"wX" Android opensource/free weather app - new beta release 3.4

3.37726 released on Saturday April 2, 2016 - thanks to those that suggested these features.

  • Additional radar features: In settings->radar once can now select “Show more cities”, “Show observations”, and “Show observations nearby”, and “Show spotter labels”. These features are not available in dual pane or in homescreen widgets yet. Additional cities provides a 2nd set ( ~25,000 ) of cities and more are displayed as you zoom in. Current limitation is 2nd set only shows for the state in which the radar displayed resides in. This feature is beta and should have performance and aesthetic enhancements in future releases. Observations are also shown for the current state of the radar selected however by also selecting “show observations nearby” surrounding state observations are displayed as well. If you zoom in so that 1-2 counties are visible ( on average ) the conditions will expand to show pressure, wind, and conditions. In Settings->radar added a number picker to set a scale factor for the textual labels displayed allowing one to uniformly increase or decrease the size of the text. In Settings->color added a new color control for observations label.

  • Showing cities with radar now has enhanced performance particularly on pan and zoom as cities are hidden during such operations and then positions recalculated after the motion is stopped.

  • Additional configuration setting in Settings->”User Interface” a new “number picker” has been added for “Animation - frames for toolbar icon”. In the most commonly used activities such as the OpenGL based radar, COD Mosaics(VIS), and GOES, the play icon in the bottom toolbar will now show the number of frames configured here instead of the default 6.

  • Beta features. In Settings->Radar you can now select an enhanced set of highway data and also to show Canadian and Mexican borders. These might become the default options as hardware advances continue with mobile devices. The enhanced highway data in general shows somewhat more highways including in Canada and Mexico but is not as detailed around major cities ( ie “beltways” )

  • Location dots are now circular and will show for all locations not just the currently selected location.

  • Spotter activity - the default mode is now radar instead of favorite. If you tap on someone’s name it will open the default radar with a large text label for that particular spotter.

  • Tropical Tidbits models - New “South America” sector for GFS and few other models.

  • Bugfix - COD Mesoanalysis animation was crashing. Thanks to whoever reported this.

  • Bugfix - Showing a single spotter label from the spotter activity was crashing. Thanks to the 2 people who reported this.

  • Bugfix - the imagemap in WFO text product ( AFD ) was not setup the same way as other imagemaps and pinch zoom would cause a crash.

  • Bugfix - Spotter activity. If one used the search toolbar to narrow the results and then added a favorite there was no way to get back the complete data set.

  • A new current conditions/7day widget is available with white background and current NWS icon for current conditions. Work in progress.

TIPS: At times people have mentioned that there isn’t enough documentation for some features and have asked for more. In each release note I plan to add a section for tips of things that I’ve mentioned at one time or another but has not been documented in a central place. I’ll put tips here but also add a log of them to a separate file. For today I wanted to cover how to access help within the program. FIrst, from the main screen sub-menu you can enable “help mode”. From there you can tap on any tile for more info ( tabs 2-4 ). Select help again to turn it off. Second, in settings you can tap on any text for more information on a particular setting. Finally, this is not specific to my program but it’s something that not many folks know about, I didn’t until recently. If you long press on an icon in the top or bottom toolbar a small popup will appear with text that the developer has entered as a hint for what that icon will do. Finally, a new feature but not obvious is that for tabs 2-4 you can long press and then drag and drop them to rearrange. Thanks ! If anyone wants more detail about particular feature please let me know.


BUGS/CRASHES: If you are experience any crashes or bugs and have submitted crash reports but do not see resolution with this latest release please contact via email. It’s not always possible with the crash data automatically submitted or the comments to figure out what is going on. For now there was a crash with a comment that someone was trying to select a city but got a crash. The crash data didn’t provide enough detail to narrow this down and the comment didn’t specify what part of the program it was in. If someone continues to have issues with this please email me directly. Unfortunately the diversity of the android ecosystem causes folks to have issues that I don't see on my 3 devices.


Suggestions, bug reports always welcomed. thanks, Josh


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Google play summary:


New radar features ( more cities and observations ) and number of frames shown via toolbar play icon is now configurable in settings->UI. Animation frames on bottom toolbar now configurable for number of frames in settings->UI. Bug fixes. Please see latest release notes ( URL at bottom of app description in play store entry ) for more detail. Thankyou to those that suggested new features and reported bugs.
 
3.37786 released on Saturday April 9, 2016 - thanks to those that suggested these features.

  • Radar - new long press behavior now shows popup menu with options and more information. For example it shows the distance from the long pressed location to your current location ( GPS location if enabled ), distance from current radar, 4 closest radars and distance allowing user to switch to any of them, observations, warning text, and radar status message. This popup replaces the “long press action” submenu implemented recently.

  • Substantial improvement in the way TDWR are handled and managed. They can now be added as favorites just like Nexrad and are distinguished from normal Nexrad via the leading “T”.

  • Small set of additional color palettes now available in settings->radar for reflectivity and velocity. The “CODENH” are enhanced versions of the existing color maps that I’m using to correct minor defects in reflectivity, still testing them. The enhanced version of velocity is much more similar to College of Dupage which was the goal to begin with. If you have a color palette you would like to have integrated into the program please send me a screenshot and your PAL file and suggest a name to call it. In the future I hope to offer an interface to edit the color palettes on the fly. Existing ones would be fixed but could be cloned and modified or created from scratch, etc.

  • Enhanced highway data has been switched to a new data set that has far more detail.

  • Additional option in settings->radar to show some secondary roads. Once you zoom in close enough these roads will appear. Their color can be configured in settings->color

  • Major performance enhancements for text based labeling in radar including cities, obs, spotters.

  • 2nd level of cities if enabled in radar now loads all data for the CONUS instead of just the state the current radar is in.

  • Location dots now work with Canadian locations.

  • If device lacks sufficient memory to render radar instead of crashing it will not issue an a popup dialogue warning of inconsistent results and request to exit the radar activity ( or app if radar is on homescreen ). This might happen of all options for roads, cities are selected and device does not have sufficient RAM, etc.

  • (bugfix) In the local WFO text product viewer submenu the link for hazard map was no longer working after the NWS redesigned WFO websites. The exact functionality is no longer available so a link the WAA map for that CWA was used instead.

  • (bugfix) Prevent application crash of current location becomes out of sync with how many locations are actually available.

TIPS: You can touch the top most icon to the left of current conditions on the “local” tab to edit the current location or see radar status if radars are shown on the main page. You can also access sun/moon data as well.


BACK DOOR to SETTINGS: If for some reason the app is crashing on start after a settings change or you suspect a roaming location is bad, there is a backdoor into settings. First, add the main wX widget to your homescreen and then tap the teardrop icon to access the hourly activity. In the submenu you can access settings and delete any bad locations or revert any settings made recently. I strive to keep wX bug-free as possible but it will always be a work in progress as long as new features are added. Additionally the dependence on a wide variety of upstream data sources that could change data formats at anytime will continue to pose challenges but thankfully it’s not that common. Thanks to those reporting bugs and helping to keep it a more stable program.


BUGS/CRASHES: If you are experience any crashes or bugs and have submitted crash reports but do not see resolution with this latest release please contact via email. It’s not always possible with the crash data automatically submitted or the comments to figure out what is going on. For now there was a crash with a comment that someone was trying to select a city but got a crash. The crash data didn’t provide enough detail to narrow this down and the comment didn’t specify what part of the program it was in. If someone continues to have issues with this please email me directly. Unfortunately the diversity of the android ecosystem causes folks to have issues that I don't see on my 3 devices.


Suggestions, bug reports always welcomed. thanks, Josh


wX @ Play Store:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx

wX ( and source code tarballs ):https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9OogdTO1kXqYzktaHZzdGdQSEk&usp=sharing

https://app.box.com/wX37


----

Google play summary:


Longpress in radar has been improved with a popup list of options preventing the need to set a long press mode in submenu. TDWR support has been redone and enhanced. New radar features available in settings->radar: new enhanced highway data set, option for additional roads in addition to highways, county labels, a few color palette options for reflectivity and velocity. Noticeable performance improvement for text overlays in radar. If secondary cities are enabled they are shown for the CONUS not just the current state. bugfixes
 
3.37854 released on April 20, 2016 - thanks to those that suggested these features.

  • Default color palette for reflectivity and base velocity have been changed to “CODENH” which are very similar to the old defaults but resolve minor issues and bring them closer to what is used @ COD. Most other color palettes received minor tweaks as well to make them more consistent with College of DuPage.

  • Experimental support for color palette editor. Please see built in help in the activity used to select color palette. ( under Settings->Radar )

  • Legend for color palette can now be shown from submenu. Select same item to hide. If shown it will show on default next time activity is started.

  • Radar long press, if you select to show text for warnings the pop-up dialogue adds a “Play” and “Share” button. Please will trigger “text to speech”

  • If radar activity runs out of memory or encounters unexpected data a pop-up dialog will come up asking to restart the activity instead of the app crashing.

  • (bugfix) in certain situations show a specific spotter on radar would cause a crash

  • Initial prep work for May 11 NWS text product conversion from all Uppercase to mixed case. In many cases text products are searched for specific strings of data to take action on. It’s unlikely changes will be needed as the first subset of products is one not parsed in depth by wX.

TIPS: The default opengl based radar has a variety of touch gestures that can be used. Single tap to zoom out, double tap to zoom in ( on the point you double tap on ), and long press to access a variety of features.


BACK DOOR to SETTINGS: If for some reason the app is crashing on start after a settings change or you suspect a roaming location is bad, there is a backdoor into settings. First, add the main wX widget to your homescreen and then tap the teardrop icon to access the hourly activity. In the submenu you can access settings and delete any bad locations or revert any settings made recently. I strive to keep wX bug-free as possible but it will always be a work in progress as long as new features are added. Additionally the dependence on a wide variety of upstream data sources that could change data formats at anytime will continue to pose challenges but thankfully it’s not that common. Thanks to those reporting bugs and helping to keep it a more stable program.


BUGS/CRASHES: If you are experience any crashes or bugs and have submitted crash reports but do not see resolution with this latest release please contact via email. It’s not always possible with the crash data automatically submitted or the comments to figure out what is going on. For now there was a crash with a comment that someone was trying to select a city but got a crash. The crash data didn’t provide enough detail to narrow this down and the comment didn’t specify what part of the program it was in. If someone continues to have issues with this please email me directly. Unfortunately the diversity of the android ecosystem causes folks to have issues that I don't see on my 3 devices.


Suggestions, bug reports always welcomed. thanks, Josh


wX @ Play Store:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx

wX ( and source code tarballs ):https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9OogdTO1kXqYzktaHZzdGdQSEk&usp=sharing

https://app.box.com/wX37


----

Google play summary:


Most color palettes received minor refinements. Color Palette editor ( experimental feature ) available for reflectivity and velocity under settings->radar. In radar if one long presses on a warning polygon the popup box now offers share and TTS ( text to speech ) buttons. Bugfix in spotter activity. Radar activity out of memory or unexpected data will trigger a popup alert instead of an app crash.
 
It would be nice to be able to share the SPC Day 4-8 Convective Outlook maps individually to social media as images.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
Just something I noticed recently when using the app on my S4 is that when you change the model run, the time for when it is valid doesnt change with it. It makes everything off by 6 hours (or whichever run you are looking at). Just thought I would let you know.

I was having another issue, but it looks fixed now. The SGP (Southern Great Plains) was missing from the HRRR but it is back for me this morning.

Still my go to app for anything weather. Thanks again for the app.
 
Wesley,
Good to hear from you. Having the Z to local time translation is unfortunately something that only works for the most current run. I'll try again to enhance this so all prior runs are handled. Regarding HRRR, possibly a temp glitch from the content provider but please do let me know if you see it again.

FYI to all - COD is in the process of upgrading the imagery for the GFS ( similar to NAM4KM and HRRR earlier this year ). The URLs are changing so effectively this is broke until I can get everything updated hopefully later tonight. I also noticed NAM4KM does not currently have the SGP sector, that is a bug and will be fixed as well.

thanks,
Josh
 
I just pushed an out of band release (3.7856 ) to google play mainly for the following:
- Update COD GFS to use new URL and now add white background as image is transparent. COD states on their website this migration might take 1-2 days and I do notice not all parms are working ( most are ) but I will continue to track this and issue updates as needed
- Add SGP sector to COD NAM4KM
- Add ability to individually share images in SPC Convective Outlook D4-D8

FYI - do not plan to update apk in google drive right now ( source tar ball is there ) so please let me know if you are sideloading and need it.

thanks,
josh
 
Wesley Luginbyhl said:
Just something I noticed recently when using the app on my S4 is that when you change the model run, the time for when it is valid doesnt change with it. It makes everything off by 6 hours (or whichever run you are looking at). Just thought I would let you know.

I was having another issue, but it looks fixed now. The SGP (Southern Great Plains) was missing from the HRRR but it is back for me this morning.

Still my go to app for anything weather. Thanks again for the app.
Click to expand...

Wesley,
I've made some progress on this and I'll probably release to google play by this weekend after I do more testing. In addition to handling Z to localtime conversion for older runs I also added the month/day in there which is useful for the longer range stuff. In the meantime a beta is here if you want to sideload:
https://drive.google.com/folderview...&usp=sharing&tid=0B9OogdTO1kXqYzktaHZzdGdQSEk
Draft release notes at bottom.

The other 2 improvements besides some bugfix are enhanced performance in Level 2 and a demo interface to the GOES-14 SRSOR. For those not familiar this website shows an example of what we can look forward to:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/srsor2015/GOES-14_SRSOR.html

thanks,
Josh


  • Non-operational, experimental GOES-14 activity added and accessible from submenu of activity invoked via cloud icon in bottom toolbar. Please note images can be as large as 1MB per image or larger and at best animations use frames from images captured every minute so it is very bandwidth intensive.

  • Performance enhancements for Level 2 Radar

  • More work on COD GFS including adding back in 3km Helicity and added new Snow total parameter. AK, MW, MA, NGP added as sectors. Removed params no longer supported

  • In COD/NCEP/SREF, add support for Z to local time translation for past few runs along with current. Add month/day.

  • (bugfix) Level 2 radar sharing was not working.

  • (bugfix) Dualpane radar was having issues with TDWR and nexrads that ended with the same last 3 characters ( like ICT )

  • (bugfix) COD NAM4KM was transparent after image upgrade, add white background to more easily see edge text
 
I'm postponing release this weekend as I want to fit in one more addition. I've uploaded a new Beta to google drive with the following enhancements:

- Quad pane radar ( example: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9OogdTO1kXqS1N0dlJlMy1sSmM )
- bugfix for Dual pane with regards to longpress location being incorrect when changing zoom value on other pane.

I hope to release this to google play early-mid part of this upcoming week.
 
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