icons tend to change position

[arthur7227]

the position of several installed lightweight skins – like digital clock or weather info – is permanently changing on the screen. not dramatically but significally enough to be noticed, so I constantly have to re-adjust its position by H and W. moreover, when I click again on settings, it says that the Skin (digital clock) keeps the same previously entered coordinates!!, so I have to enter new numbers, like changing H from 800 to 820, to move it back to desired position that used to have those 800 !!! "save position" option is enabled, dragging is disabled. (but it also happens with reversed settings anyway) . please any suggestions to fix it ?

[balala]

the position of several installed lightweight skins – like digital clock or weather info – is permanently changing on the screen. not dramatically but significally enough to be noticed, so I constantly have to re-adjust its position by H and W. moreover, when I click again on settings, it says that the Skin (digital clock) keeps the same previously entered coordinates!!, so I have to enter new numbers, like changing H from 800 to 820, to move it back to desired position that used to have those 800 !!! "save position" option is enabled, dragging is disabled. (but it also happens with reversed settings anyway) . please any suggestions to fix it ?

Well, here are a lot of information which are extremely hard to deal with. For now, I suppose, I can say, I have some experience with Rainmeter, but I never, but NEVER encountered such behavior with Rainmeter skins, so it is extremely weird for me you did.
So first question from my point of view, is when those skins are moving? Please be precise: what you exactly do, when the skins are moving? For instance, are they moving when you resume you computer after it is slept / hibernated, or just so, or...?

[arthur7227]

Well, here are a lot of information which are extremely hard to deal with. For now, I suppose, I can say, I have some experience with Rainmeter, but I never, but NEVER encountered such behavior with Rainmeter skins, so it is extremely weird for me you did.
So first question from my point of view, is when those skins are moving? Please be precise: what you exactly do, when the skins are moving? For instance, are they moving when you resume you computer after it is slept / hibernated, or just so, or...?

hi, balala, thanks for your reply. well, I tried to find some algorythm of that, i thought maybe when I launch and close programs smth refreshes, maybe this is a badly composed skin, but whatever I do there happens next: if I close any app and go to desktop, it takes about 1 second (which is significally visiable) for the digital clock skin to appear, and when it appers, the position is slightly different. maybe there is smth simple that I cant catch , but I think this is connected to refreshing


here is what I ve just managed to capture to show (i also edited the pics to show what exactly changes). .

[balala]

hi, balala, thanks for your reply. well, I tried to find some algorythm of that, i thought maybe when I launch and close programs smth refreshes, maybe this is a badly composed skin, but whatever I do there happens next: if I close any app and go to desktop, it takes about 1 second (which is significally visiable) for the digital clock skin to appear, and when it appers, the position is slightly different. maybe there is smth simple that I cant catch , but I think this is connected to refreshing

Please pack those two skins (I suppose there are two skins, the digital and classic clock) and upload the package, to can check.

[arthur7227]

Please pack those two skins

some typical types of a clock, downloaded from deviantart

I packed this from "Skins" folder

https://fex.net/ru/s/bksrboo

[balala]

some typical types of a clock, downloaded from deviantart

No, the skins are not moving, no matter what I close. Is there anyone who see a similar movement of the skins?

[jsmorley]

Nope..

[Yincognito]

hi, balala, thanks for your reply. well, I tried to find some algorythm of that, i thought maybe when I launch and close programs smth refreshes, maybe this is a badly composed skin, but whatever I do there happens next: if I close any app and go to desktop, it takes about 1 second (which is significally visiable) for the digital clock skin to appear, and when it appers, the position is slightly different. maybe there is smth simple that I cant catch , but I think this is connected to refreshing

It's not a bug, and neither a badly designed skin. In my view (anyone correct me if I'm mistaken), this is because the [Clock] meter in Clock_bigsize.ini you took a screenshot of, despite being positioned at hardcoded coordinates (200, 75 in the original code), has its StringAlign=CenterCenter. This means that for proportional fonts (like most of them are), different numbers in the digital clock text will produce different starting positions for the text. Your example shows 22:24 and 22:31. Now I don't know about the difference in width between 2 and 3, but there is certainly a significant difference in width between 4 and 1 in a proportional font, and that difference obviously increases proportionally with the size of the font being used.

So there you go, this is why it happens. I bet that if you change to a monospaced font (like Consolas or Courier New) you won't experience those "positional changes" ... which are actually just the normal process of horizontally centering the text of a proportional font in relation to a fixed anchor at 200px in the skin. One more thing: it's not the "icon" (i.e. the analog clock image) that's "changing position", it's the text from the digital clock.

[arthur7227]

has its StringAlign=CenterCenter. This means that for proportional fonts (like most of them are), different numbers in the digital clock text will produce different starting positions for the text. Your example shows 22:24 and 22:31. Now I don't know about the difference in width between 2 and 3, but there is certainly a significant difference in width between 4 and 1 in a proportional font, and that difference obviously increases proportionally with the size of the font being used.

So there you go, this is why it happens. I bet that if you change to a monospaced font (like Consolas or Courier New) you won't experience those "positional changes" ... which are actually just the normal process of horizontally centering the text of a proportional font in relation to a fixed anchor at 200px in the skin.

Hello, Yincognito, thanks for your comment, it s true what you said about StringAlign CenterCenter and this is actually same that I found googling. What do you think if I can manage to save the initial font but solve its moving issue by changing , for instance, StringAlign to CenterRight ? would that somehow help ? or maybe it is possible to deal with the text align directly in editor?
thanks

[Yincognito]

Hello, Yincognito, thanks for your comment, it s true what you said about StringAlign CenterCenter and this is actually same that I found googling. What do you think if I can manage to save the initial font but solve its moving issue by changing , for instance, StringAlign to CenterRight ? would that somehow help ? or maybe it is possible to deal with the text align directly in editor?
thanks

Well, to be clear: the skin is not moving, as far as I could tell, since a W (width) of 400 px should be enough to fit the digital clock text even at 70 points font size, but the text itself is. This being clarified, there is no such thing as CenterRight alignment, there is only RightCenter (i.e. right horizontally, center vertically). If you apply that, the right side of the text won't move (since it's the side where the anchor is), but the left side will (simply because the width of the text is continuously changing from digit to digit) - same, but inverse, for applying left alignment. Plus, right alignment works best if there is something like a left aligned "label" in front of the right aligned text, to keep the appearance of "order" / "structure".

But I get what you mean: you want to reasonably "fix" / workaround the issue without changing the font. One idea would be to only keep the colon (:) centered, and Right align the hour number to the left of the colon, and Left align the minute number to the right of the colon. This way, despite the entire text having a dynamic width and such, the colon would act like a "stabilizing factor", giving the visual impression of things beng relatively static. Or, you can have the colon centered and right align both the hour and the minute, one to the left of the colon and the other to the right.

Other than that, what you can do is try to find a proportional font where digits have the same width. Of course, that also involves changing the font, but at least you don't necessarily have to use monospaced ones.