Weather app that displays 20+ locations at once?

[spriter]

Is there a weather app that can display 20-25 cities temperatures at once, preferably in a sort of list formation, all on the screen at once? Every few weeks I want to screen grab it, date it and keep it for reference (I plan to travel next year).

I did use dashboard and the weather widget but with 25 widgets open at once, Accuweather or my connection jams under the strain of them all trying to update at once.

 

[bearbo]

Is there a weather app that can display 20-25 cities temperatures at once, preferably in a sort of list formation, all on the screen at once? Every few weeks I want to screen grab it, date it and keep it for reference (I plan to travel next year).

I did use dashboard and the weather widget but with 25 widgets open at once, Accuweather or my connection jams under the strain of them all trying to update at once.

do you do applescript? perhaps that can help, even automator should do..

 

[jsw]

What information do you need (I'm assuming you don't need it all)? High and low temps, current conditions, etc.?

 

[spriter]

What information do you need (I'm assuming you don't need it all)? High and low temps, current conditions, etc.?

Highs and lows is fine, conditions are a bonus but not really essential.


@bearbo - I don't know Applescript unfortunately, although I have played with automator somewhat to batch pics via Photoshop.

Perhaps there's a website that lets users register and keep track of their favourite cities?

 

[jsw]

Download http://formymac.com/MR/WeatherCenter.zip. It contains three files: a Java file, and two resulting class files.

• Unzip it into a folder (any folder, or just onto your Desktop) - this will either happen automatically or after you double-click the zip file, depending on your settings.
• Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal.
• In Terminal, type "cd " (note the space), and then drag the folder you unzipped (i.e., the one named Weather Center) onto the Terminal Window. The location will be added to the command line, and it'll look something like "cd /Users/myname/Desktop/WeatherCenter" (depends on where you put the folder and what you called it). Press return. You'll go to that directory.
• If you want to rebuild the files, enter "javac WeatherFetcher.java" and press return.
• Type "java WeatherFetcher" to see usage (if that doesn't work, type "java -classpath . WeatherFetcher").

Do you see anything? If not, PM me. If so, find the Accuweather locations of all the places you want to check (zip codes in the US, things like "EUR|UK|UK124|London" elsewhere) by going to Accuweather.com, finding the places you care about, and noting the part of the URL after "loccode=" [it's a pain, but I know of no easier way]. Then run the program by typing "java WeatherFetcher C " plus all the locations. The 'C' is because I assume you want Celsius. Use 'F' for Fahrenheit. For example:

java WeatherFetcher C EUR\|UK\|UK124\|London EUR\|UK\|UK174\|Manchester EUR\|UK\|UK407\|Belfast

I'm still working on it, and, for now, you need to place a '\' in front of all the '|' characters.

The º symbol isn't appearing yet. Anyway, give me a few minutes, but you can see if this works at all for you.

If it does, you can save the whole command in a file and run it as often as you'd like.

 

[jsw]

OK, I made it easier....

Download the same link (I updated the files).

Follow all of the instructions for fetching it and finding the locations of your cities... but (in a now improved step), you can use TextEdit to create a file with the entries (no '\' characters needed) and then run with that, so, for example:

config.txt contains:

C EUR|UK|UK124|London EUR|UK|UK174|Manchester EUR|UK|UK407|Belfast

or if you'd prefer:

C
EUR|UK|UK124|London
EUR|UK|UK174|Manchester
EUR|UK|UK407|Belfast

Run with:

java -classpath . WeatherFetcher config.txt

That should do the trick. The º symbol is still screwy in Terminal, but you can send the output to a text file with something like this:

java -classpath . WeatherFetcher config.txt > 16_11_2006.txt

and then do that for each additional time. When I ran it, I got:

Date: Thu Nov 16 16:59:23 EST 2006

London: 45ºF, 100% humidity, wind S 9 mph, clear (forecast: high 56ºF, low 42ºF, rain).
Manchester: 41ºF, 93% humidity, wind SSE 8 mph, clear (forecast: high 52ºF, low 41ºF, more sun than clouds with a shower in spots).
Belfast: 39ºF, 93% humidity, wind SSW 6 mph, rainshower (forecast: high 46ºF, low 39ºF, intervals of clouds and sunshine with a brief shower or two).
​

Yeah, it's geeky and not so easy to use. But at least it's a record of as many cities as you'd like, and it only takes a second or two per city.

Anyway, I can get it to output in about any format you'd like. Let me know if this is in any way helpful.

 

[SFVCyclone]

OK, I made it easier....

Download the same link (I updated the files).

Follow all of the instructions for fetching it and finding the locations of your cities... but (in a now improved step), you can use TextEdit to create a file with the entries (no '\' characters needed) and then run with that, so, for example:

config.txt contains:

C EUR|UK|UK124|London EUR|UK|UK174|Manchester EUR|UK|UK407|Belfast

or if you'd prefer:

C
EUR|UK|UK124|London
EUR|UK|UK174|Manchester
EUR|UK|UK407|Belfast

Run with:

java -classpath . WeatherFetcher config.txt

That should do the trick. The º symbol is still screwy in Terminal, but you can send the output to a text file with something like this:

java -classpath . WeatherFetcher config.txt > 16_11_2006.txt

and then do that for each additional time. When I ran it, I got:

Date: Thu Nov 16 16:59:23 EST 2006

London: 45ºF, 100% humidity, wind S 9 mph, clear (forecast: high 56ºF, low 42ºF, rain).
Manchester: 41ºF, 93% humidity, wind SSE 8 mph, clear (forecast: high 52ºF, low 41ºF, more sun than clouds with a shower in spots).
Belfast: 39ºF, 93% humidity, wind SSW 6 mph, rainshower (forecast: high 46ºF, low 39ºF, intervals of clouds and sunshine with a brief shower or two).
​

Yeah, it's geeky and not so easy to use. But at least it's a record of as many cities as you'd like, and it only takes a second or two per city.

Anyway, I can get it to output in about any format you'd like. Let me know if this is in any way helpful.

Dude You SOOOOOOO Kick BUTT!!!!!

 

[jsw]

Dude You SOOOOOOO Kick BUTT!!!!!

Thanks.

But if I actually kicked butt, it'd be a lot easier to use. That's all I had time for between doing real work and doing house work. Hopefully it's of some use. Like I said, the output format is trivial to change. Just PM me if you ("you" = anyone) would like it to be formatted differently (tab delimited, for example).

Edit: and ignore the fact that the temps are in Fahrenheit in my example - I changed the config file between edits of the post.

 

[spriter]

jsw, I haven't yet tried what you made (I'm at work) but in a few hours I'll give it a whirl. Seriously, I can't thank you enough for even attempting to put together something like this .

 

[jsw]

I'm guessing there are much better ways to go about this, as there are surely weather sites that give monthly averages (there certainly are for cities here in the States), but it's better than nothing, I suppose. BTW, there is a ton of data returned from AccuWeather, almost none of which shows up in the widget (times the planets rise, phases of the moon, weather forecast for a week, etc.).

 

[spriter]

I'm guessing there are much better ways to go about this, as there are surely weather sites that give monthly averages (there certainly are for cities here in the States), but it's better than nothing, I suppose. BTW, there is a ton of data returned from AccuWeather, almost none of which shows up in the widget (times the planets rise, phases of the moon, weather forecast for a week, etc.).

This is cool. I can't thank you enough jsw - it'll be a real help. Great for times when I won't have net access and want to plan ahead a little.

Date: Fri Nov 17 19:52:58 GMT 2006

Moscow: -2.8ºC, 86% humidity, wind N 7 mph, cloudy (forecast: high -2.2ºC, low -9.4ºC, cloudy and chilly).
Omsk: 10.0ºC, 81% humidity, wind SSE 7 mph, clear (forecast: high 7.2ºC, low -13.3ºC, snow much of the time, accumulating a coating to an inch).
Irkutsk: -3.9ºC, 84% humidity, wind NW 3 mph, cloudy (forecast: high 0.6ºC, low -10.6ºC, considerable cloudiness).
Ulaanbaatar: -12.2ºC, 100% humidity, no wind, light fog (forecast: high -4.4ºC, low -21.7ºC, cold with more sun than clouds).
Beijing: 2.8ºC, 93% humidity, wind NW 3 mph, light fog (forecast: high 10.6ºC, low 1.1ºC, times of clouds and sun).
Xi'an: 0.0ºC, 80% humidity, wind S 3 mph, clear (forecast: high 13.3ºC, low 2.2ºC, times of clouds and sun).
Chengdu: 13.9ºC, 82% humidity, wind SSW 1 mph, light fog (forecast: high 17.8ºC, low 10.6ºC, intervals of clouds and sunshine with a passing shower).
Kunming: 11.1ºC, 71% humidity, wind SW 3 mph, clear (forecast: high 22.8ºC, low 8.3ºC, clouds giving way to some sun).
Dali: 11.1ºC, 71% humidity, wind SW 3 mph, clear (forecast: high 21.7ºC, low 6.7ºC, mostly sunny and beautiful).
Nanning: 23.9ºC, 88% humidity, wind N 1 mph, clear (forecast: high 30.0ºC, low 18.9ºC, clouds and sunshine with a brief shower or two).
Guangzhou: 23.9ºC, 73% humidity, wind N 1 mph, light fog (forecast: high 27.2ºC, low 20.6ºC, intervals of clouds and sunshine).
Nanjing: 15.0ºC, 87% humidity, wind SW 3 mph, foggy (forecast: high 15.6ºC, low 11.1ºC, considerable clouds with a shower in the area).
Xiamen: 21.1ºC, 93% humidity, wind WSW 1 mph, light fog (forecast: high 27.2ºC, low 19.4ºC, partly sunny with a shower in places).
Kowloon: 23.9ºC, 83% humidity, wind E 11 mph, partly cloudy (forecast: high 28.9ºC, low 22.2ºC, mainly cloudy with a brief shower or two).
Bangkok: 28.9ºC, 69% humidity, no wind, partly cloudy (forecast: high 32.8ºC, low 23.3ºC, times of clouds and sun).
Phnom Penh: 23.9ºC, 94% humidity, wind NNW 1 mph, partly cloudy (forecast: high 32.8ºC, low 23.9ºC, times of sun and clouds with a shower in places; very humid).
Ho Chi Minh City: 23.9ºC, 94% humidity, wind NNW 1 mph, partly cloudy (forecast: high 33.9ºC, low 23.9ºC, very humid with times of clouds and sun).
Hanoi: 23.9ºC, 88% humidity, wind N 1 mph, clear (forecast: high 32.2ºC, low 21.1ºC, clouds and sunshine).
Chiang Mai: 20.0ºC, 93% humidity, wind WNW 3 mph, clear (forecast: high 33.3ºC, low 20.0ºC, beautiful with several hours of sun).
Mumbai: 26.1ºC, 64% humidity, no wind, smoky (forecast: high 33.9ºC, low 22.8ºC, a full day of sunshine).
New Delhi: 18.9ºC, 77% humidity, no wind, smoky (forecast: high 28.3ºC, low 12.2ºC, mostly sunny).
Kathmandu: 18.9ºC, 77% humidity, no wind, haze (forecast: high 25.6ºC, low 9.4ºC, pleasant with plenty of sun).
Nepalganj: 17.8ºC, 55% humidity, wind ENE 1 mph, clear (forecast: high 31.1ºC, low 13.9ºC, abundant sunshine).
Rome: 16.1ºC, 77% humidity, wind SE 8 mph, mostly cloudy (forecast: high 22.2ºC, low 14.4ºC, partly sunny).
Zurich: 11.1ºC, 93% humidity, wind N 3 mph, clear (forecast: high 14.4ºC, low 6.1ºC, rain and drizzle).
Paris: 12.2ºC, 71% humidity, wind S 12 mph, partly cloudy (forecast: high 13.9ºC, low 7.2ºC, breezy and cooler with increasing cloudiness).
Manchester: 3.9ºC, 93% humidity, wind SSE 5 mph, clear (forecast: high 11.1ºC, low 2.8ºC, clouds and sun).

Running that once every two weeks is perfect.