Weather Code Mode

[janos33]

Hello. I just recently downloaded the release candidate of rainmeter 1.2. However, as much as I like the software, I find trying to configure the weather settings to be extremely frustrating. The only weather that I can get to work properly is on the Gnometer skin. Other skins that I have that are not default skins are: "Hero", "Simple Weather", "Starlight", and "Taranbeer". There is much confusion regarding weather codes from Yahoo, Weather.com, Accuweather, etc. You have to edit the skin in order to insert the code. As far as I can determine, my code for Northridge, CA is USCA0780. I really wish the skin makers would figure out a way to make things more intuitive and easier. I'm just about at the point where I figure, why bother? Why waste all this time and jump through hoops when all I have to do is use the weather gadget that comes with Windows or use Yahoo widgets or Google Widgets? Those are so much easier to use. Just type in the name of the city and you are good to go. If anyone has some suggestions, I am open. There's got to be a way to streamline and make things easier. Why can't all the skin makers make it easy like Gnometer does.............that should be the model.............. and that's the only skin that I can get the weather thing to work on! :roll:

[jsmorley]

You are right. Weather skins can be frustrating if you view Rainmeter as analogous to Windows Sidebar or Google Gadgets, which it is not. It is a "toolkit" for building skins and the power of it being so completely flexible that you can do anything you want YOUR way also means that skins put out there by authors are a mixed bag of approaches and setups. Almost every author provides some kind of instructions on how to configure settings, but you have to read them. There is no "one size fits all" approach and we wouldn't want there to be. Rainmeter is not particularly intended for an audience that just wants it to be Windows Sidebar. It's not the point. It's about "making your desktop your own" as we say. Mostly it is intended for YOU to write skins to do what you want. You can use or modify skins others have created, but I'm afraid if you have an expectation that using a skin is like adding a gadget to Windows Sidebar or Yahoo Widgets or Google Gadgets etc, then Rainmeter is indeed going to frustrate. It's not what it is...

[janos33]

The previous poster who replied to my post has made some excellent points. All I know is when I want to configure the weather widget that is part of the hero rainmeter skin, it's somewhat unclear as to how to insert the accuweather location code. And a certain website that gives me the code, whatever I enter gets returned as a zero. I can fiddle, and try different codes which may or may not work and waste considerable time, which is a pain. All I can say is my hats off to the guys who designed and put Gnometer together. I admit to some frustration in regard to these weather location code business. I just think there should be a better, easier way, that's all. If Gnometer can make it straightforward, why not other skins? And my understanding is that weather.com and accuweather don't exactly make it easy on the skin makers. I think it's partly their fault that it has to be this complicated. Well, we'll see what happens from here on out. I will experiment, for all the good that may or may not do me.

[jsmorley]

I can't disagree that getting skins to work with all the various weather services out there, all of which are different in one way or another, is a pain. I think what poiru did with Gnometer should / could be an "example" for authors going forward indeed.

[Chewtoy]

First of: AccuWeather feed that we used (as partners with AccuWeather) is dead. so it's either Weather.com, yahoo-weather (which is weather.com) or msn-weather. Alternativly you could get some small random weather site. But as you want it to "work out of the box like vista-sidebar", I'm guessing you don't want to code a skin yourself.

Second: Yeah. Gnometer make it real easy to configure. Mostly because you have this nice little app "ConfigTool" that many have no idea how to do. And a lot because it ships with rainmeter, so everythings preloaded.
The skin-code however, is more of a task to follow (at least in my opinion). But it is indeed easy to configure.