Hi Guys,
I'm helping the SA Weather Service which is the ONLY accurate source of weather for SA & SADC (all these global servers are so appaulingly wrong that most of us SA's just disable the wether tab in our HTC).
They are keen to provide a weather source to the public for use on various mobile devices. Currently they generate an extensive xml file 3x per day, and all I need to do is help them specify the new file format.
I have some questions I am hoping someone here can help with:
There must be a standard format for these information sources, which I am guessing is am xml file. Ideally this will be small to minimise bandwidth served. Where can I find this schema?
Are there various standards for various apps, or do most weather apps use the same standard?
Can we just put this xml into a public directory, or do we have to have some sort of web service running?
Is it possible to make the HTC Home plugin use our data source - the hacks I've seen are related to adding different cities, not changing the data source?
Finally, I'd like to hear which apps you guys use that have the ability for one to specify a different data source. We're powerless if the app only allows a choice of 2 or 3 Russian servers.
Oh yeah, does anyone have any insight into Nokia and Symbian weather apps? If we crack this for HTC/WM, will the others work too?
Hey...this sounds brilliant...
Sorry..not gonna be much help with your questions...but wishing you the best of luck..
Wont a normal RSS feed work well based on a chosen city? I somehow think that the web service would be the best option...
Maybe this might help
GREAT!!!
I do hope to see this soon!!!
Sounds cool!
Howsit to fellow South Africans!
Im not into the weather much, Im happy With the results from SPB weather.
I know that there is not much cities supported, like in Natal, you can only get Durban, but what if you are in Margate!
I think the most of the apps rely on Yahoo Weather source........It uses .xml coding, but im not sure about the rest!!!
Howsit peeeps!
SAWS is the ONLY source of accurate weather. All other sources come from global models - usually Euro or US centric. They are appaulingly wrong for SA, for many reasons; they do not consider topography in the slightest, and their resolution over Africa is around 100km vs 4km for local models.
You will often see temp projections of 15'C to 25'C when SAWS is saying 5 to 15. How different is that! You will see clear skys when you are sitting here looking at a dense cloud bank from George thro to PTA. They're all basically SO bad they are less than useless (less, cos they make you think you know what's happening).
RSS feeds are an easy option, but we all like our cutsie phone apps, so I want to get in line with those. Ideally I want to find a freeware app, with awesome capabilities, and make sure SAWS provide data for that. Then we can post it widely here as the prefered SA option.
C'mon guys, who's developed weather apps and has some insight? I have to move fast before SAWS lose interest.
I'd love to help but have absolutely no clue on this! I use Pocket Weather and HTC Weather on my device and yeah, the forecasts are appallingly wrong 90% of the time! Hope you can get this up and running with SAWS...
Target Market
Is this only aimed at WM users??? or for the broader public....
Was the link posted above useful?? (http://developer.yahoo.com/weather/)
As an alternative slightly of the track...what if the developed a mobile website...lightweight...easily available...the limitation could be personalisation...
Sorry, yahoo link is to get their RSS feed. Their data is sourced from nternational model - all of which exclude the topography of SA (if you live in CT you can't even begin to use them).
As for min-web-site, that's a fallback. But people really do prefer an on-screen plugin, with the ability to click for more details. I'm looking for apps that support clicking thro to radar images (live stoom tracking to resched your braai!), weather and traffic cams (SAWS has them all!), and of course the up-to-the-minute data tables with forecasts etc.
Apps exist, but not sure which allow you to select data sources.
craigiecraigie4 said:
Apps exist, but not sure which allow you to select data sources.
Click to expand...
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which apps are these......
HI
Any news on this? need people to test etc?
Thanks
Related
Hi
I'm using PocketWeather at the moment, but it gets it's info from msnbc in the states. Some other programs also seem to get their info from US sites as well, e.g. Journal Bar. PocketWeather uses city codes to retrieve weather info and I have the city (or village anyway) code for use on uk.weather.com. Unfortunately, although it is possible to add the city (village) code to the list for PocketWeather it is unable to retrieve weather info 'cos msnbc doesn't recognise the city(village) code.
Is there a good weather program out there where info is retrieved from a UK weather site and where it's possible to identify city(village) codes other than the main recognised cities?
Cheers
mvsmith07 said:
Is there a good weather program out there where info is retrieved from a UK weather site and where it's possible to identify city(village) codes other than the main recognised cities?
Cheers
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Try this:
http://www.s-church.net/otherprojects.htm
it uses weather.com, it updates through gprs and Activesync and it is FREE ! :lol:
Bye
Cheers dave, I saw this, but again it is getting info from an international, i.e. USA biased web site. Just looked at weather.com and closest match I can get to my location is Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, which is what PocketWeather can give me. I'd really like to put in my specific village, which is available for forecasts on uk.weather.com.
I use WeatherPanel in Canada... It gets the information from www.theweathernetwork.com
i use ajosoft pocket weather
i think it get it's info from bbc at least thats the url it got typed in
Rudegar said:
i use ajosoft pocket weather
i think it get it's info from bbc at least thats the url it got typed in
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Aha, that's where PocketWeather confuses us. The radar and satellite images appear to come from the BBC website, but the actual weather forecasts come from msnbc as far as I could make out.
The software has been taken over by SBSH Mobile Software (http://www.sbsh.net) who have a forum on PocketWeather and having taken a look at some of the configuration threads there I understood the source of the forecasts was msnbc.com
If you could use the other features of http://www.mobimate.com/ppc/worldmate/index.shtml then you'd have weather forecasts (weather.com > GPRS) included. One of my must-have applications.
Xelar said:
If you could use the other features of http://www.mobimate.com/ppc/worldmate/index.shtml then you'd have weather forecasts (weather.com > GPRS) included. One of my must-have applications.
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The $30 version is restricted to 250 cities worldwide, so I think I'd end up with Newcastle being the closest again. The $70 version looks promising with over 38,000 locations, but I think $70 for a program I'll probably only use for weather is not going to go down well with a certain person - know what I mean :wink:
Use pocket weather myself - free and actually lists my cities
I think I might have been fooled into thinking I could get a localised forecast for my village since I can specifically find it on uk.weather.com. However, having looked at uk.weather.com and bbc.co.uk/weather for my local area they both use the same weather station. And that weather station is at Newcastle Airport. So, I don't think it is possible to get a more accurate forecast than that predicted for Newcastle anyway since that is where the weather station is. Not sure how they slightly adjust the forecast for a village, 'cos it is slightly different from the forecast for Newcastle itself, but I think I'll be sticking with PocketWeather as, like dangel said, it's currently free and in my opinion a good weather app.
Thanks everyone for your various suggestions.
Try this!
I've tried several that I like that you might want to take a look at. Despite the little flag next to my name, I live in the UK.
PoceketWeather
Journalbar
PocketWeather is great, I'm using it now having decided that its better than journalbar. PocketWeather is freeware (i think) and it has loads of options. You can even get Satellite and Radar images, but those are best left off the today screen as they're too small - much better viewed in options. I don't have the link handy but it should be pretty easy to track down.
PocketWeather does need a little jiggery-pokery to get the placement to look right on your today screen, let me know if you go with it and I'll tell you my settings.
Re: Try this!
sleepnow said:
PocketWeather does need a little jiggery-pokery to get the placement to look right on your today screen, let me know if you go with it and I'll tell you my settings.
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Yep, already using PocketWeather and have been for a few weeks and I agree with you and will be sticking with it. You're right about the satellite images as well. Don't why the option is there to display on today screen.
Hi guys,
I'm absolutely loving my phone atm. Just seems like I've found my perfect setup, and that I can do everything with my phone.
I especially love how I can display detailed weather in Today's screen.
From what I've seen, it seems like it accesses a website, then parse the data to find the actual weather.
This leads me to think, wouldn't it be cool if I'm able to see my mobile usage on my Today screen.
I'm living in Australia and am with 3 using Dopod d810 (htc p3600). People who use 3 will know that we have free and unlimited access to the My3 website to see our usage for the month at any time.
Just wondering:
1) It must be possible to write a program that parses that website and retrieve the data accordingly right?
2) Has anyone seen any app like this?
I'm more or less an experienced Java developer so I hope it won't be too hard to learn how to write a ppc app!
Lastly, thanks everyone in this forum who have contributed in making my phone, the most perfect I can imagine!!
Yeap its entirely possible. Its called screen scraping. Look up wikipedia.
I used to make a php application that parses data by looking up their html tags, so it's possible. But if the website supplies rss data then there's no need to do scraping.
great!
Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely look it up...
How do you know if it supplies rss data btw?
wouldn't it be much easier to just install batterystatus
This can display outgoing texts, calls etc
I got the idea to make a application finder software for Windows Mobile. Specially designed to HTC Diamond, with many G-apps & games and other nice apps. It's under development now, and i will release one screenshot for you.
This app will not be just an styled IE-frame, like many "appstore" like apps that have been released before.
19. October 2008:
New Screenshot of the start screen.
Development stopped, becouse of the Gecko project.
I think this is a phenominal idea. The idea that went around recently was an internet based solution through ie explorer and it just was not device friendly. To have a device based solution is much more sensable. If you could create a server that developers could upload their most recent programs too that would be the best.
Maybe contact the system admin on this site and see if he will give your program to access the sites FTP server or something. Then a user could use your device based program that would seemlessly connect to the interenet in the back ground, poll the server for software, sort it and place it into a thumb friendly interface on the phone by which it could be sorted into categories of games, utilities, themes, programs etc etc....
Of course the admin would have to create those categories on the site's side and the developers would need to upload their program to the correct one but I think everyone has been in such a need for this that they would be willing to do it without much arm twisting.
Or, you could create device user interface that interacts with Orb.com... But then you would have to get the updates of programs and upload them to ORB for your program to work. But ORB does already have a sorting feature that your user controls on the device could be made to access for sorting etc. It even has a video section that a user could download tutorials of different programs that someone took time to make.
All just ideas. Some you may find good or not. I am excited to see a device based program though. It make user intereaction easier.
Curious G.
yes
Its a good idea, keep working on it
seems to be a nice idea
I like the idea but this really depends on what will be offered / how updated the actual site behind the store application is. Have you had any thoughts on that yet?
i second that.
at this time i browse via opera tho xda to download stuff... but having a app that simplifies things would be even better...
maybe all the downloads here could be managed and put upto "youre" server in an automated way..
I remember seeing this article a few weeks ago about Microsoft creating their own app store.
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/n.../job-advert-reveals-microsoft-skymarket.phtml
Either way, it's certainly a good idea!!
I forward the notion. An app that has all the apps at hand for easy download by category would kick some serious asss..
If I can help in any way let me know.
Greetings to all.
Love this development. Maybe this progress will open up eyes on new skilful programmers and we will see an increase of good looking apps and games. Not that I don't just love the things going on here at xda. But the more the merrier, right? The only complaint that I might have on this forum is the all the threads with wallpapers and especially the ones with half-naked women...But that's me...
So an app store (or two) is going to make it easier for us to sort out what we are interested in and only that.
If needed count me in I can help develop..
Great idea.
In the spirit of AppToDate, which I found worked very very well. But with YouTube-app like interface, all connected to database were latest apps can get installed.
Great idea!
I'm working to figure out how to connect to MySQL from a windows mobile based device, does anyone here know?
double post****
i think if these two threads could be incorporated
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=428480
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=433913
that would be a good way to do storage
each developer could use have there own account and then whenever they updated there app they update the wapps link via web or give it like some type of flash capabilities that would be really great
or there could be a generic account that ever one uses to upload too
looks like this is in the works http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=436127
maybe some collabo might be nice
Nice project!! GoOd Luck!!
If there was a way to advertise this app when it gets made. the diamond would sell millions
Why not just modify a RSS feed reader?
niikoo said:
I'm working to figure out how to connect to MySQL from a windows mobile based device, does anyone here know?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe Sqlite is more accurate for a mobile device ?
And you just download the sqlite file available on a server, this way requests would be very fast.
masterbox said:
Maybe Sqlite is more accurate for a mobile device ?
And you just download the sqlite file available on a server, this way requests would be very fast.
Click to expand...
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Yes, every time you start it will update from the web or you can click on a button to update (or an 'update every x minutes' function
please keep up the hard work!!!!! love to see this appstore happen!
I'm currently using Touch Weather right now as my Primary Weather Application... and I have to choose my own weather server to get information from... can someone please tell me based on personal usage and experience which weather server proves to be the best and more accurate??
The selection of servers are..
AccuWeather
GisMeteo
GisMeteo_WAP
Intellicast
MeteoNova
WetterCom
Any type of information or suggestions towards the purpose of this topic will be greatly appreciated.. AND USEFUL for other members.. so please answer!
The winner is... Foreca! I using it for MSN Weather and long time ago in old Nokia N82 in Foreca Weather app and it was and is very, very accurate. Check it out.
EDIT: If someone know how to change Sense weather provider to Foreca then let me know.
Get THIS weather app (Weather Panel by Dunc/Davej):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=707229
it is the most perfect, most reliable and most complete weather app You can get today.
I checked it now for 2 months and it gives the most reliable and correct data possible so I can use it for flight planning instead of costly aviation-sources.
It includes 10-day forecast, a collection of radar-map sources, moon-phase and and and .............
Enjoy it
Yup, this is very good app like you say, but it "eat" a lot of data (in memory card and from data plan ).
As separate app MSN Weather is enough for me. I need just to know how to change Sense weather provider (if this is possible) and i will be happy
ok that's great guys..
but does anyone actually feel like helping me out? out of what's listed which of those is the best weather server? I'm sure there are better ones out there.. but out of the servers that's i listed because that's all i can choose from... please? and what weather server does the hTC HD2 sense app use?
Did you read answers? I said you - Foreca is the best. You can use it in freeware MSN Weather if you want.
And Sense using AccuWeather provider (you can check it if you have manualy set your city:
Weather tab and click link "More details on-line" and it will opening browser with AccuWeather site.
Hey guys! Out in the Leo thread is the perfect weather widget that we have. The only problem is that its a HUGE data hog!!
The original developer might have abandoned the project, and us users are left trying to make it right.
The problem is that the weather update script is called based on conditions no one really knows. I have personally seen that data is accessed on anyof the following conditions:
The weather widget is pressed manually
The device wakes up from sleeping
Some other program accesses the internet
Would someone mind taking a look at the app, and tell us what to change? It would be great to use this and not get hammered by T-Mobile for overages!
A very small and efficient "wheather" MortScript solution you'll find here, only data feeded by RSS is used:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=501783