2014-01-13, 12:22
Hi,
here are a few ideas related to the weather window and weather addons.
1. Skin
1.1 dynamic skin includes
By now, there are at least 5 weather addons (wunderground, ozweather, weather plus, met office, openweathermap) which require skin changes to show "all" possible features. But Skin changes will require manual patching of the files which isn't very userfriendly and those changes are not obvious for a user who installs such an addon within xbmc.
My suggestion here is that at least the default skin should allow addon developers to dynamically include different views (5 day forecast, 7 day forecast, 10 day forecast, hourly, weekend, maps) by setting a specific value. Like this for example set_property('7day.IsFetched', 'true').
1.2 hide empty labels
For example UV-Index is only provided by wunderground, with any other addon this value will be empty so there is no reason to show it. Maybe its possible to make it dynamically too, giving the addon developer the possibility to show another value instead.
1.3 grab units from the addon settings instead of xbmc regional settings
This is a requirement if 2. is agreed
2. Core
Some values are automatically converted to another according to the regional settings, some are not. it is not obviuos for developers which values. Same for auto translations in some cases.
My suggestion here is to remove both, giving the developer the control over this part
on the other hand the api should provide the following functions
- function to convert a unit
- calculate dewpoint
- calculate feelslike
- winddirection: convert degrees to (translated) long or short string like WSW or Westsouth-west
The last 3 are nearly in every addon in the utilities.py and i don't think its nessessary to copy them over and over again.
This will also allow "overwriting" the regional settings in the addon (there are a few posts where users asked for this).
I know these changes would brake current addons, but i don't have another idea how weather addons could be done fully featured and user friendly.
here are a few ideas related to the weather window and weather addons.
1. Skin
1.1 dynamic skin includes
By now, there are at least 5 weather addons (wunderground, ozweather, weather plus, met office, openweathermap) which require skin changes to show "all" possible features. But Skin changes will require manual patching of the files which isn't very userfriendly and those changes are not obvious for a user who installs such an addon within xbmc.
My suggestion here is that at least the default skin should allow addon developers to dynamically include different views (5 day forecast, 7 day forecast, 10 day forecast, hourly, weekend, maps) by setting a specific value. Like this for example set_property('7day.IsFetched', 'true').
1.2 hide empty labels
For example UV-Index is only provided by wunderground, with any other addon this value will be empty so there is no reason to show it. Maybe its possible to make it dynamically too, giving the addon developer the possibility to show another value instead.
1.3 grab units from the addon settings instead of xbmc regional settings
This is a requirement if 2. is agreed
2. Core
Some values are automatically converted to another according to the regional settings, some are not. it is not obviuos for developers which values. Same for auto translations in some cases.
My suggestion here is to remove both, giving the developer the control over this part
on the other hand the api should provide the following functions
- function to convert a unit
- calculate dewpoint
- calculate feelslike
- winddirection: convert degrees to (translated) long or short string like WSW or Westsouth-west
The last 3 are nearly in every addon in the utilities.py and i don't think its nessessary to copy them over and over again.
This will also allow "overwriting" the regional settings in the addon (there are a few posts where users asked for this).
I know these changes would brake current addons, but i don't have another idea how weather addons could be done fully featured and user friendly.
