Feature Request Thread.

[ghost]

Leave your feature requests below. Here's mine! Number One: Bring back narrations! They can be simple, but please, they are a key part of Local on the 8's. Number Two: Animated weather icons. Please add these! They are part of the experience! Number Three: On some backgrounds, you can not see the Local on the 8's logo and the changer bar at the bottom (Now > Today, etc bar.) Number Four: Ability to change track that plays online. This way we could pick what track of Weather All the Time plays. Number Five: Don't delete settings, add them to a separate page for us to enable. Number Six: Don't remove broken/not finished features, just add them to an experimental section! Sorry if this seems like a lot, but these are some features I would like to see! If you need help with advertising and making a community, let me know. I would happily make this emulator a Discord server where people can chat/exchange ideas! Thanks!

[StratoSTARbyHIRO]

These are some great ideas, I have submitted some quite similar myself! Maybe one day, we will see a couple of these implemented.

Here is my feature request list:

1. Custom Music options (For users who want something a bit, different. {ASM})
2. Lite Mode (Disable the background, to give a more basic feel. Also good for low end devices, as I have tested it myself! {ASM})
3. Custom Slides and Lengths with "Restore Default" option (For those who use longer custom music and need the slides a bit longer, want the zoomed up radar to show when there isn't any alerts, and/or want certain slides to be shown rather than others. {ASM})
4. Option to disable chime when using loop function (For those who may find the LoT8s chime annoying over time. {ASM})
5. Custom Forecast Mode (Write all of your own forecast data for the emulator to use, when in this mode. {ASM})
6. Custom Greeting Text Header (The option to change the "HELLO" to anything the user desires. {ASM})
7. Optional "Now, Your Local on the 8s." Narration (Seems like something fun, I can find and edit narrations if needed!)

{ASM} = Advanced Settings Menu

I know my list is quite long but, hopefully we can get one or two of these added someday! :smile:

[relative2]

Regarding @NathanielHofer's request 2: I'm working on animated icons right now, and might not be done for a while

[qconrad]

Appreciate all the suggestions. I have some thoughts that I want to discuss and welcome any disagreements. More customization settings will definitely be coming. I opted to classify everything besides zip code an "advance setting". I love the simplicity of only seeing only one required option when loading up for the first while still giving more advanced users the customization. They will be hidden by default but are still one click away. Also, features are generally not removed due to instability but more if they are completely broken. The narrations broke when switching APIs and they just weren't a high priority to fix them immediately to due them being so simplistic and not even the right voice. Also, they were implemented kind of poorly anyway so I figured they should just be rewritten. Nonetheless, they will be coming back most likely as a disabled by default advanced setting. As far as the backgrounds go, they are chosen randomly (in most weather conditions) from https://picsum.photos/. There are limited options about what kind of picture this API spits out. The only thing I can think of to try and make some of the logos more readable is checking certain areas of the image for how well they contrast with what is in front of it (i.e. is it light or dark behind twc logo) and if it is not, pick another random image. Or perhaps using a different service that allows more customization. Suggestions on other implementations are appreciated. Music and background customization will also be coming. Light mode sounds interesting and I'm curious to see how much the background affects performance. The timings are dynamic and can easily be changed. I might put together some editor/UI for building custom sequences/timings. I might add an option to disable jingle altogether not just while looping. Changing the "Hello" is pretty difficult because it is a fixed container so that the town text can animate out of it. Would have to restructure that more dynamically for this to work. That was one of the first things I did when starting this project so it's not my best work. Might change sometime in the future. Custom forecasts would be skipping the fetching process and filling in the data with manually entered data. Or if we want to be able to set a few options and let it fill in the rest, I would probably just fetch all the weather normally and reassign those variables. Not sure about the "Now your local on the 8s" thing. I want to generalize the tools needed to customize as much as possible without adding too many specific options. Sorry, this is kind of long, I wanted to share my thoughts on the feedback and once again thank you for it. I'm interested to see what you guys think.

[StratoSTARbyHIRO]

@qconrad Thanks for taking the time to type all of that, it really nice to see things from your point of view! Your future plans for this project sound quite interesting, and they will greatly help to shape and perfect the emulator!

Thanks for everything you do, your work is greatly appreciated!

[ghost]

@qconrad Thanks for responding to us! I do have a few more requests, Number 7: When finishing a session of Local on the 8's when not looping, maybe have it return to the settings screen? Also, a bug is that my tempurature wheel is always red.

[relative2]

@NathanielHofer The temperature dial is always red because we haven't worked out logic for what color to end it at and the code I wrote to change the color is very un-maintainable and someone should rewrite it

[qconrad]

@NathanielHofer @FNCxPro I wrote a basic implementation of what color the dial should be according to the temperature. Still would be nice to have the radial wipe effect but it shouldn't always be red anymore.

[relative2]

@qconrad Just tested it! It worked and it worked way better than what I implemented

[StratoSTARbyHIRO]

Development of a LDL (or forecast at the bottom of the screen) would be cool to have for when the local on the 8's segment ends.

This should look similarly to when they're doing a live broadcast with the bottom bar showing the local on the 8's. A green background may be added for post production purpose while the bottom bar runs it's loop with the clock and logo

[relative2]

Development of a LDL (or forecast at the bottom of the screen) would be cool to have for when the local on the 8's segment ends. ...

@DDroid that could be a cool idea to implement. I could possibly work on it and submit a PR back here when I get home from vacation

[StratoSTARbyHIRO]

An animated clock on the "Greeting" screen would also be a fun addition. It could be optional and may be disabled in the settings screen if not desired.

Here's a reference: https://cssanimation.rocks/clocks/

In addition to that, how about an optional summary screen that plays after the 7 day forecast. As seen on earlier versions of the IntelliStar 2, around 2013. (It can be made configurable in the settings as well) (as seen: https://youtu.be/4S4O-iL_ewY )

[qconrad]

Thanks for the suggestions. These are cool ideas that I might add if I get the time.

[StratoSTARbyHIRO]

(Last, idea from me guys I promise. Hahaha)

Another Idea I have, may have to be considered as a second project or something as there are multiple ways of being able to use this (such as a setting, not setting a ZIP, or a seperate HTML).

How about a National feed (referenced here: https://youtu.be/BQyALgczHcs ) it shouldn't be somewhat easy as they're already predefined cities, thought the radar and basemaps may be a little tricky to do. However, I do believe there is a radar API somewhere out there that supports this. (I'll have a look and edit my post within 48 hrs from now with a possible source.)

[blinkor]

Another idea that I have is having the ability to set a fixed ZIP code in a separate document or in config.js. This way, when the webpage is opened, it will not prompt the user to enter the zip code but will immediately jump to the weather animation.