metar-bitbar

A MacOSX Bitbar for Metars

Bitbar is a pretty great and kinda finicky platform for adding menu items to Mac OSX. As a student pilot, I really wanted a great METAR menu that gives me some visual cues to the current condition of my own airport and a easy way to add additional airports using JavaScript. There's already a METAR plugin out there, but written in Ruby which is also finicky and I wanted something easy to modify. The code sucks - for gosh sakes, this is just a fun project for me to help me with my student pilotage. Enjoy, feel free to modify and hopefully my instructions are good. I'll take ANY enhancements, and if you find a bug or something that could make it better, instead of reporting it, create a PR. JavaScript is easy - no excuse to ask me to fix it. It's one file of code, for gosh sakes.

Installation

You need to take some steps here, such as modifying variables at the top of the file, grabbing an authorization key from the METAR web service site, etc.

Install Bitbar

Follow the instructions here: https://github.com/matryer/bitbar

Copy or download the aweather.5m.js from this repo

You will end up placing this file in the BitBar folder. After installing BitBar, you can find the folder usually in ~/Documents/BitBar - There are instructions in the BitBar site about this.

Sign up for an account at https://avwx.rest/

AVWX REST API is a website to deliver JSON output of weather information. There are free and professional tiers. This BitBar only requires the free tier, however, you need to sign up for an account. Additionally, that account will need a token.

1. Navigate to https://avwx.rest/
2. Click on Account
3. Click on New Here: Register
4. Create a username and password.
5. Log Into Your Account (note you probably need to verify the account through e-mail).
6. Confirm that it has you set up for Hobby level (FREE).
7. Under TOKENS: click the + key and a token will be created.
8. Copy the created token. You will use this token in the JavaScript file. Example token: p6gZKCQCZo4fSUfgimKWa3sLFWLH27oBS5sy_999999

Copy and Prep the aweather.5m.js file.

Ok, so, now hopefully this is an easy task to setup. Follow these instructions exactly. NOTE: You must have nodejs installed here with npm.

1. Install nodejs: brew install node
2. Open a terminal and navigate to the BitBar directory (maybe: ~/Documents/BitBar
3. Copy the aweather.5m.js file into this folder.
4. In the terminal at this location, type: npm install bitbar - this will create a node_modules folder in your current location. This is ok, and required.
5. In the terminal at this location, type: npm install node-fetch
6. In the terminal at this location, type: npm install date-fns-tz
7. When completed installing, remove (delete) package.json from the folder as BitBar will probably think this is a plugin and will show a warning icon on the menu bar. It's ok, you don't need it to run the file.
8. Type where node and note the return values. You'll need this to properly modify the file below to where it runs node. Example value: /Users/<your-user-name>/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.0/bin/node

Modify the aweather.5m.js

OK: Here comes the fun part, modifying the file.

1. Open aweather.5m.js in your favorite editor.

2. Modify the first line:

#!/usr/bin/env /Users/<your-user-name>/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.0/bin/node

and replace the portion that starts with /Users with the value above from the where node command.

3. Modify the token:

const token = '<your-token-here';

Insert the token in the quotes with the value you got from AVWX.rest

4. Update your airports!

const airports = ['KBFI', 'KRNT', 'KSEA', 'KPWT', 'KPAE', 'KAWO', 'KSHN', 'KBVS', 'KHQM', 'KOLM', 'KCLS'];

Add as many airports as you want here.

5. Update your timezone

const timeZone = 'America/Los_Angeles';

Update your timezone code here for a submenu with the METAR time adjusted from Zulu. For the proper string for your timezone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones

OK! Running it.

You should now be ready to go. Run BitBar. Something should show up in the bar now with your first airport being the menu item. If you get a yellow caution icon, that means you have something incorrectly configured. Try my instructions again. NOTE: Clicking on the yellow icon should show an exception and tell you what's wrong.