Now operating as Dusk Jockeys Digital Solutions

After 27 years as a software engineeer and programmer, I am rebranding and relaunching Dusk Jockeys Android Apps as Dusk Jockeys Digital Solutions, and commencing operations as an independent software contractor based in Hong Kong. 

Contact me on jpbwebster@gmail.com/duskjockeys@gmail.com for any C#/.NET software needs, particularly in the fields of UI, algorithms, or project management. 

In addition, I am creating and promoting products based on digital art, specifically phone cases, mugs, t-shirts and and drinks coasters on Zazzle, Tostadora and Spreadshirt. Feel free to contact me for any custom designs. 

New cliMate 3.8 Demo video

New video showing climate Animated Weather Widget in action...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g02b6tJruVY

New cliMate Animated Weather Widget 3.8.1 bug release

A new version 3.8.1 released today, with two fixes.

1. The Current Temperature started mysteriously disappearing as of this morning! This was due to a change in the World Weather Online service which (annoyingly) changed the way they reported the temperature with no warning whatsoever. Fixed that to use to the way now.
2. The Use Google Play Services checkbox was not remembering the change.

Currently working on a new Demo video to show the current state, as the old video is well out of date. After that will think about new features and themes, but frankly the sales are barely covering the cost of the weather data at the moment, so not sure how long I will bother.

cliMate 3.8 Animated Weather Widget Released!

Last night version 3.8 of cliMate Animated Weather Widget was released.

This has the long awaited new Pirate Theme, with all the usual weather conditions looking out the porthole of a pirate ships cabin onto pitching and rolling seas. Featuring:

Moving sea
Pirate ships
Seagulls
Swinging lantern with a candle that flickers in night and sunset scenes
Moving steering chain

 

 

Like the Town House theme, this consists of many layers of complex animation, so is a lot slower to start the main screen than the other themes, but the widget itself is just as fast and smooth as always.

 

So what is next?

 

1. First I want to redo the YouTube demo video for the widget, as it is woefully out of date, and doesn't show any of the new features or themes.

 

2. There is a new Android PercentageLayout technology available that should let me speed up the main screen considerably, so I will have a look at that next.

  

3. I want to will take another look at the idea of a 6 hour morning, afternoon, evening and night forecast for a particular day.

 

4. Then after that start on some new themes maybe, not sure yet which I will turn my attention to, but perhaps something that is a bit less complex than the last few, as they take so long to do. Something which is a variation of the existing Countryside theme would be a lot quicker to do, maybe with a cottage or castle in the foreground.

 

Other ideas for themes I have had:

 

• Harry Potter style castle with flying broomsticks
• Sherlock Holmes' study
• Airplane porthole
• Beach Cave
• Isle of Skye 

New Version 3.7.2 of CliMate Animated Weather Widget released

The new version 3.7.2 was released today.

This fixes the Current Location issue on some devices, by allowing Google Play Services to be used to get the location. There is a new Use Google Play Services checkbox in the Set Location settings screen.

This will be automatically ticked for Android 6.0+ devices, but you can change that at any time. If its not ticked, it uses the old method of getting the location, which is fine for the vast majority of devices.  Just tick the box if you are having trouble getting the location.

Now I will go back to the Pirate Theme, and see if I can speed that up.

Current Location problems..

Had several reports that CliMate Animated Weather Widget's current location setting is no longer working on Android 6.0 devices.

This is really strange, as it works on some devices, but not all. It works perfectly on my friend's S7 Edge, for example, but not on S7's for several customers who contacted me.

It looks like the current CliMate method of getting the location using Android's LocationManager is just no longer reliable on the latest devices running 6.0, even though it should be.

So the newer recommended method using Google Play Services is the way to go. A few users having problems have helped me out by running some tester apps that successfully get the location using Google Play Services.

At the same time I am moving the development environment from Eclipse to Android Studio, so I can take advantage of the easier way of integrating such newer services. This is not trivial, and has given me a lot of headaches but is the way forward.

The new theme such as Townhouse and the forthcoming Pirate theme are pretty slow to start up, because they are using so many layers of views to display the various animations. Using Android Studio, I can start to use some new features such as PercentageLayouts, which will drastically reduce the number of layers I need to show such complex animations.

So the next steps:

• Convert CliMate to run under Android Studio
• Add the new Google Play Services to get the current location
• Test and the publish the update so customers having issues get the fix

Then:

• Use PercentageLayout on the partially completed Pirate Theme
• Finish the Pirate Theme
• Publish an update
• Change the Townhouse and other themes to use PercentageLayout.

Pirate Foreground almost complete

Pretty happy with the new theme foreground now.

• Redid the sword, pistol and map
• Made the brass porthole smaller so it fits better into the standard 4x2 widget size.
• Added a sextant and a nice rope on a cleat.
• Added a smoothly animating steering chain at the top, that slides in and out. This simulates the control of the ships steering wheel, that used to be attached via chains or rope to the actual steering board at the back of the ship.

Here is the current widget in Weather Only mode:

And in the main screen:

Now all that remains on the foreground is to improve the swinging lantern on the left, I want something with a bit more realism for the 18th Century period, the current one looks too much like a miner's lamp.

Then I will quickly do a night/sunset variation, to see if it looks good. maybe will give the lantern a flickering candle if possible.

Then on to the sea, coast and ships visible through the porthole!