I have the Davis software and WeatherDisplay. Whilst the first works
perfectly it does not provide all the facilities I want. On the other hand
WD has a fantastic range of facilities but is by definition so complex that
is hard to set up. WD also has some bugs that have not been cured. Has
anybody got any other suggestions as to what to try?

Peter Crosland

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:53:44 -0000, "Peter Crosland"
wrote:

I have the Davis software and WeatherDisplay. Whilst the first works
perfectly it does not provide all the facilities I want. On the other hand
WD has a fantastic range of facilities but is by definition so complex that
is hard to set up. WD also has some bugs that have not been cured. Has
anybody got any other suggestions as to what to try?


Well, since no-one seems to have commented (publicly at least):

Perhaps the key point is to hear in which particular respects you're
unhappy with Weatherlink. It is undoubtedly more limited in not having
the same breadth of features as one or two other programs like Weather
Display, but to be able to suggest the best alternative it would be
helpful to know which bits of WL you're least happy with.

More generally, it's a very uncommon and clever software developer who
includes a large number of features and at the same time manages to
make their program relatively easy to use. Typically, having lots of
features tends to translate to a complex user interface. With the best
design it doesn't have to, but given that the appeal of WL-related
programs for a lot of potential users, especially in the US, seems to
revolve around maximising the feature count, it's this count per se
that seems to get the design priority rather than ease-of-use,
cosmetic appeal, scientific accuracy etc of the user interface.

All of which isn't to say that ther aren't some impressive alternative
packages out there, but I'm not sure you're going to be happy with
them if absolute ease-of-use is your main criterion.

John Dann
www.weatherstations.co.uk

Well, since no-one seems to have commented (publicly at least):

Perhaps the key point is to hear in which particular respects you're
unhappy with Weatherlink. It is undoubtedly more limited in not having
the same breadth of features as one or two other programs like Weather
Display, but to be able to suggest the best alternative it would be
helpful to know which bits of WL you're least happy with.

More generally, it's a very uncommon and clever software developer who
includes a large number of features and at the same time manages to
make their program relatively easy to use. Typically, having lots of
features tends to translate to a complex user interface. With the best
design it doesn't have to, but given that the appeal of WL-related
programs for a lot of potential users, especially in the US, seems to
revolve around maximising the feature count, it's this count per se
that seems to get the design priority rather than ease-of-use,
cosmetic appeal, scientific accuracy etc of the user interface.

Thanks for your reply John. I have made some progress with WD that I really
would like to retain since I have paid for it. My real problem seems to be
that I don't have any knowledge of HTML or FTP and I simply can't spend
large amounts of time learning them. When It does not work I simply don't
know where to start looking for the error. The ISP tools I was using have
all sorts of traps for the unwary and I fell into all of them! Having
designed a very basic page using the easy tools I eventually found that
sites created using these were not accessible via FTP. Guess I shall just
have to persevere.