Preferences

The default settings get the weather conditions and local forecast for each city and display the data in English units. While this is a common situation for people in the United States, you may have the desire to adjust the displays to suit your personal tastes.

To change the preferences, choose Preferences… from the Edit menu. This will bring up a new window where you can select a wide range of settings individually for each city. The popup menu at the top left of the window allows you to select which category of preferences to change. Network and Font preferences apply to all cities, so there is no option to specify the city. City, Temperature, Barometer, and Wind preferences can be set for individual cities. A popup menu appears at the top right of the window to allow you to choose a city.

Network Preferences

 




















You should not ever need to change the name of the weather server, but that option is available here. If your network is protected by a firewall equipped with HTTP proxy, you will need to enable that feature here. Your network administrator will be able to provide more information on what server and/or port to fill in. If you don't know what a firewall is, and you have no problems connecting to the weather server, then there is no need for you to worry about it.


Font Preferences

 
















In this panel, you can set the font and size to use for the status window, as well as the city forecast windows. There is also a full range of editing capabilities available for each of the text windows. However, the font and size of the text will always revert to the values chosen here when new data arrives.


City Preferences

 
















Here you can choose what data gets downloaded for each city. Turning off the Get Weather box disables all data retrieval for that city, unless there is a data window open for that city. This is a great way for adding cities for which you only want data infrequently. Simply keep all windows for the city hidden until you want an update. Then, select a data window for the city, and the data will be updated automatically.

Not all of the features displayed are available for every city. When the Get Weather box is turned on, the boxes for Local Forecast, Marine Forecast, and Climate Data may or may not be available, depending on the city of interest. If the box is not available, that means that the data is not listed on the weather server. In general, local forecasts are available for all cities, but are much more detailed for cities in North America. Marine forecasts are available only for coastal cities in the United States. Climate data is available for most cities in the North America.

Data logging is also available as an option for every city. The current conditions are normally updated automatically every hour. With data logging turned on, when a new update arrives, the current data is saved to an output file. This file is located in the WeatherTracker folder and is named according to the city name. Please be aware that the data is copyrighted by The Weather Underground, Inc. and may not be redistributed without their permission. This means that you can use it for your own personal benefit or curiosity, but you cannot, for example, include it on a web page for others to access.

Thermometer Preferences

 
















This panel allows you to set the units to display the temperature for this city, as well as the minimum and maximum temperatures to display in the analog window. The values must be whole numbers with the minimum less than the maximum. You also have the option of showing the daily minimum and maximum temperatures, dewpoint, and windchill or heat index in the analog window.

Barometer Preferences

 
















This panel allows you to set the units to display the barometric pressure for this city, as well as the minimum and maximum pressures to display in the analog window. The minimum value must be less than the maximum. You also have the option of showing the daily minimum and maximum pressure in the analog window.

Wind Preferences

 
















This panel allows you to set the units to display the wind speed for this city.