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My First Skin

Skins that monitor system information
bprichar
Posts: 12
Joined: December 11th, 2013, 9:14 pm

My First Skin

Post by bprichar »

This is really kind of a bare bones skin, but it is my first one, so I thought I'd share and get some feed-back.

There are still some things I'd like to do to it (like set it up so as to be easier to change the color scheme) but everything is at least working properly (as far as I can tell).

I've got it up on my github site https://github.com/bprichar/Rainmeter-Monitor
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exper1mental
Posts: 269
Joined: January 9th, 2013, 7:52 pm
Location: Clemson University

Re: My First Skin

Post by exper1mental »

You could make it a lot more easier for people to get the skin by opening the Manage rainmeter window and creating a .rmskin with your skin's folder included. Once that is done, edit your post and upload the attachment. ;-)
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bprichar
Posts: 12
Joined: December 11th, 2013, 9:14 pm

Re: My First Skin

Post by bprichar »

Yeah, sorry about that exper1mental. I've attached the skin package to this reply.

If you like where I'm going with it, and want to make suggestions, feel free to submit a feature request/bug report on my github page. And if you want to keep up with my development cloning the repo will be the best way.
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exper1mental
Posts: 269
Joined: January 9th, 2013, 7:52 pm
Location: Clemson University

Re: My First Skin

Post by exper1mental »

Your skin runs fine except for this one error:
Monitor\Memory\Memory.ini | Formula: Unmatched brackets in key "RotationAngle" in [MeterSWAPCircle]

Other than that your skin runs bug free.

Note: General speaking when SWAP is displayed RAM is not subtracted from it. SWAP minus RAM would be the Hard Drive/Solid State space converted into RAM by the system.


CPU Temp doesn't work for b/c I don't have the external program that has to be running for the plugin CoreTemp to work. I use SpeedFan and the SpeedFanPlugin b/c it displays more information above overall system temperatures. My suggestion is that you tell people for the CPU temp to work they need that program and that when CPU temp is equal to 0, the text displaying CPU temp is hidden.

You can make the graphs in MeterCPULine look WAY better by adding AntiAlias=1. Antialias basically "softens" lines, curves, strings, images and what not so they look pretty.


I am using the eight-core CPU meter (technically its 4 hyper threaded cores but to the system its registered as 8 cores) and graphing all 8 CPUs at the same time in addition to the overall CPU usage creates a graphical mess for me.

I have two different ideas of how to possibly fix this:
Option One - Buttons
I suggest adding !LeftMouseUpAction buttons to view the information for individual cores usage and also the overall usage. If you use the !HideMeter and !ShowMeter or !HideMeterGroup and !ShowMeterGroup bangs it will allow the line graphs to be running in the background undisplayed so when the user switches over to them it won't reset the line graph information.


Option Two - Mini-Graphs
The other idea I have is to add smaller graphs on which the individual core usage would be displayed. This would probably not be as compact but all the information would still be viewable at once.



One more suggestion, consider letting people open the folder or program related to the information being clicked.

i.e. by clicking the C: button in the drive skin, one could then open the C:\ folder in windows explorer.

RAM/SWAP should open Task Manager or Resource Monitor
CPU should open Task Manager or maybe Resource Monitor
Top Process obviously should open Task Manager
Clock if anything should open windows time settings (requires a special shortcut)
Network should open Control Panel Network and Sharing Center or in Windows 8.X the Networks Flyout (both require a CLSID/GUID shortcut to be opened)
Battery should open Control Panel Power Settings (another CLSID/GUID shortcut is required)

Here are two lists of CLSID/GUID shortcuts if your interested (first link also explains how to use them):
EightForums CLSID Key GUID Shortcut List
KNOWFOLDERID/GUID Shortcut List
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lysy1993lbn
Posts: 291
Joined: July 25th, 2011, 9:53 am
Location: Lublin, Poland

Re: My First Skin

Post by lysy1993lbn »

Screenshot?
"Never argue with an idiot, he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
my deviantART | Alternative Rainmeter tray icons
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MerlinTheRed
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 889
Joined: September 6th, 2011, 6:34 am

Re: My First Skin

Post by MerlinTheRed »

You can add .rmskin files at GitHub as attachments to a release. Just tag a commit. You can then edit it on the GitHub page and add a binary file people can download.
Have more fun creating skins with Sublime Text 2 and the Rainmeter Package!
bprichar
Posts: 12
Joined: December 11th, 2013, 9:14 pm

Re: My First Skin

Post by bprichar »

Note: General speaking when SWAP is displayed RAM is not subtracted from it. SWAP minus RAM would be the Hard Drive/Solid State space converted into RAM by the system.
I'm slightly more familiar with Linux's terminology on this, but Linux considers the SWAP space to only be the space carved out on the hard drive. Maybe Windows just uses the terminology slightly different.

I appreciate all the suggestions though, and depending on my free-time I'll start implementing a lot of them soon.
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Grim
Posts: 56
Joined: February 5th, 2014, 3:44 pm
Location: Canada

Re: My First Skin

Post by Grim »

lysy1993lbn wrote:Screenshot?
Seconded...
:)
bprichar
Posts: 12
Joined: December 11th, 2013, 9:14 pm

Re: My First Skin

Post by bprichar »

Sorry guys.

Here's a screenshot.
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