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Desktopworkarea (refresh help)

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Yincognito
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Re: Desktopworkarea (refresh help)

Post by Yincognito »

Cariboudjan wrote: November 26th, 2020, 2:40 pmProbably. This would be ideal but I'm not quite there yet. I don't know how to make Rainmeter plugins. I've been looking for someone to help me with that with no luck yet.
Ah, I see - me neither, although I know for sure that if I really had a very strong reason to make one, I would manage to get it done. It's all about motivation and "mood" for me in these things, though technically since I only have the now defunct SharpDevelop 5.1 I'm not sure it would be enough of an environment for a plugin. There's also a bit of laziness involved, so it's ok, no rush. Just let me know if you ever manage to do it.
Cariboudjan wrote: November 26th, 2020, 2:40 pmTo reserve 50 pixels of space at the top of the screen, the command would be:

"Droptop Rainmeter.exe" 50

It will only accept one command on its initial open and not change after that (another thing I'd like to change if it becomes a plugin at some point), so if you want to change the size from 50 to 100, you would need to taskkill first.

taskkill /f /im "droptop rainmeter.exe"
Oh WOW! :great:
Thanks, that's helpful, I managed to do it, tested a game and the change was persistent. However, simply killing the process using Task Manager or taskkill.exe didn't restore things the way they were - I had to kill it, run it again with "Droptop Rainmeter.exe" 0, then kill it again. It's not that much of an issue though, as these things are very fast and would be done on an automatic basis (e.g. script or through Rainmeter's RunCommand, maybe even directly in a bang, if possible, like ["Droptop Rainmeter.exe" "50"], or the similar bang using the executable's path). Anyway, it works nicely, if I'm not mistaken you can even "toggle" between "0" and "50" by pressing UP, DOWN, LEFT or RIGHT keys on the keyboard on the application's initial run?! I even managed to reserve space on the right of the screen somehow, but did it using the keys above. Is it possible to choose the "side" you want to reserve space through parameters?

Excellent program! Congratulations for making it and looking forward to see how and if it evolves! :thumbup:
Cariboudjan wrote: November 26th, 2020, 2:40 pmI highly suggest you try Droptop if at all possible just to see how it works. I'm surprised you haven't tried it yet. You are in the credits, after all...

Screenshot 2020-11-26 075959.png
I am?! :jawdrop
What for? While trying to help you in your posts I was always left with the feeling that what I suggested or tried wasn't quite enough. :confused: I'm glad it helped you though - I might try the whole skin these days, I'll keep that in mind. ;-)
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Cariboudjan
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Re: Desktopworkarea (refresh help)

Post by Cariboudjan »

Yincognito wrote: November 26th, 2020, 6:13 pmIs it possible to choose the "side" you want to reserve space through parameters?
It's not supposed to be. The code was only ever made to affect the top. Though the source code is all included in the rmskin so it would be easy for someone to modify that.

Not sure how you managed to get it to reserve space on the side. 🤔

I've been looking for someone willing to do the work to create a plugin for $150 USD but I don't think anyone takes me seriously. Also I can't guarantee that the method I'm using will even work as a plugin. The method I use generates a separate invisible window using winforms. Not sure if Rainmeter plugins can create windows. And if a plugin is less effective at retaining the reservation than the separate app I would rather keep the EXE. I have never seen my EXE fail or stop working. It's extremely effective.

It's worth my money to pay someone to do it for me who already has the knowledge since it would probably take me more than $150 in time I could otherwise spend working at my actual job to do it. (Hey, that's how the economy works after all)
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Yincognito
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Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
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Re: Desktopworkarea (refresh help)

Post by Yincognito »

Cariboudjan wrote: December 1st, 2020, 6:34 pm It's not supposed to be. The code was only ever made to affect the top. Though the source code is all included in the rmskin so it would be easy for someone to modify that.

Not sure how you managed to get it to reserve space on the side. 🤔

I've been looking for someone willing to do the work to create a plugin for $150 USD but I don't think anyone takes me seriously. Also I can't guarantee that the method I'm using will even work as a plugin. The method I use generates a separate invisible window using winforms. Not sure if Rainmeter plugins can create windows. And if a plugin is less effective at retaining the reservation than the separate app I would rather keep the EXE. I have never seen my EXE fail or stop working. It's extremely effective.

It's worth my money to pay someone to do it for me who already has the knowledge since it would probably take me more than $150 in time I could otherwise spend working at my actual job to do it. (Hey, that's how the economy works after all)
I see. Generally, the best guy to make a plugin would be the author of the related EXE, since he knows all the ins and outs of the approach he used. I suspected the approach is all about forms and I share your doubts regarding the direct ability of a plugin to create forms. However, I also think it could be done indirectly using an ExecuteBang, to run the EXE. Obviously, this is seriously redundant, as it doesn't really get rid of the need to have an EXE actually doing these things, but at least it's a way to achieve the goal (there might be others that I don't know of, or maybe plugins can create winforms, after all - I have no idea). I could tackle the issue just for the challenge, but it's been a while since I wrote C# code (not to mention never writing a Rainmeter plugin), so it could take longer than for someone already familiar with it due to regular use.

EDIT: After a quick search, it seems there is a plugin that can create forms, see RainForms plugin by SnGmng, so I suppose it can be done. You can check the plugin's behavior and of course the plugin's source code to see how it's done and if the approach can be adapted to your specific case (I reckon the process won't need all those string property readings from that plugin, so the code could be simplified to suit this particular case). Maybe you can even contact the author through a PM and ask for some direction in how to achieve a "simple" (as in hardcoded) winform creation with such invisible properties...

Regarding reserving space on the sides (only to the right, as far as I could see - didn't let the setting persist, it was just an observation), I simply ran the EXE with the parameter you mentioned (through CMD), and immediately after execution I pressed the arrow keys (e.g. LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN) and noticed that it "toggled" between reserving space at the top and reserving it on the right on each arrow key press. It should be fairly easy to replicate. I don't know if that's intentional or some side effect of the code (maybe the form can be "controlled" this way in the initial phase, while it still has focus?), but it was interesting to see nevertheless.
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