Barometer trend indicator, possible confusion

This new 2.02 is really keeping me up playing with the new capabilities and trying new displays. Darn you, Julian! Great effort and this works so slick.

One thing I got back comments from a friend using the new display is this:

I like the meter display for the humidity and the Barometer. With the position of the little arrow (the one indicating rising, falling or steady) placed near the right hand end of the meter, when the pressure is falling, it points sort of down and to the right. During a recent falling pressure, some people looking at the display mis-interpreted this to think that the little arrow was indicating that the needle trend was actually moving towards the high end of the scale, thus an increasing pressure trend rather than truly falling. Is there a way to reposition the position of the trend arrow, or perhaps add the rate of change (this would be the coup de grace of tweaks) to indicate the value somewhere near the middle of the needle’s pivot point? The meter instrument (if the rate of change per hour could be added in a smaller font, perhaps) would then be unambiguous.

Sorry to bring up such a minor point, but there really isn’t a heck of a lot else to discuss with this recent improvment.

:arrow:

It’s a fair point - I’m not entirely happy with that indicator either. I might be able to put it in the top left or right corners and perhaps it should only indicate straight up or straight down? Unfotunately there isn’t room for the rate of change with the meter - I’ve tried!

Julian

How about a different position, say in the bow of the meter, above the value of the numeric value, and where the pivot point of the needle might be? I’m gaphic oriented and like little direction indicators, it was just the position I’ve found was a bit confusing.

Another option would be to have a textual indication of change, such as
“Inc”, “Stdy” and “Dec” but then we miss the visual impact.

Sounds like you’ve run into this in the beta and personal testing.

I’ve moved the trend arrow to the bottom right and adjusted it so it’s either straight up or down for rising or falling. I think it’s an improvement.

Julian

Julian:

Thanks for the update. I have been busy playing with the new 2.03 and would like you to take a look at my site at

http://my.execpc.com/~reid1

for your comments on layout, symmetry, etc.

While nothing is ever final, this is getting pretty close.

I like the positioning and color of the new barometer change indicator. I think it is fine, tells the story, and other than if a curved up and curved down arrow were available for a little extra pazzaz, this is great.

One thing I noticed is when I hover the cursor over the humidity lable on the instrument, the explanatory box pops up, but not over the whole instrument itself. Also, I have the Dew Point set as a textual display, and no explanatory box at all comes up. Is this a function of Shockwave, or can it be turned on for all the space inside the instrument and for the dewpoint text box? (perhaps you don’t have a floating explanation for dewpoint?)

Thanks again.

Dale

Looks good to me.

The tool tip only works over the lower half of the instrument because the top half is reserved for hyperlinks and their associated text - should you choose to set one up in the config file.

There is a tool tip for dew point but all the tool tips only work for the graphical representations and not for text only displays. There was a reason I did that but can’t remember at the moment! :?

Julian

If the baro arrow only now does up or down, then it would be nice for the mouse over message needs to be updated to reflect that - at least on Dale’s page it still refers to the rate of change.

Ah yes - I’ll amend that.

Julian

Hi - like the new idea for the direction of change arrow. Would it be possible to have a double ended arrow in a horizontal plane to indicate “No change”