Rainmeter Crashing - Skin offscreen + Chameleon

[ms310]

I have a skin that uses Chameleon to sample the color directly beneath the skin. I have a giant monitor at work. I place the skin using the layout function in Rainmeter to be in the lower-left corner of the screen. When I place the skin in this corner on my giant monitor, shut down, and restart my laptop with its smaller screen Rainmeter crashes out.

I realize the skin is "off-screen" and the Chameleon plugin must be getting bad values.

My question - I DO have the option checked to "keep on screen" - so I think what might be happening (all wild speculation) is that as soon as Rainmeter loads the skin is off-screen for just enough cycles for the chameleon plugin to try and read the background and it crashes. I notice that other skins will be piled up in the left corner of the screen when I switch from the monitor to my laptop screen.

Does my scenario make sense? Should I put an initial "delay" in or something prior to Chameleon reading the background?

Thanks for any help you can provide. The monitor I have is 3840x1600 and my laptop is 1920x1280 - so the resolution is quite different.

[SilverAzide]

Set the skin position to be relative to the right side of the screen. Right-click the skin, select Settings > Position > From Right. Now when switching resolutions, the skin will be positioned properly.

[ms310]

Hi - thanks for the reply.

The skin is still going beneath the bottom edge of the screen. I see the skin flash to the bottom of the screen and then it disappears - I assume it is going below the bottom edge.

I tried setting the flag to BOTTOM in Settings > Position > From Bottom but no dice.

[eclectic-tech]

Hi - thanks for the reply.

The skin is still going beneath the bottom edge of the screen. I see the skin flash to the bottom of the screen and then it disappears - I assume it is going below the bottom edge.

I tried setting the flag to BOTTOM in Settings > Position > From Bottom but no dice.

You can try to have your Chameleon 'Desktop' measure disabled, then use OnRefreshAction that enables it after a defined delay (say 5 seconds).

Code: Select all

OnRefreshAction=[!Delay 5000][!EnableMeasure MeasureChameleonDesktop][!UpdateMeasure MeasureChameleonDesktop]

I have had the plugin crash when using it on visualizer skins and my only solution is to set ContextAwareColors=0 on my 'Desktop' measure; the entire desktop is sampled, but that is close enough in color for me.

[ms310]

You can try to have your Chameleon 'Desktop' measure disabled, then use OnRefreshAction that enables it after a defined delay (say 5 seconds).

Code: Select all

OnRefreshAction=[!Delay 5000][!EnableMeasure MeasureChameleonDesktop][!UpdateMeasure MeasureChameleonDesktop]

I have had the plugin crash when using it on visualizer skins and my only solution is to set ContextAwareColors=0 on my 'Desktop' measure; the entire desktop is sampled, but that is close enough in color for me.

Thanks - I think the problem is the skin is moving way off-screen and I don't know why. Your MakeItRain skin icon stays locked in the bottom left corner of my screen no matter what resolution I use, but my skin flashes into the corner upon resolution change then instantly the sklin flashes OFF the screen. I will try to investigate your MaekItRain skin to see if there is something I can change.

I tried to play with the AnchorY in the Rainmeter settings but I couldn't prevent my skin from going off-screen.

[ms310]

I have found a solution that works for me, mostly.

In the Rainmeter.ini file for my skin I have added the following:

Code: Select all

WindowX=(#WORKAREAX#)
WindowY=(#WORKAREAY# + (#WORKAREAHEIGHT# - 160))

Observations - this mostly works. If I change the resolution manually - say on my big monitor I got from 3840x1600 to 1440x900 manually Rainmeter will crash - it moves off-screen and I suspect the Chameleon plugin is trying to read the background offscreen. This is not a big deal, just an observation - I do NOT need to do this manually, I just hoped the code above would react to the new resolution and position the skin appropriately.

If I unplug the monitor and switch to the smaller resolutions laptop screen the skin will position itself appropriately. If I plug the monitor back in the skin moves to the correct spot. So this strategy is working.