Degrees Down Under Widget 1.1
The Degrees Down Under (DDU) widget displays the current temperature on the Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard for locations around Australia, using data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website <http://www.bom.gov.au>. Features include:
❖ choice of actual or apparent temperature display
❖ widget colour varies with temperature
❖ links to detailed observations on the Bureau's website
❖ temperature display in Celsius or Fahrenheit
Apparent temperature has only recently become available on the Bureau's website, and is a new feature in version 1.1 of the DDU widget. Version 1.1 also accommodates other changes to the Bureau's website, which are expected to prevent earlier versions of the widget from working. If you are upgrading from an earlier version, you will need to reselect your chosen weather station.
The DDU widget is a Dashboard version of the Mac OS X application Degrees Down Under. Latest versions of the widget and the application can be downloaded from http://web.mac.com/rjsdev/.
Donations
If you like this software, please show your support by making a donation via:
http://web.mac.com/rjsdev/iWeb/software/Donate.html
Why Degrees Down Under?
There are other weather applications and widgets around, many more powerful, but they don't give the same information. By using data from the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Degrees Down Under and the DDU widget present high-quality Australian data.
Compatibility, installation and setup
The DDU widget should work on any version of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). This version was developed and tested using Mac OS X 10.4.8. The widget will not work on earlier versions of Mac OS X, which lack Tiger's Dashboard feature. However, the separate application Degrees Down Under should run on any version of Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3 or 10.4.
The DDU widget will automatically be installed if you download it with Safari, and have not turned off the 'Open "safe" files after downloading' preference in Safari.
If the widget is not automatically installed, after downloading the zip file, double-click it to unarchive the widget. Place the widget in /Library/Widgets/ on your hard disk. To open the DDU widget after it's installed, show Dashboard, click the plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the DDU widget icon in the Widget Bar to open it. Once you have done this, provided you are connected to the Internet, the widget should display the current temperature for your nearest capital city.
If the widget remains grey and displays "Currently Unavailable", it was unable to obtain the data from the Bureau of Meteorology website. You can press ⌘R to reload the widget, or try again later. (Also see the section "Current weather station" under "Widget Back" below.)
The widget will update the temperature display with the latest available Bureau data each time you activate the Dashboard.
You can create multiple "instances" of the widget by repeatedly clicking on the icon in the Widget Bar. This way, you can set a different location for each instance, and monitor temperatures in several places at once. Or you can monitor apparent and actual temperatures for the same place simultaneously.
Widget Front
The front of the widget displays the temperature for your selected weather station. The background colour varies with the temperature. If the widget is unable to get the temperature information from the Bureau of Meteorology website, "Currently Unavailable" will be shown, and the widget will be grey.
The widget also shows the station name, and the local time at the station when the reading was recorded. If you choose to display apparent temperature, "Apparent" is displayed after the time.
The station name is a web link. Clicking on it will cause your default web browser (e.g. Safari) to open the Bureau web page containing the temperature, and other observations, for your selected station. You may have to scroll down the page to find your station.
The widget colour varies from purple for 0ºC or lower, through the colours of the rainbow as the temperature rises, up to red for 38ºC or higher.
Widget Back
As for other Dashboard widgets, you can show the back of the DDU widget by clicking the "i" symbol that appears in the lower right corner when you move the mouse over it. This lets you control the following options:
Current weather station
The first two pop-up menus let you choose your weather station. The top one lists state and region pages on the Bureau of Meteorology's web site. The second one shows all the stations on the selected page.
Some stations appear on more than web page, and some stations have no temperature readings. A station will temporarily be removed from a page (but not the menus) if its most recent observations are more than three hours old. Generally, the capital city pages are refreshed more often than the other pages.
Show apparent temperature
Tick this box to display apparent temperature, instead of the actual temperature. Apparent temperature is described on the Bureau of Meteorology's website at:
http://www.bom.gov.au/info/thermal_stress/
ºC/ºF
Set your choice of Celsius or Fahrenheit readings using this pop-up menu.
Version number
The current version of the widget (v1.1) is shown here.
More Info link
The More Info link opens this information document in your default web browser (e.g. Safari).
Issue with Internet Explorer and FileVault: the More Info link will not open in Internet Explorer if you have File Vault turned on and the DDU widget is kept in your home folder. The link should work if you keep the widget in /Library/Widgets on your hard disk, as suggested above.
Done button
Click this to confirm your settings and return to the front of the widget. There may be a slight delay while data is loaded for your new settings.
Security
Apple's Dashboard article Specifying Access Keys describes the use of Access Keys to declare a widget's use of system resources. The DDU widget has the following access keys set, for the reasons shown:
❖ AllowFileAccessOutsideOfWidget
The DDU widget generates temporary files for its background image, to allow the colour to vary with the temperature. These files are stored in a temporary directory nominated by Mac OS X. The name of such a file might be, for example:
/private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/41a0ef13071c9f7320050703174627397.png
The widget should clean up these files after itself. However, they may sometimes appear in a "Recovered Items" folder in the Trash, particularly if your system crashes or you force quit the Finder or the Dock. If you come across any of these files, they can safely be deleted.
❖ Plugin
The widget uses a plug-in to access Cocoa code from the Degrees Down Under application.
Future development
Here are a few ideas we have for future development of Degrees Down Under and the DDU widget:
❖ improve the links to the Bureau's site to jump directly to the selected station
❖ allow display of data other than temperature, including forecasts and images
❖ provide an "update" button in the main window
❖ provide a progress indicator while updating the temperature reading
❖ provide for updating of station lists when the Bureau's site changes
The following ideas apply only to the Degrees Down Under application:
❖ allow display of data in menu bar
❖ improve handling of situation where data are temporarily unavailable
❖ add shadows to Dock display to improve visibility
❖ enable comparisons between stations (e.g. finding the current hottest and coldest places in Australia)
❖ provide help through Mac OS X's Help Viewer application
If you have any thoughts on the above, or more ideas, feel free to let us know. We're doing this in our spare time, so changes may be a bit slow in coming.
Updates
Any updates to Degrees Down Under and the DDU widget can be found at http://web.mac.com/rjsdev/.
Revision history
DDU Widget 1.1
❖ added choice of actual or apparent temperature display
❖ updates to reflect changes to Bureau's website, including addition of separate Canberra and Darwin area pages
❖ added version number to back of widget
❖ removed "No update within ... minutes" option
Degrees Down Under 2.3
❖ added choice of actual or apparent temperature display
❖ updates to reflect changes to Bureau's website, including addition of separate Canberra and Darwin area pages
❖ Preferences and Help windows now appear at the centre of the screen
❖ temperature display is no longer refreshed twice when application is launched with "Show Temperature Window at startup button" option chosen
❖ default/minimum width of main window has been increased slightly to accommodate "Apparent" text. Window will grow if apparent temperature is selected and window is narrower than default width.
❖ web and email addresses in Read Me document and "About Degrees Down Under" screen are now clickable links
DDU Widget 1.0.2
❖ updates to reflect changes to the Bureau's website, including restoring functionality for Perth stations
Degrees Down Under 2.2
❖ updates to reflect changes to Bureau's website, including restoring functionality for Perth stations
❖ Universal binary to run natively on both Intel and PowerPC Macs
DDU Widget 1.0.1 (and beta version 1.0.1b)
❖ Universal binary now tested on an Intel iMac
❖ fixed a bug which could cause the widget to crash when web pages were redirected, e.g. when connecting to a public wireless network
❖ less likely that temporary files ending in ".png" will appear in a "Recovered Items" folder in the Trash following a log out or restart
DDU Widget 1.0
❖ first Dashboard widget version
❖ widget colour varies with temperature
❖ choice of Celsius or Fahrenheit display
❖ Universal binary for Mac Intel and PowerPC compatibility (not yet tested on Intel)
Degrees Down Under 2.1
❖ support for weather stations in the Northern Territory, and extra stations in Queensland
❖ updates to work with new table formats on the Bureau's website for non-capital city data
Degrees Down Under 2.0
❖ controls in the Preferences window to change colours function correctly
❖ the position of the main window is stored when the program quits
❖ refresh interval now shown in minutes, not seconds
❖ button in main window is always enabled if a station has been selected
❖ changes made to station lists to match changes on Bureau of Meteorology site
❖ stations without temperature observations now show "??.?" instead of "0.0°"
❖ trailing spaces removed from weather station names where necessary
❖ improved adjustment of font size in Dock (Mac OS X 10.3.x only)
Degrees Down Under 2.0 public beta
Name changed from Melbourne Temp to Degrees Down Under.
New features:
❖ display of data from stations other than Melbourne
❖ user prompted to choose station on first run
❖ new icon
❖ redesigned main window
❖ links to source data on Bureau of Meteorology website
❖ preference to stop main window opening when application starts
❖ selected commands in Dock menu
❖ access to Read Me from Help menu
❖ improved memory management
Controls in the Preferences window to change the colours disabled pending debugging.
Melbourne Temp 1.0.1b
Added Open Temperature Window item to File menu.
Melbourne Temp 1.0
Initial release.
Acknowledgements
The data displayed by the Degrees Down Under widget comes from the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) website <http://www.bom.gov.au>, and is copyright © Commonwealth of Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology is not responsible for repackaging of information via this application, including quality and timeliness of the services.
Sections of the code and documentation are adapted from samples provided on the Apple developer website. This does not imply that Apple has endorsed this product.
Thanks to Tristan Peemoeller, Arthur Tan, Frank Tedesco, Anthony Waring and AppleTalk Australia members for assistance with testing, and to Frank for the icon he designed for the Degrees Down Under application. Artwork for the Degrees DU widget is by Warwick Emanuel.
Feedback and donations welcome
We hope you find the Degrees Down Under widget useful. Contact us with any feedback at rjsdev@mac.com. And remember, you can make a donation via:
http://web.mac.com/rjsdev/iWeb/software/Donate.html
The fine print
Degrees Down Under widget copyright © 2005-6 Warwick Emanuel and Robert Stainsby.
Degrees Down Under copyright © 2003-6 Robert Stainsby.
This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Warwick Emanuel and Robert Stainsby
Canberra, Australia
7 October 2006