Heatwave is a Vista Media Center application for displaying the current weather conditions and a four
day forecast for any number of global locations.
You can download it here (64-bit in the next post).
VERSION 1.1
General:
- Now compatible with TV Pack 2008, including extenders
- The forecasts on the main page now animate from day to night mode
- The forecast for the current day now includes the supposed chance of rain...
- Multi-language support
New display options:
- Overscan Compensation - this should remove the border around the application that some people are seeing.
- Animate
Background - toggles the background animation. If Underscan
compensation still leaves you with an unacceptable border, turning off
the background animation should get rid of it
- Start
Menu Items in Lower Case - a number of people have mentioned they'd
prefer that the start menu items didn't get transformed to lower case.
This is now an option.
- English Units - there's a new unit style, English units, which displays temperature in Celsius and distance in miles (Updated to show everything in metric, except distance in miles)
- Added the show in News+Sports to the settings section as well, just in case you regret your decision in the installer
- Added the option to use the weather.com icon set (by popular request)
weather.com API-related changes:
- Required
Links - I've now included the required links for each location. You can
find them in the bottom-left of the main page. Be aware that they point
to websites that aren't designed for Media Center
- Data
Age - the main page now displays the time the data was last updated,
and the time it was last checked for updates. It cannot be checked more
frequently than once each 25 minutes
UI
- Clickable Chevrons - the chevrons on the main page are now clickable for mouse users
- Sunrise/Set - in response to a number of requests, the sunrise and sunset times are now displayed
- Moon Phase - as above
- Editable
location names - you can now edit the display name for locations. Go to
the Edit Locations page in settings and click on the (I'm no graphic
artist...) pencil button next to the location to bring up an editor.
- Zip Code Trimming - for those who add locations by zip code, the zip code is now automatically trimmed from the location name
- Fixed (hopefully) the slow exit times (Really really this time)
Installer
- Compatible with TV Pack 2008
- Elevation warning shield on the Install button (trivial, however now expected apparently)
- Start
Menu / News Options - the installer now allows you to automatically add
the program to the start menu if you like. You can also choose to not
have it install under the News + Sports category. (News + Sports option fixed)
- Future Proofing - there was an issue in the installer that would prevent it from working with future versions of media center
Bug Fixes
- Local time updating - there was an issue whereby the local time would not always update correctly. This should be addressed.
- Extenders
should now correctly use all the same settings as the server (with the
exception of the overscan compensation and background animation
settings which are display-specific)
- Several security permission issues addressed for extenders
- The need to click back twice on some configurations has been addressed
Screenshots:
The Main Page: Use the left and right arrows to move between locations:
The Settings: General Page - Choose your units of measure, start menu, and update preferences:
The Settings: Add Location Page - Add as many different locations as you like:
The Settings: Add Location Page - An on-screen keyboard is available:
The Settings: Add Location Page - The results of a search for 'ROME':
The Settings: Edit Locations Page - Change location order and delete locations:
The Settings: About Page:
With the Show on Start Menu option enabled (You need to do this on the Settings / General page within the application - until you do so, it will only be available from Online Media / Program Library):
Viewing weather for Tokyo with a video playing:
