Indicator-weather update puts temperature on panel

By , Published February 15, 2011

Weather information applet ‘indicator-weather’ has added some spit and polish to its latest release.

Indicator Weather for Ubuntu

Forecast information is now fetched using a combination of ‘gweather’ (which uses the Google Weather API) and ‘pymetar’.

Sure to please a lot of folks, the panel applet displays both the current temperature and the conditions icon – as the GNOME Weather applet does.

Setting your location is no longer a ‘enter and find’ scenario, instead an endless (well seemingly endless) location tree will have hunting through to find the nearest weather station around.

Rounding out the ‘new features’ comes the option to set Wind speed unit.

Weather Indicator Preferences

Weather-Indicator PPA

The indicator can be installed in Ubuntu 10.10 via the official team PPA. Simple add ppa:weather-indicator-team/ppa to your software sources or run the following two commands in a new Terminal session: -

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:weather-indicator-team/ppa
  • sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indicator-weather

Natty news

Big news for the application in Natty, too. Weather Indicator has been accepted in the Natty repositories. Natty testers wanting to add the app already can do so by searching for ‘indicator weather’ in the Ubuntu Software Centre.

For users unaware, the default Ubuntu desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 does not allow for the addition of traditional GNOME applets on the panel. Most of the features provided by these applets are now catered for elsewhere in Unity or can be acquired by installing extra indicator applets.

Related posts:

  1. The weather indicator project revives; what might have been
  2. Indicator-Keylock: control and monitor caps, num & scroll lock from the panel
  3. What's in a weather indicator?
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  • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/TheMerkinman Merk

    Showing the temperature AND in the default repositories? I know one of the first packages I’ll be getting come 11.04.

  • http://twitter.com/EuruxD Eustace

    1. Click clock applet
    2. Preferences
    3. Check “Show weather”
    4. Configure in weather tab
    5. ???
    6. Profit

    • Anonymous

      The clock applet won’t be in Natty, it’s being replaced by the date/time indicator, which doesn’t’ do weather. If you’re wanting weather in your panel in the future, you may be wanting this.

  • Anonymous

    YES!

  • Anonymous

    Will it work for 10.04? I ask because I don’t really switch to the latest-and-greatest versions right away, if at all. I tend to stick more to LTS releases out of personal preference but it’d be cool to have this. I’m always looking for a good weather applet, especially a simplistic panel one like that.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      I don’t believe it will, no. :(

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      It works in 10.04, check out ppa:weather-indicator-team/ppa. The only missing feature is a label nearby the icon

  • https://launchpad.net/~jmoronat Jacopo

    Yes, but in this way indicator-weather “fetch” localities in the same way of the old gnome applet. So, for example, I cannot add “Padua” anymore because it’s not present in the list.

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      There is, actually, a hack – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WeatherIndicator/NewLocation. But still for now we are bound to an airport nearby

      • https://launchpad.net/~jmoronat Jacopo

        For now ? So are you planning something different/additional ?

        • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

          Yes, I guess, something closer to ‘select on the map’ or ‘choose from a list with a filter’

          • Anonymous

            Just make sure that you have something basic working and rather bug-free for 11.04. Additional things can still be added for 11.10. And please see that it hits the official repos before feature freeze. I would prefer this to hit even Main but I don’t know if there are any chances for that. I cannot see anybody who doesn’t use the weather info in the current gnome and if everybody installed it manually anyway, there is little reason to not let it enter Main anyway. It would be another Unity regression (“where is my weather”) if it isn’t available in the default install.

  • http://twitter.com/roggenschrot Martin Rüdiger

    i don’t undestand the move to a location list. this has been the reason for the old weather applet being utterly useless for anybody without an airport nearby.

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      It seems, that it has been a bad idea. We’ll try other options – like a map or a filter

  • Anubeon

    Am I the only one who thinks that the intermingling of iconic and textual indicators is making the indicator applet look more than a little messy? I’ve never quite understood the reasoning behind displaying ones name/username in the session indicator (thus I’ve disabled it) but both the weather and the datetime indicators rely on textual content.

    Perhaps it would be better if these two indicators were packaged into a separated indicator applet (akin to indicator-applet-session) so that they can be positioned centrally (a’la Gnome3 and Wingpanel). If this were at least an option I would consider using both the weather and the datetime indicator, as it is I avoid them specifically because they ruin the aesthetic of the indicator applet.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/panajotis pH7

      It’s up the the app dev what to use, icon and/or text. Personally I don’t mind. But the reordering would be a useful customization. I believe patches for this will arrive as soon as natty is released.

      • Anubeon

        “It’s up the the app dev what to use”

        Quite, and indeed this should always be the case. However accounting for only the textual indicators developed in-house by canonical (datetime and session) the intermingling of text and icons is looking more than a little disorganised. I dread to think what the addition of third-party indicators (of which this weather indicator is, is it not?) will look like, and the impact on horizontal real-estate (important considering the strategy of merging window controls and add-menus into the panel) could be problematic.

        This (text in indicators) is definitely an area that needs a serious rethink, else it get out of control as the legacy notification area did.

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      I’ll post a wishlist bug to choose whether show a label or not.
      On reordering – that is all in the hands of indicator-applet devs

  • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

    Am I the only one who is asking himself on how to automatically start indicators on login?

    Shouldn’t there be a Settings windows where you can select which indicators will start when panel starts?

    I really miss this and if it is there, it sure is hidden. :>

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      Unity is able to start indicators automatically. But, as Weather Indicator is written in Python, it should be started manually – via ‘indicator-weather’ command or from Gnome menu.
      Also, weather indicator is supposed to start up automatically – there is already a regression bug on Launchpad

    • http://0rAX0.deviantart.com rAX

      Startup Applications>Add>Command: indicator-weather, fill the name and description.>Add>Close.

      OR

      Main menu>Other>drag and drop directly to Startup Applications.

      • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

        Yeah, not a very user friendly way. :) For the first option, user needs to know the application name and for the second option user needs to know where the Startup Applications folder is.

        • http://0rAX0.deviantart.com rAX

          ‘Startup Applications’ isn’t a folder, it’s an entry in the system menu. Sorry I should’ve mentioned it.

          • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

            I know. I figured it is also a folder somewhere on the disk. Because I can’t drag any icons around the menu. When I start dragging, the menu closes. and it refuses to open when I hover the dragged icon over it. :)

          • http://twitter.com/ClickOpen Michael

            Autostart files are in ~/.config/autostart/ if you want to see the progs that are set to autostart on login. The files in there should reflect what’s in the ‘Startup Applications’ config dialog.

          • http://0rAX0.deviantart.com rAX

            The correct way to do it is by opening the ‘Startup Applications’ before dragging from the menu :)

          • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

            *facepalm* Let me find that brown paper bag… brb. :)

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/panajotis pH7

    Good progress, although the fixed location list is indeed a regression. Perhaps both methods should be presented.
    Also a graphical menu (like the sound menu) would be nice addition. If the dev is reading this, please consider it. Thanks!

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      We are planning to add more weather data sources and remove the tree – it seems, that many people don’t like it.
      A graphical menus are currently not supported in python version of indicators, although that would be a GREAT feature.
      Anybody wants to port this to Vala/C?

      • http://www.google.com/profiles/panajotis pH7

        Better than the porting, would be the enhancing of the Python bindings, so that graphical menus (and mouse-wheel scroll) are supported and more python built indicators can benefit. Now I wish I had the time to do that.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RSWKLXMKEVS7WMXAFCKNE7Q4ZA Mamo

      You also need to tell the devs to change the TOP PANEL’S UI and make it look or have the same colors as the unity launcher because it does not blend with the unity style

  • http://www.facebook.com/dimidrol Dmytro Tkachivskyi

    “error retreiving condition” ;-(

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O3CJ7UWMKDKUDJ5NUPTOXDLUL4 Damien Darwin

    I’m getting “Error retrieving condition” in the second line of the menu. For that reason it doesn’t display the correct weather icon.

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      Blame NOAA, which we use a source for weather data. We’ll be moving away to something more reliable.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O3CJ7UWMKDKUDJ5NUPTOXDLUL4 Damien Darwin

        Funny thing – today it’s working fine :)) But I support the move to as more reliable service.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O3CJ7UWMKDKUDJ5NUPTOXDLUL4 Damien Darwin

    I’m getting “Error retrieving condition” in the second line of the menu. For that reason it doesn’t display the correct weather icon.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FX5ITOLLHVNOY673XBRGCKF3DI Freddi

    What was that slick weather indicator proposal that I remember? It was slightly more “visual” and appealing.

    Maybe they first concentrated on “getting the data” into a dull text list, and later they will add the visual beauty?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Maybe it was ours?

      http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/weatherme.jpg

      We have stewardship over the project for a fleeting moment but couldn’t afford it much attention (particularly after GNOME applets got a stay of execution in 10.10)

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      Unfortunately, the library for this cool widgets, ido, doesn’t have pythin or GObject bindings. As sson as it gets it, this would be a top-priority feature

  • Anonymous

    Metric Scale
    SI – Imperial

    ?! what’s that all about?

    • http://twitter.com/ClickOpen Michael

      Temperature in Celcius or Farenheit

      • Anonymous

        Just
        (X) Celsius
        (_) Fahrenheit

        would be better, yes. I wouldn’t know what SI or Imperial means.

        • Anonymous

          No, I know what imperial/SI are, my problem is the incorrect usage of them.
          Firstly Imperial is not a metric scale at all. And secondly the SI unit for temperature is Kelvin, not centigrade anyway.

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      Maybe, a label should be more detailed. How about ‘SI (C)’ and ‘Imperial (F)’?

      • Anonymous

        It’s not the lack of detail, all the needed detail is there, it’s more the fact that it is using the wrong terminology which means it makes no sense. It should read:
        Temperature Scale
        Metric / Imperial

  • Anonymous

    Metric Scale
    SI – Imperial

    ?! what’s that all about?

  • Anonymous

    what about different cities !?

  • http://technos.wordpress.com/ Daniele80
    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      I guess, that is a weather icon from Faenza set, isn’t it?

  • http://twitter.com/escuelaslibres Escuelas Libres

    would be nice having thermal sensation information too, at least in my country -argentina- is widely used

  • Mohan

    Much needed update, so I can just glance at it now.

  • Anonymous

    updated on maverick but i get an errror on retreiving conditions, so i have all data (wind, temperature … etc) but no icon.

    help please.

    tried logging out and in again but no change

    i put location on Tours, France, Europe

    i was on Amboise, France, Europe before update cause its nearest from my actual town but no more available in the tree now….

    • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

      Blame NOAA, we’ll use other weather sources

  • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

    A little rant on OMG!Ubuntu:
    1) Guys, could you please read the changelog for new release? I don’t mean to teach you how to write articles, but a little bit investigation would be great.
    How about application-specific icons? How about wind menu items?
    2) What for did you create two more projects – ‘indicator-weather’ and ‘weather-me’ on Launchpad, which are left empty?
    3) Could you please add at least a link to a launchpad page, so people could not just install the app (consume), but also submit bugs and work on new features (participate)? Isn’t that the spirit of Open Source?

    Anyway, thanks for spreading the word on small projects like this, just want this to be a bit more effective

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      1) We are not obligated to report on every specific new feature or bug fix present in an update. Instead we tend to highlight the ones we feel our readers will be interested by. Usually we link to a change log but, hey, we’re only human.

      2) Indicator-weather was where our work on the stewardship of the project took place. it’s empty because we’re no longer in charge. ‘weather-me’ is a project in incubation that isn’t yet ready for public testing.

      3) Again, generally we do this. This post was sat in my drafts for about a week; ergo it didn’t get my full attention.

  • http://twitter.com/roignac roignac

    A little rant on OMG!Ubuntu:
    1) Guys, could you please read the changelog for new release? I don’t mean to teach you how to write articles, but a little bit investigation would be great.
    How about application-specific icons? How about wind menu items?
    2) What for did you create two more projects – ‘indicator-weather’ and ‘weather-me’ on Launchpad, which are left empty?
    3) Could you please add at least a link to a launchpad page, so people could not just install the app (consume), but also submit bugs and work on new features (participate)? Isn’t that the spirit of Open Source?

    Anyway, thanks for spreading the word on small projects like this, just want this to be a bit more effective

 
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