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RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

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_3D_
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RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by _3D_ »

Please watch at 4K or highest res possible.


Best quality link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N6zMbJPjLLuzIRCFzpF1fr2DU-CV9fWp/view (Since there is alot of pixel level detail)

TLDR; Self proclaimed power user, makes a taskbar for himself, finds it useful but gets a bit stuck, asks for help from the community before releasing the skin, which turns out to be for 4K use anyway.

RainTask - A work in progress first skin, a long first post, and my sincerest apologies if Ive broken any rules.

About me:

I have been an independent digital illustrator for some 20 years now, and 3D artist since it was possible, i have also dabbled in graphic graphic design over the years, this project was a fun break from complex 3D model making (the wallpaper in the video is my own work) and made for a great excuse for me to make some 2D pixel 'Art'.

So, I made a somewhat fancy looking taskbar for myself during the lock-down, i ended up putting a huge amount of time in to it, and already find it so useful that i am unable to work without it, so i decide i may as well share it with everyone, or for now at least show it to everyone.

I'm a heavy computer user, and have to constantly move windows around and switch desktops, as well as needing to run a ton of macros, and use docks. Windows has a tendency to cover my docks with windows when moving them around, so i always wanted an easy non intrusive way to control where they are placed, Rainmeter provides me with an easy way to make functional buttons, and this, is extremely useful.

While I have every intention of releasing the skin to the community, it should be known that it will (for now at least) require a 4K monitor (3840x2160px) to function. Also, i have next to no programming experience, i only first installed and began learning Rainmeter at the start of the lock-down. So the code will at best be poorly optimized.

Despite this, I somehow stole integrated the astronomy, calendar and weather modules from Rainformer (made by the awesome xenium, balala, jsmorley, eclectic-tech, raiguard, SilverAzide, and sGzs-pul53dr1v3r) , as well as updating the spacing for 4K and adding very basic skinning support.

I also borrowed some of VirtualDesktop10 (by eclectic-tech) ideas and code, turning some of the buttons from that skin in to screen gestures, something i got used to using very quickly i might add.

My windows install script removes all default apps, and i needed a replacement calculator since that's the only thing i miss from those. I came across the awesome RainCalc skin (by Smurfier) and so added that too, but not before updating some of the button characters, and adding skinning support.

As someone who often works with and renders vastly complex 3D scenes files both on both CPU and GPU, as well as huge particle simulations, it really helps to know what the machine is doing at any given time, since these kind of operations will frequently freeze the machine while in progress. Knowing how much RAM, CPU, GPU, IO is in use at any given moment is an absolute necessity, and so adding meters for those to the bar was one of the first things i did.

There's a lot more Ive done, but i think this post is long enough at this point, also i haven't posted the skin because i'm a bit stuck on a couple of issues, which i am hoping to overcome with some help from this community even though they aren't rainmeter related, they do really need to be overcome before any general release of this skin.

I currently have two fairly big issues:

1) Bringing up the windows system tray, i can get nircmd to bring up the tray window, but it shows up the first time without icons. If i have bought it once normally, or with nexus dock, it draws fine and the icons show from then on until next reboot. So i need a reliable and consistent way to do this and it illudes me.

2) The windows taskbar needs to be disabled for the skin to be placed right, a pretty obvious one, but there's no straightforward way that i can find to do this, that could also be included in the skin.

I wouldn't have done this much work if hadn't already found a solution for myself, i disabled the windows taskbar with nexus dock and also use the same to access the system tray, pretty easy, but the barrier for entry for this skin is already pretty high with it being 4K only, and i don't want to force people to have to install nexus dock too, so i would very much appreciate any help on these issues.

Currently, i'm just finishing up some of the code and adding comments for clarity, gathering credits and links etc, when i release the skin i will also release all related editable Fireworks .png source files for all the buttons and skins etc, under the same license, naturally.

Thanks to everyone here at this community for making this possible, i was here constantly over the last couple of months looking for example code, and i managed to go from noob to show off without needing to ask a single question until now thanks to all your various posts, you guys rock.

Edit 1: Typos.
Edit 2: Found another one, dangit!
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Active Colors
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by Active Colors »

Very nice comprehensive work. Lots of cool features, liked the auto-layout feature :thumbup:
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_3D_
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by _3D_ »

Thank you for the vote of confidence! I'm eager to release this since i know its useful despite its restrictions, i'm just hoping the folks here will see this and help with those two issues i mentioned. If i don't manage to solve them i will likely release it anyway, in the hope that someone can still make use of and improve it.
Yellow on white is seldom a good idea.
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Alex88
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by Alex88 »

About your two concerns:
1. I don't know of a 'proper' solution, but a rough solution would be to use Autohotkey/Autoit/nircmd to make a quick script to press WIN + B then Enter, which sets focus to the "Show hidden icons" arrow and then opens it. If the user happens to be spamming keys during the execution of the script, the commands would be interrupted, but I would guess in that application that shouldn't be too much of a worry.

2. There is the HideTaskbar plugin from jsmorley:
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=128&t=22711&p=119820&hilit=hide+taskbar#p119820
https://github.com/jsmorley/PluginHideTaskbar
My taskbar config is an addition to the normal Windows taskbar, but I did try the plugin a bit and it works great to fully hide the Windows taskbar. From what I remember the Start Menu can still be brought up with WIN without showing the taskbar, and would think is similar for the system tray with WIN+B then Enter.
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deflore08
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by deflore08 »

Wow, great work! :thumbup: Waiting for release, i must touch it!
:Watching:
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_3D_
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by _3D_ »

Alex88, thanks the Hide Taskbar skin by JSMorely works like a charm, i have also solved the open system tray issue with a little utility that was include in another skin!

So now I'm adding some more functions to this to make it easier to customize etc, shouldn't be too long before a first release i don't think. SoonTM :D
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Pokesi
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by Pokesi »

This looks so good!
valachord
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by valachord »

_3D_ wrote: August 21st, 2020, 12:52 am i have also solved the open system tray issue with a little utility that was include in another skin!
Would you mind sharing which one? It might solve my system tray issue as well :)

Also, this looks great, can't wait to try it out once it is finished :thumbup:
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eclectic-tech
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Re: RainTask - (Work In Progress) A taskbar, and more.

Post by eclectic-tech »

valachord wrote: October 1st, 2020, 4:41 pm Would you mind sharing which one? It might solve my system tray issue as well :)
They are using 'traypopup.exe' from RocketDock. Read about it in this thread.