Dim Background Screen with Rainmeter and Omnimo

[madura]

There might already be an alternate way to do this. Please let me know.

Download Rainmeter (currently v. 2.5)
http://rainmeter.net/cms/

Download Omnimo (currently v. 5)
http://omnimo.info/
and from the Add-ons page, download the Full 65+ pack

Right-click on an existing skin and click Manage Skin or right-click on the Rainmeter icon in the icon tray and click Manage. Under the Skins, tab, find the following skin:

WP7\Background\bg.ini and double-click to load it. (This is a gradient, I am aware, but it will be changed in a bit.)

Optional: Move your mouse to hover over the top-left corner of the screen. The background peels away to show a wrench icon. Click it to open the Configure menu. Select EnableBlur. Change the value at the bottom from 1 to 0 to disable the blur. Click Set and close menu. Hint: Do this first. If you want to do it later, make sure that the skin is NOT set on Click through.

In the Manage Rainmeter window, still on the bg.ini skin, check the box for Click through and hit the Refresh button. This is good if the taskbar is set on auto-hide and it lets you right-click the desktop.

Load the following skin by double-clicking:
WP7\Panels\BGopacity\BGopacity.ini

Change the settings for the skin to Transparency: 90% AND On hover: Fade in.
Drag the skin to an unobtrusive place on the desktop. (I used the bottom-right corner.)

This skin allows you to change the transparency of bg.ini, change/reverse the gradient as well as toggle the skin on and off. Toggle is in the bottom-right corner of the panel.

To remove the gradient and make it a solid background, right click on one of the squares of black/white/gray on the skin and then left-click on the same square. Both top and bottom should be the same color.

The bg.ini skin loads with Position: Bottom. You should generally be able to see the rest of your Rainmeter skins as well as other desktop applications (eg. XWindowsDock) and any windows through it.

If you want the windows undimmed, but all other desktop paraphernalia (other skins, apps, etc.) along with the desktop covered by the bg.ini skin, in the Manager, first select Click through and then set the Position: Normal. Click on the window(s), you want undimmed et voila. If you click on a skin or app, it won't be dimmed anymore. You can change the positions of your other active skins to Bottom so they'll stay dimmed even if you click them.

If you want to dim the entire screen, select Click through, then set Position: Stay topmost.

If you ever gets too dark for whatever reason: If you're not on click through, just right-click the background, select Settings>Postion>Bottom or Unload Skin. If you set bg.ini to click through, you can still guess where the BGopacity panel is and click something.

Please let me know if there's some extra tweak or something. I'm always searching.