☀️Weather Forecast

[Ornorm]

Hello,
based on the discussion around Features vs Extensions, I thought it could be interesting to have a built-in weather forecast in Vivaldi. I see it has been mentioned regularly but I haven't found any dedicated feature request about it.

Lots of extensions propose the feature and they seem to be popular (the number of downloads of them give, together, a total of millions potential users). And this, without taking into account all the users who add a weather forecast in their web-panels, the ones using widgets (Rainmeter, Xwidget, Windows Weather, etc.) or extensions like Momentum and so on...

Couldn't it be an added value for Vivaldi to have it by default? I think it might attract new users to use Vivaldi.

It could, for example, be added to the bottom bar of the browser with an option to see X days of forecast and the options that are usually available (Celsius/Fahrenheit, City code, etc.)

In addition to that, it might also be added to the Speed Dial.

What do you think?

[Hadden89]

Probably I'd use it. But not in the speedial. I like to see only bookmarks there.
An idea could be having on footer - which not everyone use - but it would be almost an extension after all. Or as webpanel, but this can be already done on our own.

And about the provider.. which service should be used?

[Ornorm]

@hadden89 The idea for the speed dial wouldn't be to have a dedicated thumbnail for it but to use, for example, the header bar of the page (see example below) :

And, for the browser itself, it would be the same but on the footer bar which is almost empty for the moment.
For the provider, maybe accuweather.com which is often used for such purposes (but I'm not an expert concerning the right to use it by a browser provider...)

[Hadden89]

@ornorm The provider would be very important:

• Must be free and/or generate revenue for Vivaldi without messing with the UI or the development;
• Must be optional and easy to disable -- right click > disable for example.
• It shouldn't collect user data or store cookies (as V care about privacy)
• It should work worldwide (some providers are not very precise in some countries)

My speed dial is "full" of folders - 9 actually - and it hasn't space to accomodate a weather widget. Same would be for smaller screens.
On a webpanel or the footer will be nice and easy to remove, with options given. Or to keep it, of course.

[Ornorm]

@hadden89 Of course! I fully agree with you with all the points you've mentioned.

The Speed dial possibility wasn't, in any case, the reason for the feature request but I did add it because I saw, while searching for a possible feature request on the topic, that some users asked for it. So, my intention was to include their desire in the feature request as well. It doesn't have to be on the header bar, it can be on the background image (cfr Momentum).

About the revenue for Vivaldi, I agree as well. The main goal of the feature request was in fact precisely to attract more users to Vivaldi in general which might, if I'm in line with Vivaldi's business model, generate more revenue.

[Pesala]

Not really against it, but I already have a speed dial for the BBC Weather page. I looked at add-ons for Opera and see things like this in Permissions:

• This extension can access your data on some websites.
• This extension will appear in Speed Dial.
• This extension can access your tabs and browsing activity.

So with the caveats mentioned by others, it may be OK.

[Ornorm]

@pesala Hello Pesala, I'm in line with you as well.
About the caveats about privacy, etc. it is certainly a challenge to take into consideration if this feature request is becomes a candidate for any further release.

I think that, if it becomes a feature of Vivaldi instead of being an extension, the privacy issues might rightly disappear because it would be an "in house" development.

For example, when I was a "kid" playing with Rainmeter, I don't remember having faced any privacy issue because the data were just pulled as raw data from the Accuweather site and updated every X minutes.

There might be experts on the forum who might be able to enlighten us on that specific privacy concern.

[Hadden89]

@ornorm AW API costs. Wondering if this also applies to widgets as rainmeter (but probably MS had an agreement with AW)

[Ornorm]

@hadden89 Thanks for the information. I didn't know about their pricing.
By the way, I see Rainmeter does now use weather.com instead of Accuweather (maybe because of the fact it isn't free anymore). See the post on their forum :
Change to Weather.com XML feed