Introduction

MacWeather allows you to connect to an Internet weather server to get current weather information and forecasts for a specified city.  It requires a Mac Plus or higher with System 7.0 and MacTCP. MacWeather is shareware -- see the notice at the end of this document regarding payment.

When MacWeather runs for the first time, it will bring up the preferences screen so that you may choose what city to view. After selecting the desired preferences, the program will attempt to connect to the weather server and get the current information for the selected city. After making the connection, the current conditions and forecast are downloaded and displayed on the screen. You can cancel the download process at any time by pressing command-period. When MacWeather starts up the next time, it will automatically get information for the current city without bringing up the preferences screen. You may still change the preferences at any time by selecting the Preferences item in the Weather menu or by setting the state and city from the Location menu. Changing the selected city from the preferences screen will cause MacWeather to update the information automatically. Using the Location menu, however, you will have to force an update from the Update item in the Weather menu.

Getting Help

Extensive balloon help is available to give brief descriptions of the various commands and their actions. This text is also accessible online by choosing the Help item in the Weather menu or the MacWeather Help item in the Balloon Help menu.

Using Other Servers

MacWeather is currently written only to work with the default weather server, downwind.sprl.umich.edu.  If you attempt to connect to a different server, very strange things may happen since MacWeather is designed to work with the output format from downwind. I am not aware of any other servers currently in operation that give data as informative as from downwind. In the future, I plan to add support for other servers as well as support for international data. If you have a particular favorite, please let me know, and I will update MacWeather accordingly.

Version History

1.0   February 27, 1994
  •  First public release
1.1   March 7, 1994
  •  Enabled copying from forecast window
  •  Rewrote icon picking code -- hopefully it now
      recognizes most of them
  •  Removed alert message for no icon available
  •  Fixed a few bugs related to edit boxes in the prefs window
  •  Added Location menu
  •  Fixed a bug which caused the forecast to be erased when
      conditions hadn't changed
  •  Added smaller digital display
1.1.1  March 8, 1994
  •  Fixed a bug caused by the last bug fix when conditions
      hadn't changed
  •  Fixed a bug with mouse clicks in the City Code edit field

To Do List

•  Handle international data
•  Change help screen to moveable modal and enable copy menu item
•  Option to put temperature in menu bar
•  Record daily minimum/maximum values for temperature/barometer
•  Graph changes in temperature/barometer
•  Add nighttime icons
•  Support for settings documents

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the people who helped to make all of this possible. 
    Icon Design:              Dexter T. Kobayashi (aka "Killer Bunny")
    Help Window Code:   James W. Walker
    Beta Testers:            Christopher Bailey                    Eben Haber
                                     Paul Celestin                              John Linthicum
                                     Jerome "The Evil Tofu" Chan     Victor Menayang
                                     Rob Dewhirst                             John Moulder
                                     David Farber                             Steve Nelson
                                     Barry Fishman                          David Negro
                                     Michael Fraase                          Marcel Portanger
                                     Mike Griggs                               Michael Wellman
                                     Scott Gruby                               Edward Wolpert

Shareware Notice

MacWeather is shareware.  If you like it, please send $10 to:
  Christopher Kidwell
  3405 Tulane Drive, Apt. 2
  Hyattsville, MD 20783

Please include your E-mail address if you have one.

Site license information is available upon request.

Bug reports may be mailed in or sent via E-mail to:
  kidwell@wam.umd.edu

MacWeather is Copyright © 1994 by Christopher Kidwell.
All rights reserved.
MacWeather may be distributed freely
as long as it is not modified in any way.