    • KCAORIND10
    • Canebas Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro-2, Mac mini (2018), macOS 10.14.3, WeatherCat 3
I don't need no!!! . . . . . Oh, wait a minute! (Re: Share Your Gages)
« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2014, 11:21:47 PM »
Hi Herb and fellow WeatherCat "stubborn" OS X "your way" users. . . . .

In Mission Control's System Preferences

 ;) . . . . .

Mission Control!?!?!  I don't need no stinking Mission Control!!!!
  >:(

. . . . . . . . . Oh, wait a minute! . . . .  :-[

. . . . .  [biggrin]


Hmm, I think I see the problem here.  You see, as I have confessed elsewhere on this forum, I'm still plenty sore about Apple's crummy implementation of spaces.  To make things closer to what I'm used to, I've been using a shareware program called TotalSpaces2:

http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/

It has a number of nice features that help me visualize how my various spaces are organized.  I still would much prefer a pager, but this is as good as it gets on Mavericks.  However, TotalSpaces2 doesn't have any way to move a window into exactly the same position in another space.

For the moment, I'll probably try to keep WeatherCat in one space.  I already have 9 (actually 10 with the OS 10.6 virtual machine) spaces and each space has a different kind of work activity assigned to it.  However, I'm running an enhanced version of the Finder called Path Finder:

http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/

In 5 of these 9 spaces,  I have a very elaborately configured Path Finder window, with a whole mess of tabs and other custom settings.  These 5 windows have to be relocated at every restart and it is a pain right now.  I'll try using Mission Control to see if I can avoid first moving the windows to their correct space and then having to go to that space and get the window correctly tucked into its appropriate position in the space.

Thanks Herb for the tip!  [tup]

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2014, 07:03:05 PM »
Ooooo? Edouard! Sounds like you've got a case of runaway complexity. Better nip it! It can spread like wild fire ?

I tried a useful Finder enhancement that mainly gave me tabbed window headers, but then Mavericks usurped the feature, making the 3rd party program somewhat useless. I kept it for a few weeks, but have since deleted it. I'm not fond of Finder mods. They tend to muck things up around OS X's major releases. Good luck with that this Fall!

Best,

Herb
Herb

elagache

  • Global Moderator
  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 6494
    • DW3835
    • KCAORIND10
    • Canebas Weather
  • Station Details: Davis Vantage Pro-2, Mac mini (2018), macOS 10.14.3, WeatherCat 3
Too late! I'm addicted!! (Re: Share Your Gages)
« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2014, 09:28:56 PM »
Howdy Herb and WeatherCat power-hungry Mac users!

Ooooo? Edouard! Sounds like you've got a case of runaway complexity. Better nip it! It can spread like wild fire ?

You are . . . . Soooo . . . right!  Alas it is too late . . . I'm addicted!!  [goofy]

I tried a useful Finder enhancement that mainly gave me tabbed window headers, but then Mavericks usurped the feature, making the 3rd party program somewhat useless. I kept it for a few weeks, but have since deleted it. I'm not fond of Finder mods. They tend to muck things up around OS X's major releases.

Well, . . . . . when I upgraded to Mavericks I gave the Apple version of a tabs in the Finder window a try.  Let us say it is a bit . . . impoverished!  [rolleyes2]  Alas, Path Finder doesn't seem to be getting the attention it used to get, so I fear you are correct, the writing is on the wall.  Still, it is another example of Apple stealing ideas from others and not even getting the best ideas put together into powerful but user-friendly package.  Apple has definitely gotten too big for its britches. 

Good luck with that this Fall!

*Heavy sigh*, I'm still running some programs discontinued many years ago.  We'll see what damage Yosemite does to my computing ecosystem.  I'll burn (err, cross) that bridge when I get to it!  [biggrin]

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Bull Winkus

  • Storm
  • *****
  • Posts: 782
    • EW0095
    • KARHORSE2
    • WU for Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  • Station Details: Davis Wireless Vantage Pro 2, iMac 24"
Re: Share Your Gages
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2014, 06:44:03 PM »
Here is my wee set based on Edouard's synthetic channel tracking for when to open and close the windows. How did I ever handle this duty without a WeatherCat email reminder?

 [rockon] Blick, I'm having a little difficulty figuring out what you're doing there. Could you give a little explanation?  [tup]

I'm not using any growler alerts, but here's my synthetic channel gage and temperatures to perform the same function. For me, it's just a delta temperature, outside minus inside, so when it goes negative, that means it's colder outside than inside. But, I'm running AC all the time now. My inside is relatively stable. I still run AC with cool ambient temperatures, because of the high humidity here this time of year. Plus, we have gnat swarms, and those little buggers can go through screen doors easily. I've got an attic fan that would be great in the Spring, except for gnats getting in. Even in full AC mode, I still get a few gnats just from coming and going.

Herb
Herb