Hi James,

Tonight, I tried Heat Wave.  I must say, I am very impressed.  I like the smooth transitions from one page/location to the next. 

I think it works with wide screen TV as well.  I think it's ok that it is centered in the middle of the screen like below.

Maybe in the next release you could make it a little wider for wide screen layout.  If you look at the screen shot above, notice the text under Wednesday's box.  "AM Clouds/PM Sun" looks like it's cut off.  If the layout were wider the whole text would fit.   Would making the forecast column wider be a possibility?

When Heat Wave shows up on the start page, I like that Heat Wave shows up different locations on the custom strip as shown below.

Oh when I click on the different locations on the custom weather strip, I like how Heat Wave goes directly to that location/page.

I notice it takes a few seconds for Heat Wave to exit when I hit the back button.  However if I press the green button, it goes to the start page quickly.  Perhaps I just have to re-train myself to press the green button instead of the back button to exit.

Also, there is a new weather.com SDK that has updated icons that look much nicer.  You can get the SDK here:  http://download.weather.com/web/xoap/sdk.zip

I'll pm you the email I received from weather.com.  If you have to add links from the xml feed, you can probably add them to the about page.

Thanks for updating Heat Wave to work with Vista. 

-Josef

MCExtended:

jonpurkis:

...A cooking app for example, hint hint...

Thanks for the compliments.

As far as the cooking app goes, it's actually something I thought about however I decided I'd probably be the only one who'd use it...

Interesting to see that others would be interested. I'll let you know if I ever pursue it.

If you go the cooking app route, the wife is gonna force me to get one of the HP touchscreen 2 systems for the kitchen :)

-D

Hi James,

I have a small request.  Would it be possible to add Sunrise and Sunset information to the current condition and perhaps the forecast section?

Overall Heat Wave is great.

Thanks,

-Josef

Regarding the weather.com® related stuff: yeah, things have changed since 2005, unfortunately. I'm mystified as to how I'm going to display the new logo on the current background without it blending too much, and yet I'm prohibited from placing it in a container...

jcuesico:

...and additional (4) links included in the xml feed...

Yes, I will need to address that. Unfortunately the links are locale-specific, so I'll have to attach them to each location... which will look crap.

jcuesico:

...weather.com terms of service specifically mentions 3 locations maximum...

My read of that is that it's at most three locations on the same page or visible at the one time. I believe I comply with that.

Charlie Owen:

...If I recall correctly the terms of usage from weather.com were such you can't use alternative...

It doesn't read that way to me. I understand it to say that you may use the included graphics, and that if you do, you should offer appropriate attribution.

jcuesico:

...there is a new weather.com SDK that has updated icons that look much nicer...

I agree that they're nicer than the old SDK ones, however I actually prefer the ones I've used (by someone I've never met, http://jyrik.deviantart.com). I feel the ones in the SDK are too 'detailed' or 'realistic', and not 'iconic' enough for a 10' UI.

Charlie Owen:

Love it, love it, love it...!

Glad you like it, Charlie!

Charlie Owen:

...willing to provide some assistance on the app shutdown stuff...

Thanks for that. If I have trouble sorting it out I'll be sure to take advantage of your offer.

I'm really excited with this plugin, although I would like to see it displayed better on extenders.  Currently, like almost all 3rd party apps viewed on the extenders, there is a border seen where the background image doesn't go all the way to the edge of the screen.  It would be nice if you detected it was being viewed on an extender, and disabled the background image.  This is what myTV does, and makes the world if difference when viewed on an extender.  As someone who only uses extenders in his house, this would grealy improve the image and appearance of your app.  Keep up the good work on this much needed application!  Thanks again!

MCExtended:

jcuesico:

...weather.com terms of service specifically mentions 3 locations maximum...

My read of that is that it's at most three locations on the same page or visible at the one time. I believe I comply with that.

Oh cool.  I'm glad you can keep more than 3 locations.  I think having just 3 would limit functionality of Heat Wave.

Thanks,

-Josef

bledsoe:

Currently, like almost all 3rd party apps viewed on the extenders, there is a border seen where the background image doesn't go all the way to the edge of the screen.  It would be nice if you detected it was being viewed on an extender, and disabled the background image.

Okay, sure, no worries at all - I've never seen it run on an extender, so didn't know it was an issue. Just to clarify, what you'd like to see is that if I detect an extender session, I should try and turn the border region black? I think I can do that, however I can't do more than that (i.e. I can set it to a solid colour, however I can't actually draw anything else there).

And, out of curiosity, if I do this will your TV detect the blank region and then upscale the image to fill the screen? Excellent if it does.

MCExtended:

notyouraccount:

dannybuoy:

...cannot get it to show up in the start menu either...

...Are you sure you're not seeing it in the Program Library?...

Yeah, this is a bit annoying. You need to choose the 'Show on Start Menu' options from within the program before it will appear. But in order to choose the 'Show on Start Menu' option you need to be able to find the program in the first place...

The approved practice is that you don't install to the start menu by default, and so I follow that. The problem is that where you are recommended to install to ('more programs') is a bit tricky to find for users.

For the next release I'll create a custom UI for the installer which allows you to set it up at install time - I should have done it in the first place (I suspected it'd be an issue), however I really wanted to get something out there to get some feedback and an idea of what sort of bugs there'd be.

And thanks, notyouraccount, for helping people out before I got a chance to reply. I appreciate it.

I should have been clearer, I can get it to work from the program menu, I tried selecting the 'show on start menu' option but the strip doesn't show up.  I have defined 2 locations; MC Menu Mender shows the strip as containing no icons which is probably why VMC does not display it.  I'll try re-installing / rebooting and returning MC Menu Mender to default settings etc later on to see if it fixes it.

Hi and thanks for a fantastic app (running and looking great on x64).

A couple of minor requests:

1. On the start menu. the locations are all in lower case which looks a little naff - any chance of 'Coventry' rather than 'coventry'?

2. It would be very useful (for me) to have sunset and sunrise (and even moon phase).

Thanks again

Hi,

I have just one small problem with Heatwave that I've found. On the Weather strip, the buttons that display the location are all lower case e.g. "london, united kingdom". Please could you have them read "London, United Kingdom" instead? It would really please the grammar stickler within me, it just makes the app look a bit shoddy at the moment.

Also, the name of the location isn't fully displayed. Could either shorten it to London, UK, or simply take off the country altogether? If it's your Media Centre, you'll know what country your chosen cities are in. I think it would just make it look that little bit more slick.

Thanks for listening, keep up the great work! And there'd definitely be a huge cooking audience. It would give me an excuse to buy an extender!

Jon

MCExtended:

bledsoe:

Currently, like almost all 3rd party apps viewed on the extenders, there is a border seen where the background image doesn't go all the way to the edge of the screen.  It would be nice if you detected it was being viewed on an extender, and disabled the background image.

Okay, sure, no worries at all - I've never seen it run on an extender, so didn't know it was an issue. Just to clarify, what you'd like to see is that if I detect an extender session, I should try and turn the border region black? I think I can do that, however I can't do more than that (i.e. I can set it to a solid colour, however I can't actually draw anything else there).

And, out of curiosity, if I do this will your TV detect the blank region and then upscale the image to fill the screen? Excellent if it does.

No, actually I assume you are adding a custom transparent bg image that moves to simulate what Microsoft has in their native areas of vista media center.  For some reason, on extenders, the moving bg images that are in 3rd party  plugins never reach the edges - this is a limitation of how the extenders render the images.  If you could disable this custom background image, it will display your plugin w/o the moving background.

I'm out of town right now, but I could post an example screenshot from another app if my explanation is unclear.  Thanks for the quick reply.

I'd like to see an example screenshot as well, because I'm using an extender and still have no clue what you're talking about.

Hi,

I don't even see the two ("Show on start menu", "Enable automatic updates") settings in Heatwave settings page. Might it be because of my Finnish version of VMC? I can't get the Weather strip to be visible but MyMovies strip is visible. In VMC menu settings there is an option to enable Weather strip but it still isn't visible. Any suggestions?

-antti

I've been playing with the app. a little more and just have a few other thoughts about it:

• I've noticed the same border issue on the extender
• Is there any way that the weather info could be updated automatically every 5 minutes or so?  I left it on the weather screen for a couple of hours, then came back to it and found it was still the old info - not a big deal, but I had to quit the app and go back in to get the current info.
• It would be really cool if the icons on the start page could reflect the current weather for that location, not sure if it's possible, but it would be neat.

All just minor suggestions, you've really done a nice job with the app as a whole.