I am glad to finally release the first version of MeteorClock, a clock widget in flip style for Samsung’s Wave S8500 smartphone. My aim was to create a visually pleasing, lightweight clock with integrated weather feed information – and this is the first version to be finally released.
Features
It’s features are to display the time (pretty cool eh?) and weather information for one specific place individually chosen by the user. Cherries among the weather function are:
- search for over 5 million places on earth through Town Name or Postal Code thanks to Yahoo! GeoPlanet
- accurate weather information of the Yahoo! Weather Service in cooperation with TheWeatherChannel:
today’s current, highest, lowest temperature value and weather condition; tomorrow’s high’s and low’s and weather condition - many options, including Offline Mode, display settings and Auto-Update interval
- light-weight: only 1.1mb in size with clean code and low resource usage and tiny data load of about 3kb
To allow everyone possibilities to steer the usage of MeteorClock to their liking, I provided customizable options. You can choose between ‘Display Options’ for metric or imperial unit system; ‘Update Settings’ with the auto-update time interval; and not to forget the ‘Location Settings’ to pick the town with its weather information of your choice.
Work in Progress
As I am still in mid-development of this widget, some features of version 1.0 might not work yet because they are not fully implemented to this moment, such as saving and preservation of settings after a widget or handy-reboot. The ‘Offline Mode’ state is not saved yet but can be reset after a restart. Pretty nontransparent implementations of various widget methods on the Wave cause some awkward and un-emulator-like behavior, especially in the case of saving variables, and it will take some time apart to crack those nuts.
How it works
As I tried to create the options menus as much as self-explanatory as possible, I think it’s best you should just explore them yourselves and if problems occur don’t hesitate to contact me or simply leave a comment.
But one thing you need to know in advance: As I didn’t want to bloat the clock design with ugly buttons, I seamlessly integrated transparent touch zones into the clock display to either access the options menu, reload weather information or toggle between today’s weather info and tomorrow’s forecast – here is a descriptive map:
Unfortunately I am unable to provide localized language settings without major efforts to translate the weather condition statements from the Yahoo! Weather Service manually myself. That is why I will only support an English version of MeteorClock.
Quick Tip: If you are unsuccessful in finding your favorite location through its town name, try adding the country code of where its located, for example “Alpen DE” for Alpen in Germany. Or enter its ZIP code right away!
Features for Version 2.0
The next version of MeteorClock will have a fully functional settings saving, and I also plan to add the possibility to add up to 5 locations and to toggle through their weather information.
Download & Install
If you want to share this, please link to this page.
After you downloaded the ZIP Archive, unpack it and copy the .wgt Widget File anywhere onto your Wave. You just need to execute it in the Wave’s file explorer and agree to the question to install the unapproved widget. Change your location. Enjoy.
28 replies on “MeteorClock Widget”
it´s “utilize” isn´t it.
“that you will utulize it for personal usage only…”
nice so far!
oha, yes indeed! Thanks for the hint, fixed it :)
Its great my friend, thanks!
I will wait for setting save option on the version 2.0 :/
Whoa! That’s a nice widget!!! Thanks GeekyBob!!!!
great widget i liked very much
great work
Liked the widget Jorn. Looks nice with a clean and simple interface. I have some feedback for your consideration for version 2.0:
1) Can you move the AM/PM display from its current position on the left side to the right side, just below the minute info? It looks more natural that way.
2) Any chance of humidity information?
3) Can the icons change to mark night and day cycles? I’m getting a sun icon at middle of the night, which is mildly jarring to say the least. ;) Not sure if yahoo weather supports this though.
Looking good so far mate!
Thank you for your thorough feedback!
to 1) I can do, haven’t paid much thought to it as I use the 24h display myself.
2) that is in fact possible, thinking about a 3rd information toggle for it. But as I’m running an app project right now as well and time is slim on me, this would have to wait for the 3rd version.
3) Actually it should display proper day and night icons. Either the Yahoo feed info was faulty or I mixed up some icon reference. If this happens again, make a screenshot of it (menu button + keylock) and send it to me, see my contact page for that. I’ll then try to track back the error source.
thanks
I like that you made it bigger and lighter :) Great job my friend :)
If you have time please make a modification on this like i say in the post :
http://www.mysamsungwave.com/index.php?topic=1435.0
(the only thing that has to change is the dimensions and positions )
nice, nice. i like that other htc clock more though. it has animated flips and date display. not to mention different color backgrounds. oh, yeah and forecast for couple of days ahead :)
Jorn don’t pay attention to my earlier post :) ( i did it :)
Excellent work again my friend :)
Haha, np. You got me quite confused there ;)
Glad you like the widget. I publish an updated version in a few days, but its taking a while as I’m going full speed on my app project.
@kriegaffe, I appreciate your feedback. I will integrate a date display in the next version. But for now a flip image animation and additional day forecasts will not be supported at least in the next release.
That’s a nice widget!
I have a little problem with polish fonts. Instead, ą, ę, ż, ź, ć appear blanks or symbols.
This might be caused due to possible limitations of the font used. I will have to think about a way to fix that.
Widget I like. I would like to use it. As for me, is the best of all HTC similar. Waiting for the version with Polish fonts. Thanks.
Nice widget! I will be looking forward for your next version.
Great work!
Thanks for this awesome widget.
I have a suggestion for the widget. Can you add an option to manually update the weather? I keep the widget in offline mode most of the time and update the weather once in a while. Everytime I need to update, I have to switch off the offline mode and then change the update interval setting. It then updates the weather to latest info available.
First of all, thanks all for the numerous feedbacks!
Ronak, you don’t have to switch to offline mode, just switch to update rate “never” – or am I in a wrong version? I’m confused.. New version will come soon, and will be a major improvement to the current one!
would you think to add 5 days weather forecast please?
Sorry chuan, as I’ve mentioned before, this is not possible for now.
Hi Jörn.Great widget.I like it but unfortunately I have 525 wave I want to ask is there a way to make for this model.Thanks for the answer in advance.
Hooo Thanks soo much Im from Buenos Aires – Argentina and the widget is “Excelent” they work vry nice , Your job its SUPER 10, great
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??????????
S8500
(Type Error Result of expression local memory lang undefined is not an object)
http://www.samsungapps.com/topApps/topAppsDetail.as?productId=G00000653046&listYN=Y
Sorry, this seems to be an issue with the Chinese Language files. I will be looking into this issue! Thanks for reporting this.
do you have a weather widget for samsung wave 723?
sorry, there is no version for the Wave 723 or other smaller Waves, nor is one planned as it’d be too much work with too poor support from Samsung.