Backgrounder

A simple node app to embed weather into your MacOS wallpaper. Also a brief exploration of photo editing and chron jobs on Mac.

DarkSky api key not included, I'll need to figure out some way of handling their requirements. You can get your own key: https://darksky.net/

Set up

Start

Run the following and then walk through the command prompt. To change the zip code just run this again.

npm install
npm run start

Note: You'll need to change the config to have a darksky api key

Test

To test or debug backgrounder use the following:

npm install
npm run test

Background Info

Weather API

We're using the Dark Sky API to power our forecasts. Dark Sky Rocks!

Notes on the Chron job

This all happens as part of the prompt script, but the below is here because it's interesting!

To run as a background task, you'll need to use launchd and a tweek an included plist file.

Look at com.launched.weathergenerator.plist

• Swap the WorkingDirectory, StandardOutPath, and StandardErrorPath to root of your clone of this git repo
• Change the "ProgramArguments" string to point to npm (use "which npm" in terminal for the path)

Once you've updated your plist, you'll have to copy the file into ~/Library/LaunchAgents. There are other directories that have launchd plist files, but this dir is user specific

To start the task, run the following

launchctl load  ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.launched.weathergenerator.plist

If it's broken, or misbehaving you can remove it using this

launchctl unload  ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.launched.weathergenerator.plist