Last Update: March 21, 2015

WR icon WiFi Radar

Previous News

March 9, 2014 - The WiFi Radar project is now hosted at TuxFamily. This move brings several changes to WR; including a new web address, a slimming of the mailing lists to a single list, and a new git repository.

The other good news is that this move has prompted me to begin active development, again, on WR.

May 1, 2011 - The WiFi Radar mailing list is moving from its current host to berliOS. The one list is also splitting into three lists: users, developers, and announce.

June 27, 2010 - Thanks to David Woodfall and Robby Workman, an alternate WiFi Radar Slackbuild is available through SlackBuilds.org.

I have pushed some more changes into the v2.1.x branch of the git repo. These are mainly fixes for the split into multiple source files and class renaming for PEP 8 compliance. I will be releasing a WR alpha version, soon, as I believe the code in the v2.1.x branch is not a complete failure at this point. 8-)

April 17, 2010 - I have created a Slackware package for WiFi Radar v2.0.08.

April 4, 2010 - I have released the eighth stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. There is only one fix contained herein, "BUG FIX: do not crash if log file cannot be opened for writing."

I have also pushed more changes to the v2.1.x branch of the git repo. They include a first pass at splitting the source into multiple files, converting tabs to spaces to match PEP 8, and the new UI for the profile editor. It seems to work as well as v2.0.x, but is not well tested. Even I'm not using v2.1.x for real work.

January 29, 2010 - I have released the seventh stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. Thanks to Prokhor Shuchalov this release contains several bug fixes related to non-DHCP use. Without these fixes it is unlikely non-DHCP profiles work properly.

January 1, 2010 - WiFi Radar versions previous to v2.0 are no longer supported. I have removed the links to support pages for v1.x and for v1.9.9 downloads.

Because WR 2.0.x is now in Debain testing and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic), I have included links to the native packages for these distributions. If you know of any other distro packages, let me know and I will add links to them here.

December 29, 2009 - I have updated the development ROADMAP to (hopefully) reflect my timeline for the next version of WiFi Radar.

August 28, 2009 - I have released the sixth stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release adds three environment variables to the execution shell for the connection and disconnection scripts and provides a verbose error message when a pre-2.0 configuration file is read.

July 20, 2009 - I have written an updated HOWTO for using WPA with WiFi Radar v2.0.x, as things have become much simpler since the original directions were written. The previous HOWTO is still available on the Support page for those who need to manually install and configure WPA.

July 19, 2009 - I have uploaded the fifth release in the WiFi Radar v2.0 stable series. This release fixes bugs 15972 and 15973, as well as other bugs I found while fixing those. Most importantly, WPA seems to work reliably (YMMV) in a similar way to how WPA worked in v1.9.9. I am very interested in reports that WPA connections are not working with this release.

July 15, 2009 - I have opened WR v2.1 development to begin working on the items in the ROADMAP. This development branch is currently only one commit different from the HEAD of the v2.0.x branch. Both can be viewed at the WiFi Radar gitweb interface.

Due to the low quality of the releases I have made since the first stable release of WR v2.0, I will be concentrating on cleaning up problems in the last three releases. I hope to release another stable version this weekend with fixes for console logging, weird behavior when switching between roaming/normal modes, and WPA (apparently, this never has worked in v2.0).

July 6, 2009 - I have released the fourth stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release fixes a critical bug I introduced in WR v2.0.s03. Please do not use v2.0.s03.

July 6, 2009 - I have released the third stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release fixes several bugs (15963 and 15964) found on launchpad.net. The addition of a "How To Report A Bug" document (i.e. docs/BUGS) and a rewrite of the wifi-radar.conf.5 man page are the largest of many changes in documentation.

June 28, 2009 - I have removed the forums from the project site, since these are not being used.

June 14, 2009 - I have pushed back the start of development on the v2.1 branch until mid-July and updated the ROADMAP. I have, also, published the current results of the Feature Survey so everyone knows what users are telling me is important.

June 5, 2009 - The first distribution package for WiFi Radar v2.0 (that I know about) is available for Arch Linux

June 2, 2009 - I have released the second stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release fixes several bugs (15785 and 15787) reported by Andrea Scarpino for Arch Linux.

May 21, 2009 - After more than two months of public development (but with 14 months of private work before that), I have released the first stable version of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release has Python optimization turned on and the default logging level increased to be almost silent. It includes some small bug fixes and documentation updates, also. The User Manual on the WiFi Radar wiki has been expanded with screenshots and internal links to make it more usable and informative.

May 8, 2009 - I have released the eighth beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release fixes a bug with auto-detecting the NIC to use to connect. And there is now a wiki for WiFi Radar to facilitate others directly contributing to support documentation, including the new User Manual.

May 1, 2009 - I have released the seventh beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. This release fixes the last few UI bugs of which I knew and completes rudimentary roaming support. Beta 7 is a feature complete version with no known bugs. In fact, absent any bug reports from users, this is the version that will be released as stable. So, hopefully, I can just write user documentation for the next two weeks and release this as the first stable version. But, since that is unlikely, please report any bugs you find to the bug manager, the mailing list, or me.

April 20, 2009 - I released the previous version without sufficient testing after some repo confusion and there were enough bugs to make the roaming support unusable. So, less than twenty-four hours later, I am releasing the sixth beta version of WiFi Radar 2.0. This fixes the aforementioned roaming bugs and an additional UI glitch.

April 19, 2009 - I have released the fifth beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. This version catches more errors safely, removes some unused code, reworks some GUI elements, changes some inter-thread signaling, and adds the beginnings of roaming support.

Roaming support means that in a single network operating through multiple access points (APs), you do not have to track individual APs. WiFi Radar lets the user lump all APs advertising the same network name into one profile. The WNIC driver is supposed to handle switching between these master mode APs, after association, based on signal strength; but how is the first AP chosen? WiFi Radar currently uses the last seen AP, but will eventually choose the strongest signal AP (once I find a good, reliable algorithm for this).

I have also put up a survey asking what features users find most important in WiFi Radar.

April 12, 2009 - Just a quick note to let the small audience of interested developers know that I have checked in the basis for roaming profiles. The version at HEAD does not work, but it should just be a matter of fixing bugs within the framework now in place.

April 2, 2009 - I have released the fourth beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. This version fixes one bug (set WNIC mode on connect), resolves a deprecation warning, adds more tooltips, adds a centralized log facility, adds a log file, and updates docs.

Only two more features are planned for this series: an alternative card set-up method from Roy Wood and a roaming interface. With these added soon and leaving a couple weeks for bug testing only, my June 1 deadline for 2.0.s01 still seems likely.

March 27, 2009 - I have released the third beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. This version fixes two minor bugs: 1) save new profile order when user drags-and-drops profile; 2) alert and stop user from saving profile with an empty ESSID. Development is proceeding well and, unless I get bug reports to work on from users, a stable release is likely within the next 2-3 weeks.

March 22, 2009 - I've put up a redesigned web site that hopefully will be easier to navigate considering the potential amount of information to be included.

I have removed the survey link from the previous news post as it required a berliOS.de login. I will look for a site which will allow anonymous surveys and re-post it. If anyone knows of such a site, please share the info <seankrobinson@gmail.com>.

March 20, 2009 - New version, new web site, new configuration file format, new maintainer, and new bugs galore!

I've released the first beta of WiFi Radar v2.0. There are some small user interface changes that show more information to users. And, of course, this new web site at berliOS.de, where I want to use many of the project management features, including the user forums, the patch manager, document manager, and the hosted GIT repository. This new version also makes drastic changes to the configuration file format: it stores more information (e.g. DHCP client and WPA Supplicant options) and allows string interpolation using other configuration options. With me, Sean Robinson, as the new maintainer and enough changes in the code that new and exciting bugs are guaranteed, I still hope to have a stable v2.0 release before June 1, 2009.

I am seeking feedback on what feature(s) users find most important in WiFi Radar. You can let me know by email to me or the list, or fill in the survey I have set up for this.