Custom alerts that are active only for certain periods of the year?

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat fans,

Well it is winter here in California . . . . . (or at least autumn.)    It feels so different from . . . . two days ago.  Today's high: 69.7˚ F.   On Friday the high was 93.7˚ F!! 

None of this sounds like a feature request until . . . .  I got a Growl notification telling me that it is time to open up the windows to cool the house - at 1:30 pm.  Even if it isn't really autumn, effectively I got a reminder that this set of custom alerts aren't going to make much sense after about October or so and I won't need it again most likely until May.  Thus the possible feature request:

Would it make any sense to have a seasonal control available on custom alerts so that you wouldn't have alerts that would be nothing more than a nuisance during some parts of the year?

Yes, I know Stu is braving the wilderness right now, but if I don't write this idea down now - I'll surely forget!

Also, all the rest of you WeatherCat users can weigh in as to whether or not this is a concept worth the hassle on the part of Stu to implement.

Opinions solicited!

Cheers, Edouard 

[Bull Winkus]

Aaaaa? open the dang windows and let it go.

  Free cooling!

[elagache]

Howdy Herb and WeatherCat fans,

Aaaaa? open the dang windows and let it go.

Ya' know . . . . about 1/2 hour after posting this idea, it occurred to me that the "mor' better" way to solve this problem was to only trigger when the high temperature for the day had exceeded a certain value.  Can't do that either with the present version of custom alerts, but honestly, I'm wondering if there are any activities that would involve custom alerts that would occur during certain parts of the year.  It might be better to have more weather-related trigger options instead of anything related to the calendar.  So this may be a still-born idea.

Nonetheless, I just got another one of those unexpected "open the windows" alerts!



Worst still, I left the windows open all morning!! 

Oh well!!

Cheers, Edouard 

[Bull Winkus]

Sounds like what you need is a sensor on the window that keeps the computer informed of its status.

[monymony]

Hi all,

I was thinking the same thing about seasonal control but in the context of frost/freeze alerts.  I don't really care in January is the temp has dropped below 32?F but certainly a bigger deal in early May or late September. 

Jay

[WCDev]

Could be added as a clause - for example:

AND month is between March and September?

[elagache]

Howdy Stu and WeatherCat notification gluttons,

Could be added as a clause - for example:

AND month is between March and September?

Yes, that would be a perfectly good way to implement this sort of thing.  The only problem I would have right now is that I'm already using 3 clauses for the rule in question.  I suppose it might be time to add a few more available clauses to WeatherCat or perhaps come up with another kind of test in alerts that tests if a temperature in increasing/decreasing and reaches a certain value.  The way I try to determine which direction the temperature is changing just doesn't work very well.  I've wondered about asking for a feature like this as well.  It is the sort of thing I would expect many people would want.

However, the only way to find out if people really want it is to - ask!

Cheers, Edouard 

[WCDev]

Some other alternatives (for number of clauses)...
1. Allow the state of other custom alerts to be tested - i.e. if A AND/OR B AND/OR ALERT X (where X is some arbitrary tag assigned to alerts)
2. Allow the use of scripts in alerts, fed with params as per custom channels, then you can do whatever you need (persistent variables etc may come into play)

Cheers,
Stu.

[elagache]

Howdy Stu and WeatherCat tinkerers,

Some other alternatives (for number of clauses)...
1. Allow the state of other custom alerts to be tested - i.e. if A AND/OR B AND/OR ALERT X (where X is some arbitrary tag assigned to alerts)
2. Allow the use of scripts in alerts, fed with params as per custom channels, then you can do whatever you need (persistent variables etc may come into play)

Both schemes would solve the problem.  I have also thought that it might be better to avoid making custom alerts any more complicated than they are and instead provide an option to use AppleScript instead.  Apple seems to have a ambivalent relationship with its own AppleScript, but it has updated it to support code signing, so clearly Apple is continuing to keep it alive.

My problem of determining the direction of change when a temperature threshold is encountered, really needs a sort of calculus approach.  You would need to know the temperature that was returned from the station on the previous sample.  Then it is obvious whether or not the temperature is rising or falling.  Alas, that cannot be done with the present implementation of synthetic channels, because either the channel would need to be able to retain some state or have access to historical data. 

Oh well, one of those "someday" things . . . . 

Cheers, Edouard