Trixology

WeatherCat => WeatherCat Feature Requests => Topic started by: SurfnPics on August 27, 2013, 08:21:47 PM

Title: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: SurfnPics on August 27, 2013, 08:21:47 PM
Forgetting about functionality, I am just talking about the look/appearance of the interface.

I would like to see these upgraded to be larger, clearer and a lot more modern with the option to make some personal adjustments to colours, layout etc. Currently they are as basic as you can get appearance wise. I have a great big screen and I can't even scale it the gauges larger. be nice to be able to have the round gauges with an option for a digital number version.

Are there any plans to improve the?
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Steve on August 28, 2013, 03:55:53 AM
Hi surfnpics, and welcome to the WeatherCat forum!

Of the three Mac weather station software packages available, I'd say WeatherCat's is in the middle. Weather Display has a lot of information, but in a densely packed display that looks like it is from the '70s. WeatherSnoop has the most "lifelike" gauges, although at least one member here thinks they are a little too skeuomorphic. I'll agree with you that WeatherCat's could use some updating, and wholeheartedly agree on the need for resizing. I have a 27" screen and the gauges take up only a tiny corner of the screen with very small text. Even on my 17" MBP the WeatherCat Client is small and hard to read. I keep grabbing the corner to enlarge it, forgetting it is a fixed size.

Meanwhile, if you want some really nice gauges for WeatherCat, you could run the Live Gauges web page locally and view your data in your browser. Here's a link to my live gauges page to show you the possibilities: http://www.avon-weather.com/steel/live.htm

Steve
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Blicj11 on August 28, 2013, 03:16:03 PM
I too agree with this suggestion. If I thought that graphics were more important than functionality or data, I would be using a different software package, but the graphics, especially in the OSx and iOS clients, tell the story in a glance, which is the purpose of the client.
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: WCDev on August 28, 2013, 04:57:43 PM
Various gauge attributes can be changed in WeatherCat's preferences (color, shading, pointer and frame thicknesses and so on) - but it isn't yet possible to resize the gauges. The same is also true of the Daily View/Controller window - there are requests in to make this resizable so as to make the text bigger. These things are on the todo list.

Cheers,
Stu.
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: monymony on August 30, 2013, 06:39:11 PM
While upgraded and more "pretty" gauges would be nice, I have to look at it this way... I have recently converted from my Windows-Based version of Weatherlink so anything that doesn't look like it is out of a 1991 DOS program is a huge improvement. 
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Blicj11 on August 30, 2013, 07:42:22 PM
Quote
anything that doesn't look like it is out of a 1991 DOS program is a huge improvement

Ha ha! I know what you mean. I love my Vantage Pro2 but I don't love WeatherLink.
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Mtn.Marty on August 30, 2013, 10:57:40 PM
I would like to add my $.02 and also suggest an update to the gauges--size and customization.
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Bull Winkus on September 08, 2013, 05:49:17 PM
Just a note about the existing Weather Station Gauges for WC: If you tweak the settings for color, shading, frame thicknesses, etc? as Stu suggested, you can improve the appearance, just not the size. Here's my example.

Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Randall75 on September 08, 2013, 07:09:55 PM
Hi Bull Winkus
 That looks great you can make them look pretty good if you just take time and try [tup]
Still would like to see the window resizable and the Windchill and Heat Index in one window


Thanks for showing it


cheers
 [cheers1]
Title: Re: Upgraded Weather Station Gauges
Post by: Blicj11 on September 09, 2013, 05:19:35 AM
Quote
If you tweak the settings for color, shading, frame thicknesses, etc? as Stu suggested, you can improve the appearance

Thanks for the reminder and your example. I went through mine and tweaked the settings and I agree, the gauges look better.