yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] swiss420:
Honestly there is not much to cutomize here yet. One thing I would like to have is the ability to select what is on the Fullscreen view and maybe rearange them. Basically being able to use the widgets on the Fullscreen view. Also being able to select in Fullscreen View a Custom Background Image or a changing weather Background Image. Font Size, Spacing, and "last update time" option to move it on top or bottom of the screen.

Also how about a particular Weekday Widget. For example if I have to go somewhere every Friday, I would like to have a Widget on my Homescreen that shows the weather for a particular region on a particular date. Once that date is reached it renews for the next week. I dont think anyone offers that yet except in combination with the calender.

How about a less serious widget like "Worst or best weather on the planet" Widget. It would maybe make you appreciate your local weather a little more and it is interessting to see what comes up everyday.

A MOTD Widget based on the current weather. "Today your problems will wasch away" "Sunny side up" "A good day to read a book" "Open up a window for once" etc.

Option to blend in a line either right or left on 1x1 Widgets to fit them next to each other like the 4x1 Controll Panel Widget.

For a much later option it would be realy cool to have the Weather Images with a 3D effect were the shadow behind the sun etc moves with the movement of the phone. Throttle Lock under Windows Mobile had this effect implemented.

Last but not least a Backup/Restore Option for all the customisations would be great and very helpfull.

Specifically for the Samsung Galaxy Note:

In Fullscreen View in Portrait modus everything appears too large. In Landscape mode it looks much better and everything is viewable on one screen. It would be nice to have the above mentioned Options to better place things on Portrait modus.

​
[Android Apps and Games] cheshyre:
Features wanted

Just installed the beta.

Looks nice, but it won't replace my existing weather apps without 2 features:

1) Current conditions in the notification bar

2) Option for widget to show forecast for the next several HOURS, instead of the next several days.

Not sure why most weather apps fail to get this, but I don't need to see the week ahead on my desktop. Knowing conditions for the rest of the day is far more important. Glancing at my phone when heading out, I need to know at a glance how warm or cold it's going to be, whether I need a jacket or umbrella - and when. Weather around here is fickle. Is the rain going to start before or after I finish these errands? And that's what I want in a widget.

In a similar format to the 3-day forecast, how about the 3 hours. Or 1 hour, 3 hrs ahead and 6 hours ahead?

Add something like that, and I'll give your app a further look.
[Android Apps and Games] Orical:
I've installed the beta on the My Touch 4G and without a hitch, loaded right away and located my location just as fast, I did notice that it seemed to lag a bit while changing settings and when creating a widget. There seems to be some saving settings and options delay that doesn't seem to refresh right away.

I love the look though and customization is great, thanks for working on it.
[Android Apps and Games] wildkarrde21:
This may be a dumb question, but is the utility icon for the battery static? Is that yet to be implemented or is this a bug?
[Android Apps and Games] daggerga:
I just noticed that the 24 hr time option displays 24:01 instead of 0:01...
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Lots of responses for folks in this post... let us know how we can improve Recast for you.

MiGzHizon, we are improving the geo-location services that use GPS in the next beta. Stay tuned for what we feel will be a significant improvement in the use of battery life due to waiting on GPS that never returns a response.

jedah, thanks for your usage notes. We will look at what we can do to provide better weather information without adding great cost or inconvenience in the final, release version of Recast.

swiss420, we feel we have provided a good amount of customization for folks without making Recast overly complex or difficult to use. You point out some areas we can improve on, so we will look at those for a future version. Not all of those items can make it into the final release right now, but we will certainly consider all of them for the releases that follow. Thanks for your detailed input!

cheshyre, the notification bar request is already in our list, so we'll add your vote to that request. Hourly weather is difficult to add because it costs substantial money from the weather providers. There isn't a low cost way to add hourly weather conditions inside of Recast and we don't want to end up charging $5 to $10 US just to provide such a feature. There may be other ways to link you to such information, but today the option of showing hourly information is just too expensive for most developers.

Orical, for better device performance Recast doesn't always change every widget or fullscreen display instantly after you make a change. In some cases it may take up to several seconds before it updates the display to match what the settings changes show. We do this so we can be a good device citizen application. If we updated instantly Recast would use far more memory and your device responsiveness would be much slower (we know because we tried that approach in earlier releases). Are things so slow as to prevent you from using Recast?

wildkarrde21, the battery widget does respond and work just fine on all of our test devices. We do test on an ASUS Transformer TF101 with two batteries, and even on that device things seem to work for the battery level. Can you share details about your device so we can better understand what isn't working for you?

daggerga, can you provide us some details on your location and device settings so we can see if we can make the same problem happen with our devices? So far we've never seen a device report 24:xx for time.
[Android Apps and Games] Jettubby:
Mstroud,

Ah one more issue that I noticed at midnight tonight. At midnight the 24-hr clock goes to "0000". So as you can seen in the screenshot below the time should read "0030" like the Android clock shows. There is no 2430 hours. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Jettubby, thanks for that image. Other folks had mentioned it but you are the first to provide a screenshot of it. I'll have the team look at this as a fast fix for beta 4. I feel silly that we let that one slip through our QA process, such as it is.
[Android Apps and Games] Jettubby:
It happens. Glad to help. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] ballubas:
Any chance of a of a 4x2 widget with clock, date, place and weather?
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Ballabus, sure, we can look into another 4x2 layout. Let me see what I can do tomorrow and I will post back the results here.
[Android Apps and Games] phirewire110:
Yes, i would love this too!
[Android Apps and Games] saxelfur:
The latter also seems to be the case with Apex Launcher. I have an HTC One X with Apex Launcher and a 5x6 grid layout, and I can't add the 5x2 widget to my homescreen because "there isn't enough space". Hoping for a fix, awesome app!
[Android Apps and Games] pdppdp:
Nice weather app.

Swiping through settings tabs would be useful.
[Android Apps and Games] veasna.kelly:
In global temperature units, changing from "Fahrenheit" to "Celsius" does not work. It's still showing ""Fahrenheit". Anybody have faced this issue so far and how to solve it? Sorry if it has been asked so far.

Edit, already found out the solution. A bit hiding option unless we go deeply into setting.
[Android Apps and Games] wildkarrde21:
Hi, thanks for being so responsive!

I'm on a Galaxy Nexus GSM (stock 4.0.4, no root) and my battery icon seemed like it was stuck on 74% (tapping it and going into my actual battery settings showed that it was not at 74%). This morning it is showing 100% at fully charged, so I'll keep an eye on it today and let you know if I run into that issue again.
[Android Apps and Games] rgeerolf:
Wow this widgets realy looks awesome! Looking forward to the next betas :)

just a few small remarks/requests:

-Are you planning on adding the AndroidFont (from ICS Lockscreen), that would make a perfect match with the lockscreen.

-Right now I am in Kortrijk (I'm from Belgium), and the app/widgets shows "Kortrijk, Vlaams Gewest", so the region ("Vlaams Gewest") is added to the city, so would it be possible that you add an option to trim your location so he only shows the city. This issue is solved in other Weather apps/widgets.

-In the app, it would be nice that you could swipe between the pages without pressing on the tab itself, or maybe that's your intention, np :p

Anyway, I hope you find the time to reply to my post :)
[Android Apps and Games] bega:
Hi, it works. I have tried several times today. The display must be a while off so that then automatically updated. I think rightly so. Super app.

Translation by Google. ;-)
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Another round-up of answers to questions posted:

saxelfur, thank you for the info. We haven't yet tested with any of the 3rd party launchers, so your information is helpful. In the next beta we should have some more tweaks to the widget sizing to make it fit better on Galaxy Note and wider devices.

pdppdp, we are using the Android 4.0 Action bar style of navigation with Recast and the default behavior is a tap to switch between screens. So far this has worked well for folks, so we'll have to review whether switching to a different menu style and behavior is the right thing to do at this stage in development.

wildkarrde21, yes, do keep us updated on your testing with the battery. If it makes any difference, try making a 1x1 utility widget that shows the battery by itself. It could be that you caught Recast refreshing other screens or widgets and the battery on a combo widget was slow to update. Having a stand-alone 1x1 should make sure you don't have other conditions competing for update time and missing the moment with your battery level changes.

rgeerolf, here are some responses to your questions:

I am looking at the thin ICS clock font today. We will see how easy it is to add as a typeface or not.

On the place/location name front we provide an Alias function for manually added locations, so that would be easy for you to shorten yourself. We do not currently have a similar feature for "current location", so thanks for your suggestion. We will look into that for a future release.

Your note about swiping between Settings pages is similar to the comment made by pdppdp. The same answer applies here: for the time being we will likely stick with the UI we have and investigate improvements in future releases.

bega, thanks for getting back to us. We're glad you seem to be working now.
[Android Apps and Games] rockingondrums:
Just downloaded the app. It looks very nice so far. I went to add my first widget and now I have a request: I would LOVE to have more variations on the weather/forecast widget

WITHOUT

a clock.

I HATE CLOCK widgets

. I already have a clock on my lockscreen and notification bar, I don't need any more :cool::D

Edit: As I explore the app, I really have to say the UI/UX is amazing. AMAZING. Thank you. I especially like that I can see previews of my widget changes before I add it. That way, I don't have to keep removing and adding widgets to try out combos.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
rockingondrums, thanks for the complements and feedback. We did spend a lot of time thinking about how to make Recast clean and easy to navigate by using the Android 4.0 design patterns. We're glad you like it.

Our plan is to keep bringing out additional widget layouts after the release of Recast, so we will keep your request for less clocks in mind. Having a wide variety of layouts and sizes is something we want, so that just about everyone can find at least a few widget looks that they like to use daily.
[Android Apps and Games] BuzzyMind:
So far I have experienced 2 bugs.

1st when there is no internet connection and I press on the widget to open Recast for more information for example to see the forecast for the nest few days I get "Unfortunately, Recast has stopped" message.

2nd the 4x2 widget has problems with the spacing on the left side:

Compare the 4x2 widget with the 4x1.

BTW I'm using Apex launcher with 4x5 portrait grid.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
buzzzy, thanks for the feedback. We have seen and know about the crash issue and have a fix for it coming in the next beta release.

As for the spacing of the 4x2, that is odd. Can you give us some details about your device, OS and ROM configuration. Thanks for the info on the launcher, as we haven't tested on anything but stock Android, ASUS and Motorola launchers ourselves. We will have to look at Apex, it seems.
[Android Apps and Games] Psychoticus:
As Android is Linux at it's core should you not be able to say eth0 then ping your weather provider to find out where the location is. I have seen this done before.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Psychoticus, we rely on the Android SDK and Google Location Services for our "current location" feature, so we can only see the abstracted GPS and "network" options as sources for geo-positioning. The specifics of the interface and hardware are completely invisible to us using the SDK this way, so eth0 isn't something that we would ever see.

You are correct in that it is technically possible to walk the device list, poll for known network connections, and then do a reverse IP lookup. However, that's way outside of the scope of what we plan to do for version 1.0 of Recast. Instead, we're focused on the most common usage cases and the broader compatibility and functional issues that most customers will face. Getting that stuff right at launch will be key in being able to sustain and improve Recast, so that is what we must get done to ship it.

We hope that explains things a bit from our side. We'd like to improve and add on to Recast for a long time to come. Getting a finished product completed sooner and getting Recast to be self-sufficient is job 1.

Thanks again for your comments and help.
[Android Apps and Games] Psychoticus:
Great to know! Just thought I would see if you knew that it was possible or not. Keep up the great work.
[Android Apps and Games] dragonesdenano:
I dont know if I should post this bug here, if I m wrong send me a pm i will clean my comment...

Look at my clock...The hour

Sent from my Tapatalk HTC ONE X Edition
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
dragonesdenano, thanks for the info. Yes, we know about this issue and it is fixed in the next beta. Stay tuned for more details shortly.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
There were several items and issues that we are targeting for beta 4 that will improve how Recast works and make things simpler to do. Rather than tell you all about the changes at this point, I'll leave you with a few quick screens to show you what we're up to.

Change a setting in General/Global, apply it to every location

Options to only manually update weather and current location

Fixed 24 hour times and add in the ICS thin clock typeface
[Android Apps and Games] BuzzyMind:
I have Xperia Neo with stock rooted ICS 4.0.3 and locked bootloader with modified SystemUI and other apps like phone, contacts.. which don't affect the system (display) at all and with no modified frameworks. I tried the widgets on the stock launcher, same problem! Maybe it is up to the resolution of the phone 480x854?
[Android Apps and Games] MFire:
Had real problems with the clock widget not updating today. Showed the time with a delay of one hour. Then it updated itself, 5 minutes after I unlocked the screen. Later it started loosing minutes as the time passed. No improvement after removing it and placing it back on the homescreen. Really frustrting.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
buzzzy, thank you for the additional information. We have the Motorola Droid X which has the same resolution but not Android 4.0 on it. With Gingerbread and Froyo on that phone all of the widgets look just fine. We will have to see if we can put an emulator together that matches the settings you have and see if we can reproduce the issue.

We'll report back when we know more about the issue. Thanks for letting us know, we do want to fix these sorts of things quickly.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
MFire, thanks for the report. You seem to be an aggressive tester and issue finder! Can you try a few things to help us work on this issue?

First, try creating a 1x1 clock widget. That will make it so that Recast has to update it each time the time changes and there won't be any other information (like date or weather) that could still be valid that will keep it from updating itself.

Second, can you provide us a logcat snapshot of your phone during the period where the clock widget isn't updating? During the beta Recast is posting many messages to the log to help us troubleshoot things, including a "time_tick" notification that shows when the app kicks off the redraw process for clocks. Having that log would be very helpful in determining what might be preventing the drawing from happening. You can send that log to us via email or PM if that is more convenient for you. Let us know if you need assistance in getting the log file.
[Android Apps and Games] BuzzyMind:
Btw can you add AccuWeather as a weather source? In my opinion it's the most accurate plus it has the RealFeel feature... It will be awesome! Thanks in advance!
[Android Apps and Games] phirewire110:
My dad is running an Acer iconia tab A500 and some of the widgets aren't rendering good.

Like the 5x1 widget is rendering smaller.

He has to "resize" it to fit across his screen.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
buzzzy, we had someone ask about Accuweather and Weather Underground previously. Unfortunately we cannot offer either of these providers due to their high data cost and requirements. We are hopeful that once we are able to charge for Recast that we can put some of those dollars to use with better and alternative weather providers. I know its a bummer, but that's where things are today.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
phirewire110, is it possible to share some screenshots from that device so we can see the issue? From the data we see, the Iconia A500 is a 1280 x 800 device, similar to our ASUS Transformer TF101. Our 5x2 widget wouldn't be able to fill the entire landscape space because on the Iconia it is 8 cells wide. Maybe I'm not understanding your request properly?
[Android Apps and Games] supremazy:
mstroud,

Man it's the best weather&clock widget in android widgets.Thanks to you and i want 3 features if you can do.

1-Can you add transparency setting to backgrounds.Changing opacity of the background could be amazing.

2-Can you add custom shortcuts option on time and date like gTabSimiLock.

3-Changing widget background with rounded corner.

Thanks again.
[Android Apps and Games] letsrockworld:
realy cool
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
supremazy, thanks for the compliments. We can certainly look at providing more customization for background transparency, launching other apps from clock taps, and creating other backgrounds. Not all of these items will make it into the final release, first version product. However, have other ways of getting new things out the door after we wrap up the final release.

Once we get past the beta 4 release and see if we have most of the major features and bugs taken care of I will circle back and see what requests can make it in now or what will be pushed into the next release. Stay tuned.
[Android Apps and Games] MFire:
Hi,

I sent you a private message with the requested logs. As you can see from the screenshot attached here, the time widget not updating issue also applies to the 1x1 widget you suggested. Hope you get the issue sorted out soon.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
MFire, thanks for the feedback and logs. You are still the only person who has reported this issue so far, but we will take a look at your logs and see if we can find out what is happening. We will let you know soon what we find out and we may have some more things to test out.
[Android Apps and Games] MFire:
Might be worth mentioning that I'm running stock ROM and I've tryed different launchers, stock and Nova. Still the same behavior. Curious as to why nobody has reported this issue thus far.
[Android Apps and Games] Marsou77:
Hi!

Just to know : Why the app says me that it's 24:34 ? I think 00:34 is more correct... can you solve this please?

Btw, your app is beautiful! It remplace beautiful widget for now!

Sent 2X faster with my LG
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
MFire, yes, we're not sure why only you have reported this issue, either. If it was a serious bug we would expect to hear from nearly every corner of the Android universe.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Marsou77, thanks for the info and comments. We know about the 24hr display issue and it is fixed in beta 4, coming up soon.
[Android Apps and Games] phirewire110:
I'll see if I can get a screen shot today.

Gotta wait till he gets home from work.

Maybe i'm wrong and it shouldn't fit across the screen.
[Android Apps and Games] rgeerolf:
Thanks for replying on the feedback. It looks like you really take the time to answer on everybody's feedback, awesome! Also really nice to see that the ics androidfont will be added in the next beta. I'm gonna follow this project. The support from the dev is excellent!

Verstuurd van mijn Galaxy Nexus met Tapatalk
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
rgeerolf, we appreciate the feedback. This is our first mass market app and we wanted to make sure we had all the major features and looks that people expected. Without the XDA community we would probably be shipping an app that, while good, wasn't completely great or as stable as we would like.

We think based on the comments we're now seeing that we are not too far off from a final release to the Play Store. Once that is done we can look at rounding up the feedback, fixes, languages and other items that folks have mentioned and that haven't made it into the product... and begin again with the next beta product.

No rest for the weary developers, it seems. But we're glad to be here and we hope that many of you will help us out for some time to come.
[Android Apps and Games] GazaIan:
Whoa, that's amazing. And there's a Google TV Version? Finally someone shows GTV some love.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
GazaIan, yes, Google TV support is cooked right into the release... along with phone and tablet support from Android 2.2 through to 4.0. As far as we know, Recast is the only app for weather and widgets that has such flexibility.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
I was having an issue with the time not updating in b2. I un installed and installed b3 and haven't had the problem since.

FJ pimped my pride
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
21productionz, thanks for the pointer!

Folks, we still are seeing people downloading and using older beta versions of Recast. DON'T DO IT! We've made all kinds of improvements, fixes, tweaks and clean-ups in Beta 3 and we're not far off from our next version, Beta 4.

If you are having issues with Recast please try uninstalling it, re-downloading the latest version and installing it cleanly. It really does make a difference for some people, as we are changing many things behind the scenes on each build of the app.

While we do appreciate everyone's feedback, we also want to make sure we spend time improving Recast and making it more stable. Make sure your About box says Beta 3 before reporting an issue and we can help you out that much quicker.

Thanks, as always from the Phase 2 Industries crew.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
MFire, I'm not sure if this will make you happy or sad, but my ASUS Transformer TF101 was able to reproduce your time-not-updating issue here at the office. So at least we can now say we've seen the case first-hand and now we can dig into what is happening.