WMC weather using Relaunch and Google Chrome

[vvicked]

I recently reformatted my WMC PC and thought I might try out some of the weather plugins again. I came to find out that Heatwave doesn't work anymore and mceWeather wasn't accurate for my location. I started playing around and finally find a somewhat viable alternative to those two plugins. It's not the best solution but it works for me. I thought I might share it with the members. My solution is using Relaunch to launch Google Chrome plugin(s). You won't be able use the media center remote to control the Chrome webpage. However, a decent amount of information is already displayed so you don't really need the media center remote to navigate.

1) Install Google Chrome if it's not already installed.
2) Goto the Chrome web store and install whatever weather plugins you like. I personally installed The Weather Channel and Weather Underground because they are graphically rich and look nice on the TV.
3) Get the urls for your plugins that include the city/location.
a) Weather Underground: Launch the Weather Underground Chrome plugin and do a search for your city. When that's done, save the URL. Mine was: "http://chrome.wunderground.com/auto/chr ... uery=48044"
b) Weatherbug: This is more difficult because the URL is hidden. Launch the Weatherbug Chrome plugin and select/search for your city. After the page has loaded, right mouse click on the page and select "Inspect Element". This will bring up the Chrome web inspector. In the web inspector, select the "Resources" tab. One the left side of the web inspector, expand the "Frames" folder, then expand the (index.html) folder. When you see the "index.html" file, right mouse click on "index.html" and select "Copy Link Address". My copied link URL was: "chrome-extension://ihdkejbciahopmbagpnjmmkkdpfpaaak/index.html"
4) If you don't already have Relaunch, you can download it here (http://code.google.com/p/relaunch/). After it's installed, we will use Relaunch to create shortcuts to the two weather plugins.
a) Weather Underground: Open Relaunch and create a MCE shortcut with the following settings.
App to Launch: Custom
With: Chrome
Trigger: Green Button
Full Screen: Checked
URL: The url from step 3a
Name: Choose a name. For example "Wunderground Macomb"
b) Weather Bug: Open Relaunch and create a MCE shortcut with the following settings.
App to Launch: Custom
With: Chrome
Trigger: Green Button
Full Screen: Checked
URL: The url from step 3b
Name: Choose a name. For example "Weather Bug Macomb"


I added quite a few Chrome plugin shortcuts on my media center for testing purposes. Relaunch and the Chrome plugins work well so I am a happy camper. Also, I increase the font size of each page using Chrome's zoom feature so the text was easy to read on my TV.

[epete]

Does this work on extenders?

[Sammy2]

There's a Chrome Plug-in for WMC? I did not know this. Your instructions assume this is known and also do not really indicated how to make this load in WMC. Can you clarify please? Thank you.

[staknhalo]

He gave the link above. http://code.google.com/p/relaunch/

I use it for YouTube LeanBack and some other media sites. Doesn't work on extenders.

[Tester]

vvicked, nice write up, thanks you.
However, I am curious, why bother with chrome plugins when you can simply just find a weather site that displays all this info ?
I do exactly that now for both traffic and weather, I used Relaunch to launch to specific sites.. What is the advantage to switching to a chrome plugin, very curious ?

[mdavej]

vvicked, nice write up, thanks you.
However, I am curious, why bother with chrome plugins when you can simply just find a weather site that displays all this info ?
I do exactly that now for both traffic and weather, I used Relaunch to launch to specific sites.. What is the advantage to switching to a chrome plugin, very curious ?

Although the OP makes it sound like a plugin, it really isn't. It's just a website. So it's really no different than using relaunch for any other site.