Dear WeatherCat AppleScript fans,
Randall bravely became the second guinea pig to install the "WeatherCat-ized" versions of my AppleScripts. He was able to make them work without too much pain, so the time has come to let them loose upon you'all. Now they work fine in three places but they are still
*BETA* - don't get confused by how well Stu manages to keep bugs away from us. I try really hard but am not nearly as well equipped to hunt bugs.
The collection has a new (admittedly uninspired) name of
WeatherCat Scripts. You can download the collection here:
http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/AppleScripts/WeatherCat%20Scripts%202012-04-26.zipThere are functionally the same but you will immediately notice some big changes.
First, everything is stored in one large and busy folder. The advantage of this is now they can be placed anywhere on your hard drive - even in your
Applications folder. I have been using the
~/Applications folder (i.e. the one inside your home folder) simply because it is less crowded and somehow scripts don't feel "lofty" enough to me to be in the main Applications folder. However, there is a cost to this - the arrangement
inside this folder must be left alone. The scripts rely on finding things within the
WeatherCat Scripts folder as they are presently arranged. So don't rearrange stuff inside the
WeatherCat Scripts folder.
Second, each script now as a separate preference file. These are mini AppleScript files that the main scripts load to get their settings. They are stored in:
WeatherCat Scripts/WeatherCat Script Library/WeatherCat Script PrefsThe format is slightly different, so look at the Quickstart file for details. So to use these new scripts, you'll need to transfer your setting that were inside of the the old LWC AppleScript Applications into these AppleScript preference files. There are two big advantages. First, you don't have to worry about every fussing with saving Applications that was such a pain. Second, you won't ever have to copy the preferences over for an upgrade. To upgrade, simply replace the AppleScript Application file with the newer one. It will read the same preferences file. So this is the last time of
cuttin' 'n' pastin' settings to upgrade. These AppleScript applications should run
as is on anyone's system. Just launch them as you would launch any Mac Application.
Third, every script that has some sort of state to save, saves that data in a separate file. So from now on, you won't lose any data by upgrading, restarting, rebooting or any sort of crash (sort of a hard drive crash.) Most scripts save periodically with a minimum save period of 10 minutes and some as frequently as every minute.
Four, you'll see some significant improvements. It is now possible to use the venerable command-line browser
lynx instead of curl to submit data to UK Met Office
WoW, PWS-Weather, and WeatherBug. This allows for shorter and clearer error messages. There is now a separate configuration file to handle all emailing for the scripts that use email. In addition to using OS-X's Mail.app, you can use the included
MtcMail to avoid having to run Mail all the time.
WC Storm Monitor now keeps track of local barometric pressure maximums and minimums.
WC ET Reporter will generate a spreadsheet import file of soil moisture and temperature data (if you are lucky enough to have a station with those sensors.) Some of the psuedo web tags have changed. There are some test programs for email and Twitter uploads. Make sure to go through the Quickstart documentation to see all the details.
Oh, inside the busy
WeatherCat Scripts folder is a folder called:
DocumentationI think you can guess what you'll find there!!
and a folder called:
Support tools and templatesThat has for the moment the web templates associated with
WC Zambretti Forecaster and
WC Status Growler.
So, AppleScript fans, take a look and see if you can get these new and improved AppleScripts to behave on your system!
Cheers, Edouard