Pretty Weather Programs?

J

Jason_25

I have FreeBSD installed on a computer that, for now, solely does the job of showing me the weather. I used to use the Windows 8 weather program that came on it, but after some updates did not work as well. Additionally, the computer does not have working graphics acceleration because it uses the "scfb" driver with Gen7 Intel Graphics.

What I have tried so far:
adesklets, gdesklets, and deskutils/superkaramba are all deprecated. misc/xfce4-weather-plugin is kind of ugly and main window does not auto update as well as no radar. deskutils/gnome-weather requires GNOME (XFCE does not support GNOME 3.x widgets). Packaged GNOME requires graphics acceleration. Typhoon (python, standalone) crashes. my-weather-indicator (python, unity binding) requires GNOME. Again, packaged GNOME requires graphics acceleration.

I'm installing x11/kde4 right now to see what my options are as far as plasma widgets go and may need to install the latest version of GNOME to bypass the graphics acceleration check. In the meantime, are there any weather applications / widgets I may be missing?
 
Thanks for the reply. I tried misc/wmweather+ but it is hardcoded for 64x64 size. It's very small even at 800x600 resolution making it unusable.

After Installing x11/kde4, the first thing I happened to try was deskutils/gnome-weather. It has awesome graphics, automatic location determination, a five day forecast and even tri-hourly weather forecasts. Unfortunately it lacks auto update, radar and climate trends features from the Windows application. The lack of auto update particularly makes it unusable. Does anyone know if it auto updates properly on GNOME or even if there is some documentation somewhere?

The 2 included KDE Plasma weather widgets had missing weather state information, only showing wind and temperature, making them unusable. All of the widgets I could automatically download through "add new widgets" did not work showing a red X and complaining of python errors making them unusable.

The Yahoo Weather KDE Plasma Widget works well though. It auto updates, shows a five-day forecast, is good looking while easily visible, and can go on the desktop or the tray and it includes most features from the Windows application with the exception of radar , climate trends and hourly forecasts. It exceeds the Windows version in showing sunrise/sunset, being free software, and not including advertisements.
link: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Yahoo!+Weather+Widget?content=164194
 
I have some light weight posix scripts that utilize x11/yad, ftp/wget and graphics/feh to obtain NOAA weather conditions, forecasts and maps in the US. The current conditions can be called from a freedesktop compliant tray. These scripts use little in system resources and on my 1.5 DSL connection, execute within seconds.

The easiest one is the weather map which I call directly from an x11-wm/openbox menu entry
Code: 
       <item icon="/usr/local/share/pixmaps/weather-map.png" label="Weather Radar">
                        <action name="Execute">
                                <execute>
                                        ~/scripts/weather_map.sh
                                </execute>
                        </action>
        </item>

Edit: NOAA changed access to the maps - the following script presently works
Code: 
#!/bin/sh

# This is a simple script that downloads a radar image from the
# National Weather Service and displays it in feh

# The script is configure for the Pendelton, OR radar site
#
# To change the site edit NOR/PDT_0.png

curl -sk http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/lite/NCR/PDT_0.png | feh -^ 'PDT Radar' -

where "PDT"(Pendelton, Oregon) is the radar site for my region "NOR" (Northwest).

Edit: Add script for current conditions that puts an applet in the system tray.
Code: 
#!/bin/sh

# This is a simple script that downloads current weather conditions and zone
# forecast from the National Weather Service to /tmp and displays them.
#
# This script is preconfigured for the Yakima, WA area.
# It is biased toward the US, as it gets its data from the NWS.
#
# To change the observations site, replace KYKM with another observation site.
# See <http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/decoded/> for a list.
# For the bare, unparsed METAR, replace "decoded" in the URI with "stations".
#

wget -q -O /tmp/wx-current.txt http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/decoded/KYKM.TXT
echo " **************************** Yakima, WA Weather ****************************  "
echo ""
fold -w 78 -s /tmp/wx-current.txt

With this ~/.config/openbox/autostart
Code: 
# Start weather system tray applet
(sleep 2 && yad --notification --image=weather-overcast \
--text="Yakima, WA Weather" --no-middle \
--command='urxvt -ls -g 78x16-0+38 \
-icon /usr/local/share/pixmaps/weather.png \
-hold -T "Yakima, WA Weather" \
-e "/home/jsh/scripts/weather.sh"') &

Weather Forecast for Yakima, WA
Code: 
#!/bin/sh

# This is a simple script that downloads current weather conditions and zone
# forecast from the National Weather Service to /tmp and displays them.
#
# This script is preconfigured for the Yakima, WA area.
# It is biased toward the US, as it gets its data from the NWS.
#
# For the bare, unparsed METAR, replace "decoded" in the URI with "stations".
#
# To change the forecast zone, replace wa/waz027.txt with another forecast zone.
# See <http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/zone/> for a list.

wget -q -O /tmp/wx-forecast.txt http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/zone/wa/waz027.txt
echo " *************************** Yakima, WA Forecast **************************** "
echo ""
fold -w 78 -s /tmp/wx-forecast.txt

With this OpenBox menu entry:
Code: 
                <item icon="/usr/local/share/pixmaps/weather-forecast.png" label="Weather Forecast">
                        <action name="Execute">
                                <execute>
                                        urxvt -g 78x44+500+76 -icon /usr/local/share/pixmaps/weather-forecast.png -hold -T "Yakima, WA Weather" -e  ~/scripts/weather_forecast.sh
                                </execute>
                        </action>
                </item>
 
Last edited:
I admit I'm not familiar with "weather programs", but do keep an eye on the weather. My method is to dedicate a browser window to tabs that are to weather sites of interest. I don't know about programs that can enhance that view, but my method makes it instantly available with just an Alt-Tab.
 
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