MacWx allows you to connect to an Internet weather server to get current weather information and forecasts for a specified city. It requires a 68020 or higher with System 7.0 and MacTCP or OpenTransport. MacWx is shareware -- see the notice at the end of this document regarding payment.
What happened to MacWeather and NetWeather?
Previous versions were called MacWeather, but since AccuWeather holds a registered trademark for MacWeather®, so I changed the name to NetWeather. Shortly after changing to NetWeather, I was informed that AccuWeather also holds a trademark for netWeather®, so now it is MacWx (or at least until I hear from their lawyers again...).
What is MacTCP?
MacTCP is an extension that provides the Macintosh implementation of TCP/IP, a communications protocol which allows your computer to talk to other computers on the Internet. In order to use MacTCP, you must have some type of connection to the Internet -- either through a direct Ethernet connection or from a dial-up service with SLIP or PPP capabilities. MacTCP is included in System 7.5, but you need to do a custom install to get it. You may also get MacTCP from the book Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh by Adam Engst. This book is also an excellent resource for people new to the Internet and provides far more information on getting connected than I could ever include here.
What about OpenTransport?
OpenTransport is the new replacement for the aging MacTCP. It is included with
PCI-based Macintoshes and is also available in System 7.5.3 (System 7.5 Update 2.0). OpenTransport provides the same TCP/IP connectivity as MacTCP, but with a friendlier interface and much improved performance for PowerPC-based computers. MacWx currently only supports OpenTransport in PowerPC native mode. It is compaitible with OpenTransport in 68K mode, but networking will be done in TCP mode instead.
Getting Started
When MacWx runs for the first time, it will attempt to connect to the weather server and retrieve current information for the default city, Washington, DC. You can cancel this process at any time by pressing command-period or the escape key. Registered users can define their own set of cities to view by choosing the City List menu item in the Edit menu. Add cities to the Current Cities list by selecting the appropriate country, state and city from the popup menus. When you are done, click the OK button.
Now you need to set the preferences by choosing the Preferences menu item in the Edit menu. Use the popup menu to select the City preferences panel. The Get Weather checkbox controls which cities actually get new information from the weather server. You may want to have five cities in your list, but only get current information on two of them, saving the others for special occasions. To reduce loads on the weather servers, please limit yourself to at most two active cities. When you are done setting preferences, click the OK button to save them.
To get new information immediately, choose the Force Update menu item in the Weather menu. Current weather conditions will be obtained for each of the active cities in your list. You should not need to use the Force Update command again since NetWeather automatically contacts the weather server every hour to request new information.
Features
The following is an explanation of the major features of MacWeather. Extensive Balloon Help is also available to give specific help on any area you desire.
The large analog window is your main display for city conditions:
Double-clicking within the various panels will bring up the preferences window for the area of interest. If desktop space is scarce, you can view the data in a smaller "digital" window:
For those who want the smallest possible window footprint, there is also a new "tiny" window:
Cities are selected using the Add City item in the Edit menu. You may have as many cities selected as you want, limited only by the amount of memory allocated to MacWx. There are separate preferences available for each city. In the City Preferences, click the Get Weather checkbox to select whether new reports are to be retreived for a particular city. The weather servers are already heavily loaded, so I ask that you only get information for at most two cities in your list of selected cities.
Every hour, MacWx will contact the weather server and download the latest information for the selected cities. If a server is not responding, MacWx will cycle through the list of servers from the Network Preferences until a working server is found. For cities in the United States and Canada, local forecasts are automatically downloaded with the current weather conditions. Forecasts are not available from the weather server for cities outside the United States and Canada.
Near shore marine forecasts are also available for selected cities in coastal areas of the United States. To retrieve marine forecasts, click the Get Marine Forecast checkbox in the City Preferences.
Climate data is available for many cities in the United States. To retrieve climate data, click the Get Climate Data checkbox in the City Selection Preferences card. The data that is reported varies greatly depending on the city. Some cities do not report climate data; others report daily temperatures and sunrise/sunset information; still others give detailed reports of the recent trends in the local weather.
The local forecast, marine forecast, and climate data call all be copied to the clipboard, saved as TeachText documents, or printed at any time.
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 MacWx Help item in the Balloon Help menu.
Using Other Servers
MacWx is currently configured to work only on rainmaker.wunderground.com. It may also work on any of the following servers:
downwind.sprl.umich.edu
madlab.sprl.umich.edu
um-weather.sprl.umich.edu
Please note that these servers are no longer suitable for non-interactive users (such as MacWx users). The server administrators will be randomly changing the interface in such as way as to cause any program that attemps to connect non-interactively to fail to retrieve data. This may have the side effect of causing MacWx to crash or lock up as it looks for non-existant prompts. The rainmaker server will should be the only server that you need to use. I am not aware of any other servers currently in operation that give comparable data.
Firewall Users
Due to the limited scope of the telnet proxy hack that was in previous versions, firewall support has been removed for this version. I had planned to add support for SOCKS proxy, but time constraints prevented its inclusion. SOCKS will be included in the near future.
Version History
2.2 July 4, 1996
• All users can access rainmaker.wunderground.com, but only registered users can
change the list of cities to view.
2.1.8 June 12, 1996
• TCP networking now works again. Curses to 2's Complement!
2.1.7 June 11, 1996
• Fixed problems when retrieving multiple cities
• Fixed problem with selections in text windows with multiple cities
• Added sanity checks around parsing routines
2.1.6 June 5, 1996
• Renamed MacWx
• Updated to CodeWarrior 9
• Fixed parsing for many cities in Alaska
• Full text editing support is back in place
2.1.5 May 23, 1996
• Increased speed when many fonts installed
2.1.4 April 27, 1996
• Replaced text engine with standard TextEdit calls
• Fixed several memory-related bugs
• Added support for new port on rainmaker.wunderground.com
• Added registration codes
• Added preferences panel for font selection
2.1.3 April 11, 1996
• Renamed NetWeather
• Corrected problems with forecasts in the Dallas, TX area
• Updated text engine to support word wrap.
• Added lots of debugging checks around data retrieval and parsing routines.
2.1.2 March 28, 1996
• Preferences file conversion removed. Still too many bugs
• Use Logfile now works on PowerPCs
• Min/max work correctly.
• Get Marine and Get Climate now get the proper data.
• Cities are no longer skipped if the time stamp is the same.
• um-weather now connects on port 3001 instead of 3000.
• Non-US/Canada cities now work
• Data is updated after changing the city list
• Wind chill is not calculated for speeds below 5 mph
2.1.1 March 25, 1996
• Fixed a bug with drawing text in 68K version
2.1 March 25, 1996
• Rewritten for PowerPlant
• Newly styled windows
• Support for multiple cities
• Logging of data to files
• Daily min/max for thermometer and barometer
• Wind chill, heat index, and dewpoint
• Time stamp supports Date & Time control panel settings
2.0.4 August 28, 1994
• Many spelling corrections
• Updated cities for newly supported major cities
• Increased width of digital window slightly to accomodate longer conditions
• MacWeather FAQ now included
2.0.3 August 4, 1994
• Special release for Internet Starter Kit
• Fixed a few typos
• Window title now updated when starting a connection
2.0.2 July 25, 1994
• Removed PowerPC native code -- lots more testing necessary
2.0.1 July 25, 1994
• Fixed a bug which caused crashes when parsing forecasts
2.0 July 24, 1994
• Added support for hPa and km/h
• Added support for tons of new cities in the US and abroad
• Added support for near-short marine forecasts in the US
• Added support for climatic data in the US
• Added nighttime icons
• Added support for saving and printing forecasts
• Added Recent menu to switch between cities easily
• Added Default button for preferences
• Added support for firewalls (still buggy)
• Added units to wind speed display
• Redrew displays to make them look a little better
• Numerous minor bug fixes
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
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
1.0 February 27, 1994
• First public release
To Do List
• SOCKS support
• Support for Apple Script
• Support for Apple Guide
• Option to put temperature (or whatever you want) in menu bar
• Clean up of data presented in the various forecast windows
Shareware Notice
MacWx is shareware. If you like it, please send $15 to:
Christopher Kidwell
3405 Tulane Drive, Apt. 2
Hyattsville, MD 20783
Please include your E-mail address if you have one. Acknowledgements of payment are typically sent via E-mail within a week of receipt. If you do not get mail from me, please send me mail -- your mail address may have been missing or unreadable. Registered users are sent updates via E-mail when they are released and also get special information about planned features and problems with the weather server. Registered users also get the benefit of being able to get weather data for any of over 1000 cities worldwide. Current information can also be found on the MacWx home page at
http://chemgod.slip.umd.edu/~kidwell/weather.html
Site license information is available upon request.
Bug reports may be mailed in or sent via E-mail to:
