Polygon Warnings

All of the responses regarding polygon warnings have been favorable. I have ordered a book on computational geometry to help with the changes. Adding the option to test for a point or distance of a point from a polygon sounds easy in concept, but difficult in practice.



I will be looking at adding this ability after further research and study.

Map Changes - Combined Product List

I have completed changes that now centralize all products in one list. There are no longer two lists, one for the 8 main products and another for "Other Colors". This allows users the flexibility to arrange products to fit their needs and area.

The screen still allows you to add products by typing in the grid. For new users, the Add Product button will allow you to select the vtec combination, color and legend option.

This capability completes a set of involved changes that have been going on for the past 3 versions.

Polygon Warnings Discussion

I started a thread on the Weather Message Yahoo group about Polygon Warnings and Weather Message. I am seeking input from users on whether the software should allow you to enter a latitude and longitude as part of the alarm.

If anyone is interested, please join the group and make a comment.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wxmesg/

Weather Message 3.1 released

Weather Message 3.1 has been released. There are over 70 changes in this release and a number of new features. From the reports that I have received from beta testers, this release is stable.

This release gets us back on track with quarterly updates to Weather Message.

I should start this afternoon preparing the software for a version 3.2 beta.

Version 3.1 Beta B

Due to the number of changes that I made to the programs and installer for the new user selectable 'Auto Startup' option. I decided to go ahead and release a beta so that I could test it on a couple of computers at my office on Monday.

If all goes well, I will go ahead publish the official release.

Auto Startup Options

After being prompted by a user, I made changes to the programs and installers so that a user can easily change the Windows startup options for each program. I have been thinking about this change for sometime.

The next update will automatically remove existing startup shortcuts from the "Startup" folder and move them to the registry. Each program can then easily change the "startup" option. You will find the option "Auto Startup". The valid entries are "No", "Yes" for the current user, or "Everyone" for all users.

LAT...LON decoding

I have completed the LAT...LON decoding logic for Weather Message. The decoder will be included in the next beta. At the present time it simply decodes these items. They will be used in different ways in the 3.2 release.

Testing Alarms

I have added the ability to test alarms by right clicking on an alarm and selecting "Test Alarm". This feature works well when the product does not have alot of wild cards. It will not work for user defined product prefixes or products that have wild cards.

This should help alot of users with testing alarms. Especially alarms that generate emails or pages.