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Concept · Herald
What each of the Herald's variants follows
Where the Gamer, General purpose, Financial guru and PC caretaker variants get their news, what counts as news and as relevant in each, and the settings that change them.
- Article
- 2102
- Applies to
- Herald 0.8.21
- Last reviewed
- For
- For everyone
Gamer#
Your games: the games installed by Steam, Epic Games, the EA app, Ubisoft Connect, GOG, Battle.net, Riot Games and Xbox, and any other launcher's games folder you add. Tools, DLC and anti-cheat are left out.
Their patch notes come from the game's news on Steam, GOG's own changelog for a GOG game, or a Steam app id or feed you give it under Games you add. A game sold elsewhere that's also on Steam's store, by exactly its name, gets Steam's notes. Patch notes are news; a game's other announcements (events, sales) are listed quietly.
The launchers' own updates: a new version installed is news. Steam's come with their notes.
Graphics drivers: your card's installed driver changing is news. For an NVIDIA card, so is NVIDIA's newest Game Ready driver, with its highlights and whether you have it yet. AMD, Intel and Qualcomm publish no list a program can read, so for their cards only the installed driver is watched.
Relevant: patch notes for a game played on this PC in the last 30 days, and drivers for your card.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Games | Patch notes only; 30 days; none left out | Only patch notes are news; played within this many days is relevant; games to leave alone. |
| Graphics drivers | On | Watch your card's driver, and NVIDIA's newest. |
| Launchers (Advanced) | All, on | Which launchers to look in, and their own updates. |
| Other launchers (Advanced) | None | A launcher the Herald doesn't know: its name, games folder and notes feed. |
| Games you add (Advanced) | None | A game it didn't find, or a found game's notes from elsewhere. |
General purpose#
The weather: now and for three days, for the place you type, or where Windows' location puts this PC. Only the place is sent, rounded to about a kilometre. In the US, the National Weather Service's warnings are news; everywhere, so are the Herald's own heads-ups from the forecast: thunderstorms, heavy rain or snow, strong winds, great heat or cold. Severe warnings are relevant.
Local news, for the weather's place, and your News sources (NPR News and BBC News: World to begin with). Each source's newest 8 a round are news.
Stocks: the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq to begin with. A day's move of 3% or more, the price crossing one you set, or a new 52-week high or low, are relevant alerts. Quotes are delayed, as every free quote is.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Weather | On; Windows' place; alerts on | A town, city or postcode, in place of Windows' location. |
| News | Local on; 8 | Local news, and how many of each source's newest are news. |
| News sources | NPR News, BBC News: World | Each a web address, with a name. |
| Stocks to follow | ^GSPC, ^DJI, ^IXIC | Symbols as Yahoo Finance writes them (MSFT, BTC-USD, VOD.L), each with its own move and prices to alert at. |
| Stock alerts | 3% | The day's move that's an alert, for stocks without their own. |
Financial guru#
Stocks, as in General purpose, with each stock's headlines; and financial news from Yahoo Finance, CNBC and MarketWatch to begin with.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks to follow, Stock alerts | As above | As above; the headlines can be turned off. |
| Financial news sources | Yahoo Finance, CNBC: Top News, MarketWatch: Top Stories | Each a web address, with a name. |
PC caretaker#
It only reads: it never installs, updates or changes anything.
- Installed apps: an app's new version. Runtimes and such are listed quietly.
- Updates available: what Windows' package manager (winget) offers, with its release notes. Relevant when the notes speak of security.
- Windows: a new build, and each update installed, with its page. A failed update is relevant.
- Firmware: a new BIOS version, relevant.
- Graphics drivers, as for the Gamer.
- Exploited security flaws: a new entry in the US government's (CISA's) list of flaws known to be used by attackers, for software on this PC. Relevant. It's matched by name, not version: it says the software is affected in some version. Keeping it updated is what fixes it.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| What to watch | All on; none left out | Each of the above, and apps to leave alone. |
| Graphics drivers | On | As for the Gamer. |
Every variant#
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Variant | Gamer | Which of the four. |
| Keywords | None | Words that make an item relevant, matched case for case. |
| Other feeds | None | Any news feed (RSS or Atom), with a name, Quiet unless relevant, and a note. |
| Plain-words notes | On | Summaries of long notes, by the local AI. |
| A round every (Advanced) | The variant's own | An hour to a week. |
| Model calls per round (Advanced) | 6 | Summaries a round, at most 6. |
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Still stuck? Write to support@castellan-software.com and mention article 2102. Every version of Herald, and what changed in it, is in its release notes.