PollutionMonitor is a status bar app for macOS using AQICN data to display pollution AQI readings.
This is the source for the app which is available on the Mac App Store here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pollution-monitor/id1197195842?mt=12 - enjoy!
Just so we're clear, I'm releasing this so you can study it and learn how to make apps (or how not to make them, depending on what you think of my code).
This is not an invitation to take my app and release it unmodified (or mostly unmodified) under your own name. If you do that, I will find you ಠ_ಠ.
The source is licensed under the GNU GPLv3, which means you can copy the source and even sell apps derived from it, but you have to make available the source code of any programs you sell.
Like many web apps, the AQICN website is quite bloated and takes a while to load. When you live in China, the pollution level is something you need to know hour by hour. In the city where I live it often goes above 500 and we don’t leave the house or open the windows.
This app not only is conveniently always on display, and with the latest reading in the status bar, it uses very little data transfer. They key pollution reading is 105 bytes of data. When you load the web page, this is embedded in 4.9 MB of Javascript.
For clarity:
- website: 4.9 MB
- direct request from Mac app: 105 bytes
So the data transfer with the Mac app is around 46k times more efficient ;-)
You will need to get your own API key, see here and here.
This code sets out a structure for a Mac status bar app that
- makes network requests
- updates its menu items based on network responses
- creates a coloured image tile with superimposed text based on pollution readings