Introducing MetarMonkey v.00001

[Jimbob]

I wrote this little proggy to get the local conditions at my airport
quickly. I thought some you might be interested in checking it out.
It's a little rough but I thought if you guys are game, it would be
nice to have some feedback.

It's free. No commercial aspirations....

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org/Software/MetarMonkey.asp



Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

[quanghoc]

Cool. I didn't know there is another student/pilot knows how to program
beside me. There is a market for this type of product if you are into
business. You can build a trainning software for students who had hard
time with weather and decoding. Users can click into a part of METAR
such as "10SM" and will see a little popup text on the bottom with
explaination. In addition, you can build a tutorial on how to read
Surface Analysis and Weather Chart... all with those funky little
symbols. I mean you can just let your imagination go really far on it.
I know there is a software called COMM1 for radio trouble people (me
:Dlolz). However, I have not seen any software about weather trouble
people and software for checkride ready. I am sure there is a huge
market for this and big company like Jeppesen won't let it slide too
long.

[houstondan]

ok...how do you get the thing back out of the machine? i had to do a
full system restore to get it to uninstall!!

no, i'm not very good at computer guts.

dan

[Jimbob]

Exit the program and delete the directory.


On 4 Sep 2005 11:50:23 -0700, "houstondan" >
wrote:

>ok...how do you get the thing back out of the machine? i had to do a
>full system restore to get it to uninstall!!
>
>no, i'm not very good at computer guts.
>
>dan

Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

[Jimbob]

Just in case.

To exit the program, Chose File->Exit from the menu or right click on
the Tray Icon (Red Airplane and Cloud) and select "Exit MetarMonkey"


On Sun, 04 Sep 2005 18:52:33 GMT, Jimbob >
wrote:

>Exit the program and delete the directory.
>
>
>On 4 Sep 2005 11:50:23 -0700, "houstondan" >
>wrote:
>
>>ok...how do you get the thing back out of the machine? i had to do a
>>full system restore to get it to uninstall!!
>>
>>no, i'm not very good at computer guts.
>>
>>dan
>
>Jim
>
>http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

[PilotCFI]

Jimbob > wrote in
:

> http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org/Software/M

Tried it. Liked it. I'll send it to my students.
Saw a few things I that I would like to point out though:
1. Column headings are white and don't show up ( my eyes are old though)
2. What name format are you looking for on runway name? Just whatever ( a
string)?
3. Crosswind displayed for only one runway, presumably the first one
listed. A Tooltip could be used to display the remaining runways, or an
additional text area.
4. A toggle to display plain english or raw METAR/TAF.

Altogether a really good effort. Thanks.

Dan

[Jimbob]

On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 20:29:02 -0000, PilotCFI >
wrote:

>Jimbob > wrote in
:
>
>> http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org/Software/M
>
>Tried it. Liked it. I'll send it to my students.
>Saw a few things I that I would like to point out though:
>1. Column headings are white and don't show up ( my eyes are old though)

I will look at letting the user decide color combinations. White
provides the most contrast on my machine, but everyone has
preferences.


>2. What name format are you looking for on runway name? Just whatever ( a
>string)?

What ever you want to use. It's not really used now, except for
editing, but I felt like it might be in the future.

>3. Crosswind displayed for only one runway, presumably the first one
>listed. A Tooltip could be used to display the remaining runways, or an
>additional text area.

It's not the first one. If you have multiple runways, MM will dermine
the active runway based on minimal x-wind and maximal headwind
components. That may not be the true active runway at some airports,
but it's the one with the best wind situation.

>4. A toggle to display plain english or raw METAR/TAF.
>

Third button from the left. The tool tip is not working for some
reason.


>Altogether a really good effort. Thanks.
>
>Dan

Thanks a bunch for the feedback.


Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

[PilotCFI]

Jimbob > wrote in
:

> On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 20:29:02 -0000, PilotCFI >
> wrote:
>
>>Jimbob > wrote in
:
>>
>>> http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org/Software/M
>>
>>Tried it. Liked it. I'll send it to my students.
>>Saw a few things I that I would like to point out though:
>>1. Column headings are white and don't show up ( my eyes are old
>>though)
>
> I will look at letting the user decide color combinations. White
> provides the most contrast on my machine, but everyone has
> preferences.

True. White provides almost no contrast on my monitor.
>
>
>>2. What name format are you looking for on runway name? Just whatever
>>( a string)?
>
> What ever you want to use. It's not really used now, except for
> editing, but I felt like it might be in the future.
>
>>3. Crosswind displayed for only one runway, presumably the first one
>>listed. A Tooltip could be used to display the remaining runways, or
>>an additional text area.
>
> It's not the first one. If you have multiple runways, MM will dermine
> the active runway based on minimal x-wind and maximal headwind
> components. That may not be the true active runway at some airports,
> but it's the one with the best wind situation.

Actually I like that. For me as an instructor and sometime wanting the most
crosswind, perhaps a tooltip showing all runway XW's? Since most runways
are build to take advantage of prevailing winds, and in some places they
prevail to the point of not getting any XW practice, I would really like
this feature.
Do I understand correctly that you are using '-' to indicate left XW?


>
>>4. A toggle to display plain english or raw METAR/TAF.
>>
>
> Third button from the left. The tool tip is not working for some
> reason.
>
>
>>Altogether a really good effort. Thanks.
>>
>>Dan
>
> Thanks a bunch for the feedback.
>
>
> Jim
>
> http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

Jim, just because I am also a programmer (C/VB/PHP mostly) and I am just
curious; what language are you using? It has a VB feel to it, but that may
be way off base.
I have one local airport with just an AWOS on no web interface. Still when
I pull up MM I get some weather indications, but the Monkey stays red. I
take it this is by design?

Dan

[Jimbob]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:09:22 GMT, PilotCFI >
wrote:


>Actually I like that. For me as an instructor and sometime wanting the most
>crosswind, perhaps a tooltip showing all runway XW's? Since most runways
>are build to take advantage of prevailing winds, and in some places they
>prevail to the point of not getting any XW practice, I would really like
>this feature.

Hmm. That's a good idea. I looked at it from a student's wenie pilot
perspective, but I can see that there might be an advantage to having
maximal x-winds as well. I will look into it. I'd like to show all
the runwayss on the graphic, but that requires some extra thinking on
how to visually superimpose them. Maybe I can scroll through them in
the short term.


>Do I understand correctly that you are using '-' to indicate left XW?

I'm not sure what "-" you are referring to. Would that be the
windsock on the runway graphic?

>
>Jim, just because I am also a programmer (C/VB/PHP mostly) and I am just
>curious; what language are you using? It has a VB feel to it, but that may
>be way off base.

VB? Eek! :)

Actually, it's managed C# under visual studio. We just recently
changed to the platform and this is my first attempt at a windows form
application.

>I have one local airport with just an AWOS on no web interface. Still when
>I pull up MM I get some weather indications, but the Monkey stays red. I
>take it this is by design?

It's probably timing out. My home base doesn't have web AWOS either.
That's why I added the "Weather Station" box in the airport setup. It
acts like virtual station, applying the metar info from a nearby
airport. Example: My airport is 8A6, but I set the Weather station
to KEQY(7 miles away) and use it's weather info.

The thing I am working on now is a way to donwload the NOTAMS for a
specific airport. Something happened to me last week, well lets just
say that there was a VERY important NOTAM that was buried that I
missed.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to incorporate a few in the
next couple of weeks.



Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org