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:
