Share My Creation Weather app

This is the first alpha version of my little weather app.

If you are coming from Windows Mobile you may remember WeatherPanel from Marsware. I think WeatherPanel was the best weather program available on the Windows Mobile platform and I was really disappointed about all the available weather apps after switching over to Android.

My weather app will not be as good as WeatherPanel but it uses the same weather feed. Even the UI is somehow borrowed from the good old PhatPhinger IV WeatherPanel theme.

Be aware that this is currently an alpha version. This means it will have many bugs and many missing features. The weather feed it uses delivers some more data which will be integrated step by step into the user interface. Even more homescreen widgets with different layouts will be added in the future. The first step is to get the App stable and reliable. Then I will add new features.

Ok, here are the features for now:

• Homescreen widget with current weather condition and 4 or 5 day forecast
• App with current condition, and 10 day forecast
• Multiple cities can be configured (though only one will be displayed in all widgets)
• The app currently works in portrait mode only, the widget can be used in landscape, too
• Currently fixed update rate of 30 minutes for current condition and one hour for forecast data. Only the widget city will be updated automatically.

You can download the newest APK from my blog: AmberHome

Write your suggestions and feature requests here in this thread.

 

[ssg]

graphics look awesome!

sign me up for beta testing

 

[Cableguy]

+1 for Btesting

 

[Merlot2309]

Hello,

+ 1.

It does look very good; compliments and I like the barometer.

Greets,
Helen.

 

[splatt]

+1 on Beta Testing. Looks great!

 

[alfcen]

One more who appreciates good work.
What is the source of your weather information?
Are rise and set times available from this source?

 

[corwin42]

One more who appreciates good work.
What is the source of your weather information?
Are rise and set times available from this source?

The weather feed is yahoowidget.weather.com. So it is an inofficial feed from weather.com or "The Weather Channel". If you know the good old WeatherPanel from Marsware for Windows Mobile it uses the exactly same weather feed. Even the images for Buttons etc. in my program are borrowed (with permission from the author) from the PhatPhingerIV theme for WeatherPanel. In my opinion WeatherPanel was the best weather program for windows mobile and I was a bit disappointed with all the available Android weather apps and widgets so I decided to write my own.

Yes, rise and set times are available from this feed but they are currently not displayed in the App. This will be added later.

 

[splatt]

In my opinion WeatherPanel was the best weather program for windows mobile.

I've got to agree with you there! I've judged all weather apps since against WeatherPanel, and they have all fallen short. Such a shame the app died the way it did.

 

[alfcen]

Hello Markus,
Thanks a lot for the details.
I found the XML feed on weather.com.
When I was developing for PPCs I used the mobile weather forecast
provided by wunderground.com. Parsing their HTML pages was awkward
but the forecasts were mostly accurate even for Okinawa.
Best success!
Cheers
Robert

 

[corwin42]

First post updated with link to APK of the first public alpha version.

 

[NJDude]

Nice app!!.

A few things:

1- Check the attached screenshot (Shot1.png), you'll see that the bottom message is not being displayed completely (EVO 4G 480x800, scale 1.5 (240 dpi), on a scale 1.0 (160 dpi) it seems to work fine).

2- When you Add a City, and a city is not found, you should hide the keyboard, someone might get confused since the keyboard is still visible and if you type, nothing happens.

3- You have misspelled the word "Sure" (see Shot2.png)

4- You might want to consider adding conversion to Farenheit, inches, miles, etc.

5- Add a splash screen or something, having a black screen for a few seconds when you open the app makes you wonder what's going on, on a slow phone that black screen lasts for about 6 seconds, on my EVO lasts about 3 seconds.

6- If you delete ALL the cities from the list and if you go back to the main screen and click on the refresh button makes the app crash, you need to prevent that.

Other than that, looking good. Good job.

 

[corwin42]

Thanks for your response.

1: Oops. Forgot a "dip".

2+3: Will be fixed.

4: This is planned. The weather feed can deliver different units directly.

5: Yes. Initializing the UI takes too long. I create 12 main panels and load their layout with LoadLayout(). Additionally the 10 day overview creates 10 Panels with their own layout. I will see if I can optimize it. LoadLayout() seems to be a bit slow. Perhaps I will create a dynamic layout totally in the code.

6: Yes, this is a known problem. I think even if you delete the currently displayed city it will be a problem.

I just found out, that the 10 day preview sometimes does not get displayed correctly. This will be fixed, too.

Hopefully I can fix all this next weekend.

Again thanks very much for your response.

 

[ssg]

Hey... reporting in... looks very nice on my optimus one....

agree with what njdude mentioned... especially the initial load screen... otherwise really nice looking app...

give us the market link once you've published it... cheers!

 

[corwin42]

New version available on my Blog

Most problems are fixed. Now I will implement new features...

 

[Merlot2309]

Hi Markus,

Just installed the latest version.
Absolutely great; the lay out is perfect on my HTC Legend.

As mentioned before, loading the GUI takes a while. I wonder if it would be an idea to show the layout immedately and then load the data while the progress circle is shown???

But I promise you that I will buy the version without admob, because I really like your app.

Regards,
Helen.

 

[vb1992]

I was doing some reasearch on weather data feeds and
it seems like the only place you can grab weather data
and release it on an app is here:

USA only free data?

National Digital Forecast Database XML/SOAP Service - NOAA's National Weather Service



World Wide (just have to include a blurb where you got it from):

Free Local Weather API Usage Policy | XML Weather | JSON | CSV | Worldwide Weather | WorldWeatherOnline.com

Use on mobile, desktop or non-website platform
If you intend to use our free weather data on your mobile apps like iPhone, or on a desktop widget or on any other medium apart from website then the only mandatory credit is World Weather Online.


Know of anymore "free" (commercial use) weather data feeds?

 

[corwin42]

You are correct. It is hard to get free weather data. Weather.com is closing their free xml service (which was only allowed to use in websites) in these days and they have only a commercial feed now with horible prices (over 30$ per month for mobile apps).

My weather app here uses an "inofficial" feed from yahoo widgets which uses the data from weather.com. This is one of the reasons I haven't put the app into the market currently. I'm thinking about to switch to the yr.no feed (yr.no – Været for Norge og verden fra Meteorologisk institutt og NRK) which is free, too. But for this I have to change many things internally.