So as of today I have become a Rainmeter user after seeing screenshots of it. Thus far I'm very happy with it and would definitely recommend it to others. My explanation of Rainmeter would be that it is a piece of Open Source software that allows you to install and customise various different add-ons for your desktop background and general UI (taskbar, etc). So I've decided to create this thread in order to give people a place to share themes for Rainmeter that they would/would not recommend. I will reserve another post after this one in order to allow instructions on how to set up Rainmeter for first time users, if people are interested; although it is pretty easy to do. Discuss:
One point of advice, make sure that if you're installing new skins or themes that its an .rmskin or other Rainmeter file type, and not an .exe. They can bring malware with them as you install them, and no legitimate Rainmeter skin is packaged like that. I made that mistake myself and ended up with a Bitcoin mining client installed on my machine.
Yes, I was just about to add this to my original post, I've been reading reports of a few themes that have been uploaded to sites such as DeviantArt with malware attached to them, like you said, they've altered the site so that only .rmskin files can now be uploaded so there should be a reduction in the amount of themes that contain threats. (Hopefully)
If anyone uses the zune software and would like a rainmeter skin with albumart, I figured out a way to get it working. So if anyone's interested I can post instructions here, however it does involve saving a copy of every album cover to a dedicated folder with a consistent naming convention which includes both artist and album names, e.g. [artist] - [album].jpg.
Nice. Installed yesterday. I'm having trouble getting it to see my third HD though, despite having followed the guide to the letter. My Drives go C, D then G. Is it possible to point it to a particular drive? Also, is it possible to add mapped drives from a network?
I tried rainmeter out on ym laptop many years ago. I didn't have enough screen for it to look all that awesome. The novelty wore off. I think I might give it a go on my PC though.
Tried it the other week, and spent about an hour doing it, followed by removing it after thinking it actually looked a bit naff. Having said that, I did try quite a complicated one with stuff all over the place. Might try a simple one at some point
Finding the theme that you like is the pain. I had one previously which had links to key applications I used at the time. Finding one that can replace Taskbar functions in Win7 will be fun. I guess having a drop down menu is the easiest option but why have that when I can have them all in Task bar. Think I will have a closer look over the weekend. But for now battlefield is where I am going.
As far as .rmskins, they are just 'special' .zip. I won't let them autoinstall, ever. I always unpack them and view everything with 7zip first. you have no idea what someone put in them and they can be set to extract to various paths automatically... Heres a simple HDD skin example, with the 3rd set as some special parameters for removable... just change where it says drive=LETTER: to whatever is relevant for your system. You'll probably want to adjust the disk labels and colors etc to your liking, it's fairly easy to follow. I'll try and answer any questions for skins as I have been writing / modifying them since maybe 2003 or so. [Rainmeter] Update=1000 [Variables] Sub="0.0":"удалены" ;************************************* ;# C [MeasureHD0] Measure=FreeDiskSpace InvertMeasure=1 Drive=C: [MeterHDBar0] MeasureName=MeasureHD0 Meter=BAR X=4 Y=19 W=218 H=8 BarOrientation=Horizontal Flip=1 BarColor=33, 33, 33, 255 [MeterCText] Meter=STRING Text="ДИСК C:" X=200 Y=17 StringAlign=RIGHT FontColor=255, 255, 255, 128 FontSize=10 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book AntiAlias=1 [MeterNumberValue0] Meter=String MeasureName=MeasureHD0 X=220 Y=13 StringAlign=RIGHT StringStyle=Normal FontColor=255, 0, 128, 255 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book FontSize=10 AutoScale=1 AntiAlias=1 Text="%1%" Percentual=1 ;************************************* ;# D [MeasureHD1] Measure=FreeDiskSpace InvertMeasure=1 Drive=D: [MeterHDBar1] MeasureName=MeasureHD1 Meter=BAR X=4 Y=48 W=218 H=8 BarOrientation=Horizontal Flip=1 BarColor=33, 33, 33, 255 [MeterDText] Meter=STRING Text="ДИСК D:" X=200 Y=47 StringAlign=RIGHT FontColor=255, 255, 255, 128 FontSize=10 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book AntiAlias=1 [MeterNumberValue1] Meter=String MeasureName=MeasureHD1 X=220 Y=43 StringAlign=RIGHT StringStyle=Normal FontColor=0, 255, 255, 255 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book FontSize=10 AutoScale=1 AntiAlias=1 Text="%1%" Percentual=1 ;************************************* ;# EXt [MeasureHDEXT] Measure=FreeDiskSpace Drive=E: Label=%1 IgnoreRemovable=0 InvertMeasure=1 Substitute=#Sub# UpdateDivider=2 IfBelowValue=1 IfBelowAction=!execute [!RainmeterHideMeter MeasureHDEXT][!RainmeterHideMeter MeterHDBarEXT][!RainmeterHideMeter MeterNumberValueEXT][!RainmeterHideMeter MeterNumberValueEXTB][!RainmeterHideMeter MeterEXTText][!RainmeterRedraw] IfAboveValue=0 IfAboveAction=!execute [!RainmeterShowMeter MeasureHDEXT][!RainmeterShowMeter MeterHDBarEXT][!RainmeterShowMeter MeterNumberValueEXT][!RainmeterShowMeter MeterNumberValueEXTB][!RainmeterShowMeter MeterEXTText][!RainmeterRedraw] [MeterHDBarEXT] MeasureName=MeasureHDEXT Meter=BAR X=4 Y=78 W=218 H=8 BarOrientation=Horizontal Flip=1 BarColor=33, 33, 33, 255 [MeterEXTText] Meter=STRING Text="ДИСК E:" X=200 Y=77 StringAlign=RIGHT FontColor=255, 255, 255, 128 FontSize=10 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book AntiAlias=1 [MeterNumberValueEXT] Meter=String MeasureName=MeasureHDEXT X=220 Y=73 StringAlign=RIGHT StringStyle=Normal FontColor=255, 255, 0, 255 FontFace=AGAvantGardeCyr Book FontSize=10 AntiAlias=1 Autoscale=1 Text="%1%" Percentual=1
I used Sam for quiet a while and liked it. However I recently had problems with it positioning of the skin on start up. It is great if you want complete customizability but it also requires quiet a bit of work to get something that looks good. I recently switched to Rainmeter having tried it briefly before using Samurize. I like Rainmeter because you can get a relatively good looking set up almost instantly. It is a not as intuitive to customise as Sam, but that I guess is the trade off for looks. There also seem to be more skins available for Rainmeter as well. My current desktop. I am using Enigma with Implosion system info.
I really liked Samurize but IIRC somethings on it didn't play well with my system (Win7, multi-monitor, or something else) and I ended up switching to Rainmeter. Havent touched the config in awhile, but I look at the information multiple times a day so I guess it's still providing it's usefulness.
Rainmeter is dead simple once you understand how the syntax works. There is a little learning involved but it's not hard at all really. They keep adding a lot of features recently and there has been several nice new plugins created as well. Functionality and flexibility is definitely leagues from what it was when I started using it years ago. If only someone could make a plugin (and keep it up to date when new hardware is released) that could pull all the hardware and temp info without some other app running in the background...
Samurize has to use Speedfan or MBM also. I think it's a real oversight that Windows WMI does not simply peek into BIOS to get that data.
Indeed it is. I added links to the drives on the Implosion skin in a matter of minutes. Not sure why the creator didn't add them himself. Enigma needs Coretemp to show CPU temperatures.
Probably because those links will be different on every computer. Samurize configs have the same problem: not everything is in exactly the same place on different machines.
Yaay! I was just thinking of starting a thread for rainmeter but decided not to b/c it felt a little self-serving (I'm a skin author) and likely wouldn't catch on. But now someone has already made one. As I mentioned, I publish rainmeter skins with some frequency. Here is my DA page. I installed it over the holidays and within two weeks had written a rather complex skin of my own (a file browser). I'm a CSCI student so I'm already fond of coding, but writing for rainmeter is particularly fun for me b/c of how easy it is to create something cool. Here's a few of the nicer skins I've found (that I didn't make) OrganiC - a tad complex to set up, but it looks darn good. FatLines - a simple system monitor with a task manager button, it tends not to clash with other skins. This is my desktop at the moment (dual monitors, different size) Everything you see is done with rainmeter, and I wrote all but the three skins in the top right. all of which I have personally modified in some way, and have plans to replace with my own creations. If anyone needs any help with setup, modifying a skin or anything I'm glad to help. I'll even consider taking a few skin requests
This one was mine, a modded version of Implosion (Evolutionsic has it above too), although I keep meaning to mess with it again.
