[EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

[pag77]

Please tell me, how do I make that show up? I have selected the current conditions option, but dew point does not show up anywhere. Or are you telling me you can do this in a future build?

it's for future 4.2 version

[Momos]

Hi Oleksandr,

The WebExtensions addon is fine, and I truly appreciate your effort of matching the features of the old version. But there are changes which you should make in order to make it look professional:

1) The radar should be displayed in native resolution 400x334, or you should find a smaller native resolution radar image. It looks terrible now, and you know it. My suggestion:
<img id="view_data_radar" width="400" height="334" border="0"/>
Of course, you should resize/rearrange the other divs to keep everything within the 800x600 no-scrollbar limit (may I suggest reducing the upper panel, there is enough wasted space there).

2) When the addon updates, it resets the location to NY. I relied on your addon and the weather/temperature indicated had nothing to do with the reality of my location. I will read the tooltip next time

3) The add-on icon has to be resized to fill the whole 16x16 (at least in the accuweather modern theme which I am using, but also in other themes which I tried). Right now it uses half of that (it looks very small compared with my other addon icons), and it is almost covered by the temperature box, so it does not properly fulfill its role of showing the weather at a glance.

4) Currently there is no way to distinguish between weather alerts and connection failed, both display the temperature in red. You may consider using a different shape or different color altogether.

5) Last, but not least, please, please, please consider maintaining the XUL version for your future PaleMoon users. There is life after Firefox suicide after all

Thank you for your effort!

[Gone Postal]

. . . there are changes which you should make in order to make it look professional . . .

Is that "professional" as in "I am fully qualified in this area and am telling you what is best despite whatever you know" or "professional" as in "I know what I like and feel justified in telling you what to do"?

Either way seems to denigrate Oleksandr's work.

[pag77]

1) The radar should be displayed in native resolution 400x334, or you should find a smaller native resolution radar image. It looks terrible now, and you know it. My suggestion:
<img id="view_data_radar" width="400" height="334" border="0"/>
Of course, you should resize/rearrange the other divs to keep everything within the 800x600 no-scrollbar limit (may I suggest reducing the upper panel, there is enough wasted space there).

Please a screenshot of which radar in question

2) When the addon updates, it resets the location to NY. I relied on your addon and the weather/temperature indicated had nothing to do with the reality of my location. I will read the tooltip next time

You mean the update from version 2.4.8?
Unfortunately, due to the features of 2.4.8 it was impossible to do it differently
Sorry for the inconvenience

3) The add-on icon has to be resized to fill the whole 16x16 (at least in the accuweather modern theme which I am using, but also in other themes which I tried). Right now it uses half of that (it looks very small compared with my other addon icons), and it is almost covered by the temperature box, so it does not properly fulfill its role of showing the weather at a glance.

You mean icon on toolbar-button?
For WebExtensions the icon can not be made larger than the size, only 16*16
Another problem is that the weather icons have an original rectangular shape

4) Currently there is no way to distinguish between weather alerts and connection failed, both display the temperature in red. You may consider using a different shape or different color altogether.

Thank you for your suggestion.
In future versions I will add a custom setting of any color and transparent: weather alerts, connection failed, background color for temperature for custom city, background color and text color for forecastbar, etc

5) Last, but not least, please, please, please consider maintaining the XUL version for your future PaleMoon users. There is life after Firefox suicide after all

I can not do it.
The Mozilla gallery no longer accepts new add-ons on the old technology, and the PaleMoon gallery is very miserable - there there is no feedback, statistics, etc.
To the same user PaleMoon very little - it will not justified the loss of my time
Plus (more precisely this is a "minus"), PaleMoon has a very small number of users - it will not justified the loss of my time
Sorry

[Mumio]

Please tell me, how do I make that show up? I have selected the current conditions option, but dew point does not show up anywhere. Or are you telling me you can do this in a future build?

it's for future 4.2 version

Excellent news!!! Thank you!

[Momos]

I neither intended to stir egos, nor to tell Oleksandr what to do or start a flamewar. I'm just saying that the new addon needs some polishing, and I apologize if my statement could be interpreted in any other way. Here is my attempt to help:

1) The radar should be displayed in native resolution 400x334, or you should find a smaller native resolution radar image. It looks terrible now, and you know it. My suggestion:
<img id="view_data_radar" width="400" height="334" border="0"/>
Of course, you should resize/rearrange the other divs to keep everything within the 800x600 no-scrollbar limit (may I suggest reducing the upper panel, there is enough wasted space there).

Please a screenshot of which radar in question

The radar in the popup:



Could look much much better if it would have been resized to its native resolution at a cost of 50-150px, by changing the size to 400x334 in popup.html:
<img id="view_data_radar" width="400" height="334" border="0"/>
Something like this:



To keep within 800x600 popup limit, you may consider reducing the upper "Now" panel height (by using its empty blue space more judiciously), and delete the bottom link to options (the options can be accessed through the upper-right corner button).

2) When the addon updates, it resets the location to NY. I relied on your addon and the weather/temperature indicated had nothing to do with the reality of my location. I will read the tooltip next time

You mean the update from version 2.4.8?
Unfortunately, due to the features of 2.4.8 it was impossible to do it differently
Sorry for the inconvenience

The reported update was from 3.5 to 4.1. Update from 2.4.8 lost the location too, but its UI changes were way too big to go unnoticed

3) The add-on icon has to be resized to fill the whole 16x16 (at least in the accuweather modern theme which I am using, but also in other themes which I tried). Right now it uses half of that (it looks very small compared with my other addon icons), and it is almost covered by the temperature box, so it does not properly fulfill its role of showing the weather at a glance.

You mean icon on toolbar-button?
For WebExtensions the icon can not be made larger than the size, only 16*16
Another problem is that the weather icons have an original rectangular shape

You are right, I checked it and it is already 16x16, it looked smaller to me the other day. I don't have any good idea... maybe adding some transparency to the temperature box?

4) Currently there is no way to distinguish between weather alerts and connection failed, both display the temperature in red. You may consider using a different shape or different color altogether.

Thank you for your suggestion.
In future versions I will add a custom setting of any color and transparent: weather alerts, connection failed, background color for temperature for custom city, background color and text color for forecastbar, etc

5) Last, but not least, please, please, please consider maintaining the XUL version for your future PaleMoon users. There is life after Firefox suicide after all

I can not do it.
The Mozilla gallery no longer accepts new add-ons on the old technology, and the PaleMoon gallery is very miserable - there there is no feedback, statistics, etc.
To the same user PaleMoon very little - it will not justified the loss of my time
Plus (more precisely this is a "minus"), PaleMoon has a very small number of users - it will not justified the loss of my time
Sorry

If the number of users is a concern, maybe you should consider dropping the Firefox version altogether. I've used Firefox since it was "baby Firefox 0.x", and divorcing is painful. As long as we had control over the browser with XUL, we could work around abominations such as Australis, Pocket, Hello, signed addons (with ESR version), etc. But Firefox strayed out from its identity, mission and goals, and there is no reason to flog a dead horse.

[pag77]

Could look much much better if it would have been resized to its native resolution at a cost of 50-150px, by changing the size to 400x334 in popup.html...
To keep within 800x600 popup limit, you may consider reducing the upper "Now" panel height (by using its empty blue space more judiciously), and delete the bottom link to options (the options can be accessed through the upper-right corner button).

Unfortunately I can not do this, since the proportions of 50/50 are rigidly prescribed, otherwise the design will float away
But there are two options.
1. I can make a real aspect of the radar picture, but then there will be side strips


2. You already now can click on the radar and get a large image

...When the addon updates, it resets the location to NY...
The reported update was from 3.5 to 4.1.

This is a wrong behavior, I'll try to find the cause and fix it

maybe adding some transparency to the temperature box?

In the previous answer:

In future versions I will add a custom setting of any color and transparent: weather alerts, connection failed, background color for temperature for custom city, background color and text color for forecastbar, etc

If the number of users is a concern, maybe you should consider dropping the Firefox version altogether. I've used Firefox since it was "baby Firefox 0.x", and divorcing is painful. As long as we had control over the browser with XUL, we could work around abominations such as Australis, Pocket, Hello, signed addons (with ESR version), etc. But Firefox strayed out from its identity, mission and goals, and there is no reason to flog a dead horse.

This may seem strange, but I like the WebExtensions-API
Yes, WebExtensions has several drawbacks, but if the programmer is smart, then he will always find a workaround
The greatest advantage of WebExtensions - without changing the source code you can show your extension for the user audience Firefox and GoogleChrome

[Momos]

Unfortunately I can not do this, since the proportions of 50/50 are rigidly prescribed, otherwise the design will float away

I'm not sure I understand. I just did that with a few lines of code, to produce the picture that I posted in the forum. And it does not float away anywhere; it looks quite good. I'm sure you can do an even better job.

But there are two options.
1. I can make a real aspect of the radar picture, but then there will be side strips
2. You already now can click on the radar and get a large image

The point was to exactly match the div size of #view_data_radar with the image size (400x334), so the radar image would look good and have readable text. Alternatively, you may try to find a smaller image radar size, if AccuWeather provides one (which I doubt). Of course, you may have to give up the 50/50 rule of the "Now" view (the 5-day views can preserve the 50/50), but why should you be strict about it?

The options you describe are about keeping the aspect ratio, but any resize makes the text and the content of the radar image ugly/unreadable.

This may seem strange, but I like the WebExtensions-API
Yes, WebExtensions has several drawbacks, but if the programmer is smart, then he will always find a workaround
The greatest advantage of WebExtensions - without changing the source code you can show your extension for the user audience Firefox and GoogleChrome

From the point of view of the developer, WebExtensions is good news. From the business point of view, what Mozilla is doing is to cut the support for the features/addons which made Firefox unique and useful and migrate its user base to Google Chrome

[pag77]

I'm not sure I understand. I just did that with a few lines of code, to produce the picture that I posted in the forum. And it does not float away anywhere; it looks quite good. I'm sure you can do an even better job.

In new versions I will do the replacement of the radar from Accuweather at https://www.windy.com/
Windy automatically adjusts to any size and has a more informative image

[Centauri39]

@ pag77
I always liked Forecastfox because of the weather icons (6 days forecast in my Firefox) in the add-on bar, visible instantly without any click.
When the add-on bar died, I moved these icons into the right corner of menu bar.
As for the current version, I absolutely dislike having to perform a click before I get these icons for several days.
Yes, I know, it is not your fault what's going on with Firefox these days, but is there any chance to create a version of Forecastfox
which allows for these icons to be put in the menu bar again?

[pag77]

which allows for these icons to be put in the menu bar again?

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/foreca ... /versions/
Version 4.1
Released May 23, 2017

Weather Forecast Bar is restored!
changes:
1. Addon Permissions: Access your data for all websites
2. Forecast bar now has 2 mode: Vertical (by default) and Horizontal
3. Forecast bar will not be displayed on some sites from mozilla.org and google.com
4. Forecast bar will not be displayed on sites that do not have pages, for example error 404 (page not found)
5. Forecast bar will not be displayed on internal Firefox and GoogleChrome pages, for example about:addons , about:config , chrome://extensions/ , chrome://settings/ , etc.
6. Forecast bar will not be displayed on the WebExtensions pages "moz-extension://...." , "chrome-extension://...."
7. Forecast bar may not be displayed correctly on some sites. In this case, report the problem on the forum

[Centauri39]

Great!
I just found the right way to chose the horizontal mode.
Thanks for pointing me to this version!

Is it possible to move the forecast bar to another position because as I mentioned before I would prefer it to be in the right corner of the menu bar?

Maybe another nice idea might be an option to let the forecast bar jump automatically to another edge (or corner) in case something important is hidden behind the bar.
Do you think this might be possible in an upcoming version?

[pag77]

Is it possible to move the forecast bar to another position because as I mentioned before I would prefer it to be in the right corner of the menu bar?
Maybe another nice idea might be an option to let the forecast bar jump automatically to another edge (or corner) in case something important is hidden behind the bar.
Do you think this might be possible in an upcoming version?

I'll add this feature in my work plan for future versions

[Leif-AMO]

. . . there are changes which you should make in order to make it look professional . . .

Is that "professional" as in "I am fully qualified in this area and am telling you what is best despite whatever you know" or "professional" as in "I know what I like and feel justified in telling you what to do"?

Either way seems to denigrate Oleksandr's work.

As a fellow add-on developer, I can speak to this issue, though I am at best a partially qualified unprofessional.

There's nothing to be gained by trying to find reasons to be insulted by, or insult end-users who come to share feedback. Their experience is their experience and is valid without question. Some end-users may have a different communication style and/or command of the language. Some may have heightened frustration as a result of discomfort, fatigue or general dissatisfaction with some UI design or functionality. Some of the most "offensive" user feedback had good points and valuable ideas in my experience.

As a developer, the "job" (volunteer or otherwise) comes with an implicit social contract to help users have a better experience with the software. That includes being receptive to all feedback and considering all ideas for improvements regardless of source or style of communication. All feedback is appreciated, and minimal emotional energy invested in taking offense.

In this specific case, it hadn't even crossed my mind as denigrating, rather classified as "ideas for improvement and polish".

Anyways that is my perspective. Have a good day!

[Leif-AMO]

...When the addon updates, it resets the location to NY...
The reported update was from 3.5 to 4.1.

This is a wrong behavior, I'll try to find the cause and fix it

Bug: Not sure if this is related, but if trying to use a custom URL it always gets reset (SAT+RS+ISAR -> NX+SIR+INMASIR, see below). I want to use combined satelite and radar to see both precipitation (in colors green, yellow, orange, red, etc) and cloud cover (grey/white) at 640x480 (400x300 preview is ok, 640x480 when clicking to view full image strongly preferred). 400x300 is very small on my screen.

Example, if I try 640x480 sat/radar combo loop:

http://sirocco.accuweather.com/sat_mosa ... sarNY_.gif

Forecastfox (fix version) changes it to:

http://sirocco.accuweather.com/nx_mosai ... sirNY_.gif

Which has only precipitation (Doppler radar), not cloud cover (satelite).

If I try to use smaller sat/radar combo loop, the URL still gets changed, so it doesn't see to be an issue of whether the specified URL fits the preview.

http://sirocco.accuweather.com/sat_mosa ... sarNY_.gif

Feature request: Hide location, day and temperatures from the Forecastfox (fix version) horizontal bar, to present the minimal condition info in compact space similar to XUL version. I know what day it is today or else I have bigger problems than the weather! So first (0-indexed) day/night icons are today, 2nd (1+ indexed) icon and beyond are tomorrow and subsequent days.

Commentary:

If the number of users is a concern, maybe you should consider dropping the Firefox version altogether. I've used Firefox since it was "baby Firefox 0.x", and divorcing is painful. As long as we had control over the browser with XUL, we could work around abominations such as Australis, Pocket, Hello, signed addons (with ESR version), etc. But Firefox strayed out from its identity, mission and goals, and there is no reason to flog a dead horse.

I've used the Mozilla family browsers since before it was open sourced, since before the Windows version. I've likewise been highly critical of the decisions at Mozilla in recent years. But the reality is that you can not escape the problem by dropping Firefox and switching to another browser. All major browsers use WebExtensions now. No matter what browser you choose, it will use WebExtensions. There is nowhere left to run. You have three choices.

1. Try using some forked version of Firefox that will try to keep XUL alive but will probably ultimately fail in the long term because there is no funding and a small user base and small development team.
2. Try convincing Google and/or Microsoft and/or Mozilla to add controls for certain UI elements so that WebExtensions can share the same UI functionality as XUL (next to impossible to change their minds at this point).
3. Hope someone starts a new multi-million dollar corporation and/or non-profit organization, write a new modular extension engine, that provides advantages over WebExtensions, and write your own browser (including rendering engine and user interface) to use it (or possibly integrate it with other modular components).

This may seem strange, but I like the WebExtensions-API
Yes, WebExtensions has several drawbacks, but if the programmer is smart, then he will always find a workaround
The greatest advantage of WebExtensions - without changing the source code you can show your extension for the user audience Firefox and GoogleChrome

(And the Edge browser, almost).

The WebExtensions API does allow the developer to do some powerful things with simpler, cleaner looking code, with usages that are easier to remember, more logically organized API, succinct naming conventions. Asynchronous, multi-processor, security, simplicity and portability are all very powerful benefits. Development time will be more effective at creating new features rather than wrestling with the arcane and often undocumented features of XUL.

The benefit of portability, however, is something of an illusion. There are already creeping into Microsoft and Mozilla implementations, little incompatibilities. This trend will probably continue. Still, it will be easier to manage than converting an entire API to another with a full rewrite from scratch for every browser. Instead, it may be a few parameters to a function, a different set of manifest.json options, or a few missing functions entirely, etc. Probably tools will popup to address these problems, the API may be made more flexible or who knows, maybe become a W3C recommendation or specification some day, so the end result will still be a maximum amount of code can be shared with minimal effort to manage the differences.

Though a smart developer may find workarounds for some things, other things can't be worked around regardless of intelligence or cleverness of the developer, and some workarounds are unsatisfactory or suboptimal. Do not accept and do not tolerate the status-quo of stripping power from developers and end-users. Continue to voice opinions and increase pressure on all corporate entities involved in WebExtensions. They have a vested future in it now. If they continue to be unreasonable and unresponsive to the demands of the community, they will eventually fall like every giant before them has fallen. Someone WILL eventually implement option 3) above, and there WILL be a reckoning.