up vote 23 down vote favorite
7

I am new to Ubuntu and would very much like to see a weather gadget (aka widgets).

weather widget windows

Can anyone recommed a simple add-that could give me a little weather, Clock, Twitter Crawl, etc?

Thanks

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When referring to Windows it is always best to include an image explaining what you are looking for. (and yes you can not create images yet: just dump the link into your question and someone will edit it so it included the IMG tags) ;) – Rinzwind May 9 '12 at 6:55
1  
Sorry @Rinzwind I just assumed that folks would just google it :P I'll make a note of this. – dotdawtdaught May 9 '12 at 7:28
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I would not be able to pick out the windows 7 weather gadget from any other weather gadget unless it had a big red blinking arrow next to it ;) – Rinzwind May 9 '12 at 7:31
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Allow me to assist, sans red arrow. !img – dotdawtdaught May 9 '12 at 7:35
    
I always wondered who uses those widget :-D I guess there is some fans – Kiwy Mar 13 '14 at 9:18
up vote 3 down vote accepted

There are no widgets for Unity, but when you have KDE you can install Plasmoids as explained here

You also can install Conky to show weather info on you desktop, but this can be a bit harder to do.

A google search

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up vote 1 down vote

Ubuntu with Unity has no widgets, instead they have indicators. Application indicators provide a simple and effective API to provide an application icon in the notification area in the top-right part of the screen, and provide simple, accessible, and complete access to key parts of your application.

My Weather Indicator

Category: Weather Forecasting

this is an indicator that will show weather information in your area, as well as other valuable information such as time of sunrise, sunset and moon phase

enter image description here

Find out whether you need to wear a jacket, a t-shirt or a waterproof suit... If you click on the indicator, you will get more information about, humidity, dew point, feels like, wind velocity and wind direction, weather condition.

My-Weather-Indicator informs you about sunrise ans sunset time, and the lunar phase

Information

You can get the forecast for your area for next three days:

The forecast

You can get information of the weather of two cities at the same time:

Two cities

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install my-weather-indicator

Hardware Sensors Indicator

Category: System Information

Application Indicator showing hardware sensors.

sensors

First add the repository: 

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:alexmurray/indicator-sensors

Update: 

sudo apt-get update

And then install the package:

sudo apt-get install indicator-sensors

Then launch Hardware Sensors Indicator from Unity or run indicator-sensors from a terminal.

Skype indicator

Screenshot

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype

A list of available indicators What Application Indicators are available?

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up vote 22 down vote

There are few options:

  1. Screenlets

    Screenlets are the Linux alternative for "Windows Gadgets". Screenlets are small owner-drawn applications (written in Python) that can be described as "the virtual representation of things lying/standing around on your desk". Sticky notes, clocks, rulers, ... the possibilities are endless.

    enter image description here

    Hare's a preview of a weather screenlet:

    enter image description here

    To install Screenlets, open terminal by hitting Ctrl+T and run following commands:

    sudo apt-get install screenlets

    To install a complete pack of Screenlets:

    sudo apt-get install screenlets-pack-all

    Some sources to download Screenlets: Gnome-look, KDE-look.

  2. Cairo-Dock

    Cairo-Dock is an attractive, Lightweight eye-candy dock to launch your applications. I'm mentioning it hare because of it's ability to add add-ons. It comes bundled with many applets including this weather applet. You can use applets inside dock or detach and use them as gadgets.

    enter image description here

    To install Cairo-Dock, open terminal by hitting Ctrl+T and run following command:

    sudo apt-get install cairo-dock

    You can find some third party add-ons hare.

  3. Conky

    Conky is an advanced, Highly configurable system monitor for Linux. It's little hard to configure, Specially for new users. Hare's an example of conky

    enter image description here

    Follow these steps to setup HTC Conky:

    1. To install Conky, open terminal by hitting Ctrl+T and run one of following commands:

      To install a standard conky:

      sudo apt-get install conky-std

      To install a full conky with most compile options enabled:

      sudo apt-get install conky-all

    2. Download Conky HTC Home and extract it.

    3. Press Ctrl+H to show hidden files. Copy ".conky" from downloaded folder to your home directory.

    4. Open the "fonts" folder and copy all the fonts to Home/.fonts/

    5. Go to AccuWeather and find your location and copy web address.

    6. open Home/.conky/htc_home/accuweather/accuw_script with text editor and replace the location address with the web address you just copied from AccuWeather.

enter image description here

To put conky into startup applications, Hit super key (Windows key) and search for "starup applications" and open it.

enter image description here

Click on add, and fill respective fields as follow:

Name: HTC - Conky  
Command: bash -c "sleep 15; conky -c $HOME/.Conky/htc_home/conkyrc"  
Comment: Conky

and save it.

To start Conky for the first time, Hit Alt+F2 and run the following command:

conky -c ~/.Conky/htc_home/conkyrc

That's it...!

For more Coky themes visit: DeviantArt, Arch Forums, Web UPD8, Ubuntu Forums.

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Thanks a lot for suggesting Screenlets! I was really tired of conky manual tweaks and difficult problems like displaying sometimes a larger white or black canvas underneath its fake-transparent window, which sometimes included a notification message as well. I also tried My Weather Indicator but it also has numerous bugs. I will appreciate very much if you can also specify the source of that 3rd party weather screenlet in your screenshot. – Sadi Apr 29 '13 at 10:27
    
@Sadi You're welcom!... That screenlet is part of screenlets-pack-all package. You can install it by running: sudo apt-get install screenlets-pack-all or search for it in Software Center. – Basharat Sialvi Apr 29 '13 at 11:01
    
Thanks, but there's only FreeMeteoWeather in that package. I later found out that it's probably Clear Weather screenlet which seems no longer maintained/updated, and there's only Chinese version called China Clear Weather at the moment. – Sadi Apr 29 '13 at 17:40
    
@Sadi Yes it's called Clear Weather and actually it is part of that package, It's on my desktop right now. You must be missing something... Did you restarted Screenlets after installing that package? – Basharat Sialvi Apr 29 '13 at 18:24
    
Oh, thanks a lot, it seems I've got only basic pack installed, now I've got it all, thanks again. – Sadi Apr 29 '13 at 19:44
up vote 8 down vote

Plexydesk is frigging awesome. This app creats an environment for widgets for Ubuntu, like Plasma of KDE.

Don't ever bother of Screenlets or gDesklets, they are out-of-dated.

enter image description here

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But isn't there a nice weather widget to show off? ;-) – Sadi Apr 29 '13 at 10:19
up vote 5 down vote

I installed conky-Lua.

enter image description here

Step by step instructions are in http://xchamitha.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/adding-gadgets-to-ubuntu-1210-desktop.html

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up vote 0 down vote

I was elated to see gKrellm avail for 12.04. Its not quite as flashy as the windows 7 widgets, but will do almost all the same things.

Just open up the software center and search gkrellm.

I know they have a weather plugin, but afaik there is not a twitter crawl.

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I like gkrellm ... it just works ! – user165784 Mar 13 '14 at 9:07

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