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Unofficial Tesla Model S Chrome Extension New and Improved
- Thread starter TrevorSStone
- Start date
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- Tags
- app chrome Model S User Interface
Thanks everyone that has downloaded. I really appreciate it.
I made an update last night/today to both the extension and the chrome app. Now the extension ignores the browser zoom level. This hurts accessibility, but it allows users that have a default zoom of over 100% to be able to use the extension without needing to have a scroll bar. If this has negatively affected the way you use the extension, please let me know so I can figure out a different solution.
For this solution though, I took some time and refactored all of the CSS that used pixels, and changed everything to ems and percentages. What this means is that the app can now scale to any size easily. Now, once your app updates to 1.1.6, you will be able to resize the window. I wrote some code that keeps the aspect ratio correct, but it seems to be maybe a little buggy. Let me know your experience with it. If it seems to be rendering wrong, just exit and reopen the app, or try resizing the window again.
In regards to the Mac OS X menu bar, I am going to look into it in the next couple of days. I know you could pin the app to your dock, but I am not sure the ease of adding it to the menu bar. If you want help adding it to your dock I could make a small guide.
I made an update last night/today to both the extension and the chrome app. Now the extension ignores the browser zoom level. This hurts accessibility, but it allows users that have a default zoom of over 100% to be able to use the extension without needing to have a scroll bar. If this has negatively affected the way you use the extension, please let me know so I can figure out a different solution.
For this solution though, I took some time and refactored all of the CSS that used pixels, and changed everything to ems and percentages. What this means is that the app can now scale to any size easily. Now, once your app updates to 1.1.6, you will be able to resize the window. I wrote some code that keeps the aspect ratio correct, but it seems to be maybe a little buggy. Let me know your experience with it. If it seems to be rendering wrong, just exit and reopen the app, or try resizing the window again.
In regards to the Mac OS X menu bar, I am going to look into it in the next couple of days. I know you could pin the app to your dock, but I am not sure the ease of adding it to the menu bar. If you want help adding it to your dock I could make a small guide.
Menu bar app would require native c# application written with Xcode, I think. It could also feature customized items shown on menu bar, like amount on charging time remaining, inside temp etc.
See this for example: Netatmo Menu Bar app for OSX | BrickyBox (it's an app for a wireless weather station)
EDIT: This is only applicable for owners of the Chrome App version
@bradhs and others: I've looked into the menu bar (system tray) and official chrome support is kind of flaky at the moment.
If I understand it correctly you would like a persistent shortcut here:
So, right now Chrome's support for an icon here is unofficial at best. There is a hacky way to implement this, but it would change the structure of the extension and be a pretty large amount of work. At this point in time, I don't think it would be worth the work to implement it officially.
The alternative in my opinion would be to add an icon to the dock.
First, go to the chrome apps page in chrome. Mine is located on the new tab screen right below the back button. I have seen this in other places on different installs/OSs so you might need to look for it.
On that page, find the Model S application and right click on it. Select create shortcut. This should open a finder window with all of your chrome apps. Just drag and drop the Model S application to the dock and it will be pinned there.
An alternative I found to add to the menu bar is a program called Butler. http://manytricks.com/butler/. I downloaded the free trial and was able to get the shortcut working pretty easily. I am not sure what the duration or stipulations of the free trial are, nor can I vouch for the software as a whole. It is just a potential alternative to add a shortcut to the menu bar.
So yea, at the moment I am of the opinion that the time it would take to implement a hacky solution would be better spent on my next project. If I see official support/documentation for the system tray I will add it ASAP.
I will also be pushing out a new version soon that will fix some minor text issues when the trunk or frunk are open. Thanks guys!
@bradhs and others: I've looked into the menu bar (system tray) and official chrome support is kind of flaky at the moment.
If I understand it correctly you would like a persistent shortcut here:
So, right now Chrome's support for an icon here is unofficial at best. There is a hacky way to implement this, but it would change the structure of the extension and be a pretty large amount of work. At this point in time, I don't think it would be worth the work to implement it officially.
The alternative in my opinion would be to add an icon to the dock.
First, go to the chrome apps page in chrome. Mine is located on the new tab screen right below the back button. I have seen this in other places on different installs/OSs so you might need to look for it.
On that page, find the Model S application and right click on it. Select create shortcut. This should open a finder window with all of your chrome apps. Just drag and drop the Model S application to the dock and it will be pinned there.
An alternative I found to add to the menu bar is a program called Butler. http://manytricks.com/butler/. I downloaded the free trial and was able to get the shortcut working pretty easily. I am not sure what the duration or stipulations of the free trial are, nor can I vouch for the software as a whole. It is just a potential alternative to add a shortcut to the menu bar.
So yea, at the moment I am of the opinion that the time it would take to implement a hacky solution would be better spent on my next project. If I see official support/documentation for the system tray I will add it ASAP.
I will also be pushing out a new version soon that will fix some minor text issues when the trunk or frunk are open. Thanks guys!
agw
Member
Hi Trevor, great work!
A couple of notes I did not see in the previous pages..
1) The extension shows v 1.1.7 but your last reference was to 1.1.6
2) The interior and exterior temperature showed once for me but now they do not unless I turn on the climate control.
3) Any chance that you could first show a screen showing that the car is asleep before waking it up?
Keep up the good work!
A couple of notes I did not see in the previous pages..
1) The extension shows v 1.1.7 but your last reference was to 1.1.6
2) The interior and exterior temperature showed once for me but now they do not unless I turn on the climate control.
3) Any chance that you could first show a screen showing that the car is asleep before waking it up?
Keep up the good work!
Hey.
1) I don't really feel comfortable bumping the thread for every minor changelog. If other people have posted in-between I feel better about it, but otherwise I would only do it for a major version (basically anything with extra functionality). The main change between 1.1.6 and 7 is that when I reorganized the app to be able to resize, I forgot to reposition the trunk and frunk notifications. Now they should render in the correct location if either are open.
2) This is actually an issue with Tesla's implementation. It stops sending temperature information after a bit once the climate control has been turned off. It is a strange decision by them, but for now developers just need to work around it. I suppose there could be a hacky fix of toggling the climate on the extension/app load, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. I suppose a message to convey this to users wouldn't be a bad idea though.
3) The connecting to the car screen is essentially this. When you see the loading animation it means that the car is asleep, or something is wrong with your internet. Once again this could probably have some better text, something like "waking up your car".
Thanks for the suggestions.
Also, the website Teslarati wrote an article about the extension. Check it out!
I'm not sure about this. Yesterday I was getting temperature from my car all day long - last drive was 9pm the previous evening, so that means that the temp was persistent for at least 22hrs (it didn't stop, but that's when I drove it next). I'm looking now and it's still displaying, but I've also seen times when it's blank until I cycle the climate, but then it seems to stick indefinitely, at least for as long as my PC is powered.
Thank you so much. It honestly makes my day anytime someone donates. I'm happy to see people are finding the extension useful.
@pete8314, you're right. Sometimes the temp value continues to report. I guess my main point is that I have little control over it. Cycling the AC always seems to restart the reporting, so it is something to keep in mind. As mentioned previously, I will put some message suggesting this to the user.
How about your waiting-spin icon after login also show here to while waiting for the login page?
I have a 200dpi monitor and the extension seems a little small (I've only just loaded it, so not sure what it looked like in the previous version). I generally run my browser tabs at 150% or 180%.
Maybe you could use the default zoom unless it causes the extension to exceed the window, in which case either do what you do now or scale to fit?
Also noticed that I can't read the version number at the bottom RH corner of the splash screen/login screen (just shows "V1." with the rest truncated) - maybe a related issue?
Would you mind taking a screenshot of the issue? Unfortunatly, the way chrome extension windows work is that the max height is 600px of whatever the browser says 600px is. What I did in the update that you quoted was to make everything scale to that 600px window automatically, so what you're seeing is most likely the max size it can go. As an alternative, the chrome app version is located here for $4.99. It runs in its own window which can be resized and scales appropriately. If you don't feel like paying, you can also try and compile the chrome app version from the github page with a little tweaking.
Sorry I don't have a better work around. If you post a screenshot and there is a bug I will fix it ASAP, but otherwise I think it is a fault of Chrome and not the extension.
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This is a strange bug, but my guess is that it is more on Tesla's end than mine. Essentially the way the extension/app works with their API is you have to make the request for the action, so in this case you say "Tesla, tell my car to charge to X%". Tesla just replies with "OK" or "No". If you want the updated data, you have to ask "Hey Tesla, let me know the current charge status now". What I do is wait a few seconds after making the request for action, but sometimes the state on their server is a little bizarre when shifting between states. My guess is that if you kept the app/extension open it would fix itself on the auto refresh in the next 5 minutes. I might be wrong and if it is occuring every time please take a few screenshots and I will take a deeper look.If the car is currently charging and you change the percentage it will charge to, the remaining time doesn't update until you close the app and start it again.
Yes, nitpicky, I know.
Also a few other updates. The library I use, Angulardart, has had a few updates since the last release (a while ago). I am planning on updating the library which is supposed to increase performance in the next week or so, but functionally not much will change. Personally when I run the extension I don't see rendering issues, but this might help slower machines out. It will affect both the app and the extension.
I also have a new project I have been working on that I could use some Alpha/Beta testers for. I'm not at that point yet, but if you might be interested please send me a PM. I don't have an ETA on it.
Finally, thanks to everyone still using the extension/app. There are over 1200 combined users between the App and the extension which feels great. On initial launch I remember thinking I would be happy if 50 people ended up using it, so it feels amazing to have those expectations blown out of the water.
Here's a screenshot. The window does indeed look to be 600 hardware pixels high, and doesn't change size when I adjust the window scaling, so maybe there's nothing you can do. Not a big deal - I was just responding to post about scaling.
The truncation of the version number is presumably a bug however (albeit trivial!).
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