I fixed the Weather Dashboard widget, and it should work on PPC!

[Wowfunhappy]

Hey all! So, I already have a thread for this over in the Mac Apps section of the forum, but I was hoping no one would mind if I mentioned it here as well. I've spent a lot of time making sure this widget works on very old versions of OS X, and unsurprisingly, the other sections of the forum don't have a ton of PPC users.

I don't actually own a PPC Mac, but I have the widget working fully in a copy of Tiger running inside qemu. Even so, weird problems have a tendency to pop up whenever software is more widely tested, so I could use more PPC peeps to put it through its paces.

Cheers, and let me know if it works / doesn't work.

https://jonathanalland.com/weather-widget.html
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/i-fixed-apples-broken-weather-dashboard-widget.2225715/

 

[eyoungren]

Hey all! So, I already have a thread for this over in the Mac Apps section of the forum, but I was hoping no one would mind if I mentioned it here as well. I've spent a lot of time making sure this widget works on very old versions of OS X, and unsurprisingly, the other sections of the forum don't have a ton of PPC users.

I don't actually own a PPC Mac, but I have the widget working fully in a copy of Tiger running inside qemu. Even so, weird problems have a tendency to pop up whenever software is more widely tested, so I could use more PPC peeps to put it through its paces.

Cheers, and let me know if it works / doesn't work.

https://jonathanalland.com/weather-widget.html
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/i-fixed-apples-broken-weather-dashboard-widget.2225715/

May I interest you in another challenge?

Have you ever heard of Yahoo Widgets? They came out of Konfabulator and are bits of JS code that run on your desktop. Pretty big thing back in 2004-2006 or so. Unlike Dashboard widgets, they actually function on the desktop.

One of my Yahoo Widgets, Widescape Weather, stopped working after Weather Underground changed. But being JS code there has to be some way to change things.

My old thread is here and there is an attachment for the widget JS code towards the bottom - if you're interested.

Widescape Weather - fun's over

Been having some issues with my weather widget (Yahoo Widgets) not displaying weather info. Did some poking around today and come to find out Weather Underground's API, which Widescape Weather uses is no longer free or available. So, that pretty much renders this old Widget useless now. The...

forums.macrumors.com

If not, no worries.

 

[davisdelo]

Works fine for me, DC G5, 10.5.8

 

[Amethyst1]

Unlike Dashboard widgets, they actually function on the desktop

Don't Dashboard widgets also work on the desktop if in developer/debug mode or something?

 

[eyoungren]

Don't Dashboard widgets also work on the desktop if in developer/debug mode or something?

Yes they do, just not normally. There's also an app (Amnesty) that will convert them into an actual app so you don't have to run Dashboard.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Don't Dashboard widgets also work on the desktop if in developer/debug mode or something?

Yep, the command is:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES && killall Dock

Then you can drag widgets from Dashboard onto the desktop (dismiss dashboard while dragging the widget). It is very useful during development.

 

[Nedstah]

Yep, the command is:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES && killall Dock

Then you can drag widgets from Dashboard onto the desktop (dismiss dashboard while dragging the widget). It is very useful during development.

Confirming your weather widget adjustment works in 10.4.11 Tiger on a G4 1.42 PPC Mac mini

 

[Project Alice]

Just tested on a 1.5Ghz PowerBook under 10.5.8. I replaced the original Apple widget. At first it was showing graphical glitches and unreadble, but a restart of the Dock/Dashboard fixed it. It now seems to be working perfectly.
Just in case someone else has that issue. A "sudo killall Dock" should do the trick.