WeatherBug Desktop 7.0 Issues, Comments & Suggestions

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Hamilton on April 25, 2012 at 6:36pm

Hmmm, Desktop 7 didn't seem to work well for me.  The Window appeared cut off on the right and the bottom so I could never see all of the selections on the dialogs.  In fact I had to use the Windows task manager to shut down the program, so I uninstalled it within a few minutes.

I don't mind having advertising for the free version to try it, but I think this should be mentioned in advance of installation.

 

Thanks, Richard

 

Permalink Reply by Ric Brown on April 25, 2012 at 6:49pm

If you have a paid subscription, I recommend that you DO NOT INSTALL this beta version unless you want ADS BACK. Not only do you get ads again but they take up significantly more real estate than they did with the free Weatherbug 6. Unless someone can show me how to restore premium service, this will be a quick UNINSTALL.

Permalink Reply by Nathan Parker on April 25, 2012 at 6:53pm

Hey Rick, go to the text box on this homepage and see my notes. WeatherBug Plus isn't available for WeatherBug 7 yet, but it should NOT replace your existing WeatherBug Plus installation in version 6. WeatherBug 6 Plus and WeatherBug 7 can run concurrently.

Permalink Reply by Ric Brown on April 25, 2012 at 6:56pm

Okay, thanks Nathan. I'll go back to 6 and wait for the plus version of 7. Ric

Permalink Reply by Nathan Parker on April 25, 2012 at 6:58pm

Just to let you know, you can run both at the same time, no issues. I have Plus 6 and free 7 running at once on my machine. I've got 6 when I want to see no ads, and 7 when I want to test things out. You can feel free to use both.

Permalink Reply by Ric Brown on April 25, 2012 at 7:00pm

Huh. LOL I keep jumping the gun here. I'll consider re-installing 7. You should put all this in large print and link to it with a button that says, "AD/HD Users Click Here". :-P

Permalink Reply by Nathan Parker on April 25, 2012 at 7:47pm

Yeah, I've added that to the home page and my note and bolded some text. I can see where users would "freak out" seeing an ad-prone version if they didn't know it. Same thing happened to me when I got the initial test build. :-)

Permalink Reply by Kirk R. Williams on May 2, 2012 at 4:46pm

I installed the new 7 and it completely removed my Plus verison.

Permalink Reply by Nathan Parker on May 2, 2012 at 6:05pm

Is WB6 Plus still there? If not, checkout my discussion in this group about Plus 6 and it'll help you get it back.

Permalink Reply by Ric Brown on April 25, 2012 at 6:51pm

If I were a free user and downloaded v. 7 only to find that the radar/webcam/photo part of the main window was gone only to be replaced by more ad space (almost doubling the amount of ad space on the main window), I would probably be replacing it with a different service.

Permalink Reply by Nathan Parker on April 25, 2012 at 6:54pm

I've made comments to that in my post on "General Design Feedback". I agree with you that the ad space is obtrusive in my opinion. 

Permalink Reply by Mike Gentry on April 25, 2012 at 10:34pm

Installed version 7 on my laptop (which I relegate for beta type testing).  From just a pure aesthetic standpoint, I'm ok with the presentation of the main GUI.  Like at least one other person, I too, liked the "So Far Today" section, which revealed rainfall, wind gust, etc., statistics.  I think this new version has potential.  I especially like the fact that all of the legacy throwbacks to myriad version information has finally been removed from the GUI.  It was so confusing before trying to ascertain the "real" version of the legacy product, as depending on where you looked, one could find 3 separate versions for the same product....

But, all things come with detractors, so let me get to those:

• .NET Framework 4.0 was released in 2010, and until today, I had successfully avoided having to install yet another Microsoft security vulnerability "vector" on my computer....  Not sure why .NET Framework 4.0 is required, but this is very troublesome to me.  As I am running XP on this platform, no version of .NET Framework was part of the original operating system, but each successive version of .NET are "add-ons" to that platform.  Windows 7 includes version 3.5, with 4.0 being recommended--but still optional.  The 2 .NET Framework 4.0 "pre-reqs" for the new Weatherbug require 182MB and 46MB of additional disk space, respectively, just to "drive" the 7.7MB new Weatherbug application.  Discounting the additional security vulnerabilities these 2 products add for a moment, these products seem to command an awful lot of "overhead" for such a relatively small developed application.  I'd like to know why this version of .NET Framework had to be installed in order to make the new Weatherbug function.  I want to know this so I can decide whether the added vulnerability vector is worth whatever new functionality this version of Weatherbug now sports.
• I do not like the new temperature presentation in either the System Tray area or the Task Bar.  Specifically, in the system tray, the temperature appears within a small square block with white background.  The font is not bolded so the numerals displayed are very thin.  As for the Task Bar presentation, version 6 reports the temperature and the currently selected zip coded city/town name.  Version 7, on the other hand displays the temperature and a somewhat redundant echoing of the application name "Weatherbug".  I'd prefer to see the temp and location--and would like to see it in the same font as version 6.
• It has been stated that both version 6 and version 7 can co-exist.  I'll agree to a point....  Both versions do, in fact, start up upon Windows start, BUT, if you manually shutdown version 6, and later try to restart it via Start>>All Programs>>Weatherbug (minus the trademark version), you'll receive a message stating " This action is only valid for products that are currently installed".  One has to navigate to Program Files>>AWS, etc., and manually locate the version 6 executable to re-launch the legacy product.  Also noteworthy is the fact that only one Weatherbug is actually listed in the Add/Remove applet--and it is not the legacy version.  It is the new one.  Not sure how Windows start up can launch both versions successfully, while manual launching version 6 using the still intact All Programs>>Weatherbug icon does not work (you have to navigate to the "real" executable).  Conversely, the new Weatherbug<trademark here> icon DOES launch the application.

The above were my first observations (which took longer to write up than to observe).  I'll endeavor to supply additional feedback as I get more contact time with the new application.  Keep up the great work.

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