Hi,
So... a few years ago I had a desire for a good UK rain radar for my Edge 1040 — I've been caught out a few times and knowing if it's a quick shower or in-for-a-wet-one was the driver (without getting a phone out etc).
I downloaded a few apps I thought would do the trick and I am a subscriber to the excellent WindField (+radar) but, for the UK at least, the image is not the same as the high-resolution image from the Met Office. I know WindField had issues with the data provider closing their API, but it's more a generic issue with quality of Worldwide services, as the poor Garmin-native implementation on the new Edge x50 devices seems to show also. Plus Garmin seemed to mess-up hiding the radar which should be front-and-centre option as a datafield, not in some other menu system.
With a bit of time I started reading about the ConnectIQ API and tried various things, primarily for me, as I could focus on just making it work for the UK radar... but as it developed it started turning into a useful tool.
With a bit of time I started reading about the ConnectIQ API and tried various things, primarily for me, as I could focus on just making it work for the UK radar... but as it developed it started turning into a useful tool.
Rain Radar includes:
-
Local sourced, high resolution rain radar images (UK, USA, Germany, Sweden, France... more to come as they are sourced and decoded)
-
x4 zoom levels with background mapping
-
Transparency controls for intensity of mapping vs radar
-
Auto-reload images and auto-paging for non-touch devices (or onTap control)
-
Full on-device menu settings (quite proud of that)
-
Quantized (palette reduced and colour optimised) imagery for optimised (graphics pool) memory on most non-Edge devices and EdgeMTB — many thanks to Mike B in the USA for patience and support understanding and resolving a solution for this
What I would like to be able to do but pretty sure I can't:
-
Know availability of the graphics pool at makeImageRequest calls to optimise the return based on available resources via a freeGraphicsMemory() type API call or member of System.Stats
-
Restrict at manifest or run-time layout instances to ony allow, for example, either half of a 2-datafield watch layout
What I should do as a good developer and pretty sure I could:
-
Understand strict — which is OK until I get to makeImageRequest() !
-
Handle language internationalisation via language resources
-
Work out what a jungle file is rather than having lots of resource-round-300x300 etc folders!
-
Redevelop to be an actual watch-face background instead of a datafield
I hope I can contribute in future to the groups here as pass-it-on payback for the hints and suggestions I've had on my journey.
- best regards,
Crisp