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Widescape Weather - fun's over

eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Nehalem
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
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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 last update was five years ago.

That just leaves Werewolf Monitor on my desktop. Sigh.
 
Project Alice said:
The built in weather widget works fine for me? I believe it uses accuweather.
Click to expand...
The Dashboard widget?

I am speaking of a Yahoo Widget. These can be placed on your desktop. They were popular around 2006-2007 when Yahoo bought out Konfabulator.
 
eyoungren said:
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 last update was five years ago.

That just leaves Werewolf Monitor on my desktop. Sigh.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I was just having a problem with the Dashboard weather widget in El Capitan on my MBP. The widget stopped updating (or for that matter, displaying anything) yesterday, for no apparent reason. However, Dashboard weather continued working just fine on my PowerPC Macs under Leopard, which mystified me until I investigated a bit.

Seems that Leopard's older version of the weather widget uses Accuweather as its source, whereas the newer version that installs with El Cap uses The Weather Channel and is "Powered by Yahoo!" Apparently some issues have arisen with the javascript parser OS X uses in communication with the weather service (see discussion in this MR thread), which has caused the later version of the widget to break.

After reading your post here, I wondered if it might be more than coincidence that the newer Dashboard weather widget and your Widescape Weather widget both have some connection to Yahoo. I tried modifying the javascript parser as suggested here (which I found via the aforementioned MR thread), but it had no effect. I then copied the older version of the weather widget from a PB running Leopard to my MBP running El Cap; but again no effect - neither version of the widget would work.

Finally, I trashed El Cap's weatherParser.js file and replaced it with the one from Leopard, and voila! The older Accuweather-based version of the widget began to work in El Cap. The newer Yahoo/Weather Channel-based version became partially functional too, but would only display one day's weather and seemed to freeze when I tried to change the locale, although eventually it did let me do so. I disabled the Yahoo/WC version and am now using the older Accuweather version without issue.

So anyway, I'm not that familiar with Yahoo Widgets but I do know that Apple's Dashboard operates in similar fashion. If your Widescape Weather widget relies on a javascript parser to fetch its data, it might be possible for you to modify that script and restore functionality, perhaps even with a different weather provider? I don't suppose the effort could do any harm, in any event. Just a thought, FWIW.
 
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eyoungren said:
The Dashboard widget?

I am speaking of a Yahoo Widget. These can be placed on your desktop. They were popular around 2006-2007 when Yahoo bought out Konfabulator.
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought you were talking about the dashboard. I've never used any other widgets other than the side bar ones in Windows Vista and Seven.
 
Raging Dufus said:
So anyway, I'm not that familiar with Yahoo Widgets but I do know that Apple's Dashboard operates in similar fashion. If your Widescape Weather widget relies on a javascript parser to fetch its data, it might be possible for you to modify that script and restore functionality, perhaps even with a different weather provider? I don't suppose the effort could do any harm, in any event. Just a thought, FWIW.
Click to expand...
Yahoo Widgets are small little Javascript code packages. Based on Konfabulator, which was the app, it allowed you to place them anywhere on your desktop. Control of the widgets was handled via a menubar icon.

Mainly there were hundreds of countdown timers because people made those for everything. But Widescape Weather was known for showing multi-day forecasts.

Up until about a week ago it was working, but Weather Underground shut down the API.

I can unpackage the code (there's a Yahoo Widget for that) but fixing the javascript is beyond me. I'm certain I could find a new API source and just plug that in and repackage the widget. But how the rest of the code handles an unknown API? Not sure.

I any case, it's a bit more than I'm willing to take on.

Here is what Widescape Weather (in combination with Werewolf Monitor and Geektool) was doing.

It's the weather strip at the top right…

Finder.png
 
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Traace said:
Can you upload the unpacked files ? :)
Click to expand...

The modified javascript I tried to use for El Cap (which didn't actually achieve anything for me, but YMMV) is here.

The weather parser script from Leopard (that worked with the older Leopard weather widget in El Cap) can be found in a Leopard install by typing /System/Library/WidgetResources/.parsers/ into the "Go to Folder" box from the Finder's "Go" menu. The one you want is "weatherParser.js" - copy that and paste it into the same place on an El Cap install (replacing the one from El Cap) to do what I did.
 
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Raging Dufus said:
The modified javascript I tried to use for El Cap (which didn't actually achieve anything for me, but YMMV) is here.

The weather parser script from Leopard (that worked with the older Leopard weather widget in El Cap) can be found in a Leopard install by typing /System/Library/WidgetResources/.parsers/ into the "Go to Folder" box from the Finder's "Go" menu. The one you want is "weatherParser.js" - copy that and paste it into the same place on an El Cap install (replacing the one from El Cap) to do what I did.
Click to expand...

Amazing, thanks.

Now all whats left are the yahoo weather widget files. I like to try create a hybrid one.
 
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Subscribed! Although I am using Dashboard on Mojave, but facing the same issue where the widget stopped loading this morning or late last night. I'm sure the issues are similar.
 
Recreating the request that /System/Library/WidgetResources/.parsers/ makes in Postman is giving me this error:
 

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Didn't Apple get sued by the Konfabulator people over Apple pretty much stealing their tech? Widgets came out with Tiger IIRC.
 
Traace said:
Amazing, thanks.

Now all whats left are the yahoo weather widget files. I like to try create a hybrid one.
Click to expand...
Here you go. The widget has been dissassembled into it's components.
[doublepost=1553559430][/doublepost]
timidpimpin said:
Didn't Apple get sued by the Konfabulator people over Apple pretty much stealing their tech? Widgets came out with Tiger IIRC.
Click to expand...
IDK. I know that Yahoo got it and things were really intense there for awhile.

There's one widget I always wanted that I didn't get around to until years later. Basically, an on your desktop filesystem. Of course by that point everything was broken. I've kept things to a minimum because not much works anymore.
 

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  • widescapeWeather.zip
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eyoungren said:
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 last update was five years ago.

That just leaves Werewolf Monitor on my desktop. Sigh.
Click to expand...

Does that only work during the full moon?
 
z970mp said:
Would you still happen to have this Packager Widget, by chance?
Click to expand...
OK. Here you go. I am having difficulty remembering how to use this thing, but I presume it converts the JS code to a widget. I am unclear how it was I got the code out to begin with.

It's been quite a while since I've dealt with this.
 

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@eyoungren

Picture 2.png


I think I got widescapeWeather working again, but (evidently) I have no way of testing it. If you can get it packaged back up into a widget, you'll be able to see if it works.
 

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  • widescapeWeather.zip
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Well, it was worth a try. I thought it was maybe through the fault of a deprecated API system that Weather Underground phased out that killed its functionality (I see no reason for the parser to break if given the same provider), so I got a new API key, plus a new API address, and slotted those in where the widget kept them.

However, I'm not familiar with Yahoo! Widgets enough to try to go deeper in a bid to fix this security roadblock, however, I suspect it's just a matter of flipping some switch somewhere that tells it to not verify widgets for security, or some kind of process like that.

If anyone else wishes to take up the rest of this fix, here is the API information I used with additional data where applicable.
 

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