NewSkin

[jsmorley]

I find myself often creating a new skin in Rainmeter, to test something, or just to try out some code someone posts.

It is a bit of a chore today to create a new skin, as you have to go to My Documents\Rainmeter\Skins in Explorer, create a new folder, then enter that folder, create a new text file with the .ini extension, and create the @Resources folder if you are going to be using that. Then you have to open Manage or use the Rainmeter context menu to do a full refresh of Rainmeter, then you are ready to open the .ini file in your editor and get to work.

That was a lot of steps for me, so I created a little AutoIt application that will do it all for you with one click.

Get this:

NewSkin.zip

Extract it anywhere. When you run it, you will get a little dialog:

NewSkin.jpg

Just enter the name of the skin you want to create. It will do the following:

1) Create the root level skin folder under Skins\.
2) Create the @Resources folder under that.
3) Create a simple template .ini file in the folder:

NewSkin2.jpg

4) Refresh Rainmeter so it will "see" the new skin.
5) If the checkboxes are selected, it will open the .ini file in your defined text editor, open the config folder in Windows Explorer, and / or open Manage so you can start working from there.

Note: If there is a file "NewSkin.template" in the same folder with NewSkin.exe, this text file will be used as the template when creating the new skin .ini file. If it is not there, then a simple built-in template will be used. I have included a sample NewSkin.template with the .zip, be sure to either edit it or delete it as you like.

Let me know if anyone finds any problems with this. It should run from any location on your system and work with either regular or "portable" Rainmeter.

[Matt]

This is currently untested with Windows XP...

Works beautifully on this crusty ol' XP system.

[KreAch3R]

It works here, too (Win7 English Ultimate 64bit), and it's perfect. Now you have to add it as a little button in "Manage", so that I don't have to dig inside my files to locate it every time.

[Brian]

It works here, too (Win7 English Ultimate 64bit), and it's perfect. Now you have to add it as a little button in "Manage", so that I don't have to dig inside my files to locate it every time.

This won't make it into 2.3.......as for the future...who knows?

-Brian

[KreAch3R]

This won't make it into 2.3.......as for the future...who knows?

-Brian

I know, it's too late and, besides the idea, it still has to be written from scratch (since now it's in AutoIt format). Consider it a suggestion.

[AlC]

Aaawhhhh, perfect, perfect ! Thanks for this jsmorley !

(It sounds good to have a button in Manage like "Create empty Skin..." under the "Create rmskin package...")

[KreAch3R]

Could you include a checkbox that says "Open skin's folder"?

[MerlinTheRed]

Hey, never saw this thread before. So many new ideas to incorporate into the sublime text package

[Angel25]

I'm using Rainmeter v2.40 r1678 in portable mode (Drive D currently) on Windows XP SP3
When I launch NewSkin.exe it presents a popup window titled "NewSkin Error" which states
"Unable to read SKINPATH from Rainmeter.ini".
I've tried running NewSkin.exe from different directories and or drives, including Rainmeter directory, and same error.


Is this because it runs for Rainmeter v2.3.x?

Thank you
Sounds like a nice little tool

[jsmorley]

I'm using Rainmeter v2.40 r1678 in portable mode (Drive D currently) on Windows XP SP3
When I launch NewSkin.exe it presents a popup window titled "NewSkin Error" which states
"Unable to read SKINPATH from Rainmeter.ini".
I've tried running NewSkin.exe from different directories and or drives, including Rainmeter directory, and same error.


Is this because it runs for Rainmeter v2.3.x?

Thank you
Sounds like a nice little tool

That is strange, as it is not an error that is built into the latest version of NewSkin. Let's be sure you have the most recent version by getting this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4991063/NewSkin.zip