[Feature] Launcher Creator/RSS+

[Yoshimanitsu]

I feel that there should be a Launcher Creator that allows you to better edit all the launchers, plus add some, and an a tool that will auto add them to the launcher menu.
This would include being able to edit the app name, app path, app desc, AND the picture. Then, once your done adding more apps, you simply click something like "Add this to launcher menu"
I've been spending like 3 hours trying to add launchers/apps to the menu and its kind of hard.


This one though, is simply I'd like, because I don't know how to add more then 3 RSS feeds. maybe just something where you put in the address to the RSS feed, and a what you want the header to be, and it would create it!



After all, the golden rule on the internet is "Make it easiest for those who are lazy, or don't succeed in being successful"
Though, I still love the program for everything else.

[jsmorley]

I feel that there should be a Launcher Creator that allows you to better edit all the launchers, plus add some, and an a tool that will auto add them to the launcher menu.
This would include being able to edit the app name, app path, app desc, AND the picture. Then, once your done adding more apps, you simply click something like "Add this to launcher menu"
I've been spending like 3 hours trying to add launchers/apps to the menu and its kind of hard.


This one though, is simply I'd like, because I don't know how to add more then 3 RSS feeds. maybe just something where you put in the address to the RSS feed, and a what you want the header to be, and it would create it!



After all, the golden rule on the internet is "Make it easiest for those who are lazy, or don't succeed in being successful"
Though, I still love the program for everything else.

As one of the folks working on Rainmeter, my personal opinion is that anyone who is too lazy or unable to succeed in figuring out Rainmeter just shouldn't use it. It's not for everyone. We could have built Rainmeter one of two ways. Like a Radio, that you just turn on and change the channels til you find a tune that pleases you, or like a Fender Stratocaster. Takes a while to learn how to use it, and not everyone is ever going to be Keith Richards, but you can use it to make YOUR music, your way.

If you want Google Gadgets or Yahoo Widgets, by all means. They are free and very easy to use.

I am for one not at all interested in making the lazy happy. Not one bit.

[jsmorley]

Sigh.. guess I'm just feeling a bit curmudgeonly tonight. I really like it when Rainmeter users are like kids given a huge lego set and every day is "Look! I made a submarine, with working torpedo tubes!" There is still a lot of that here, but some days it seems more and more often "I opened the box and hell, it's just a bunch of little pieces. Where is the spaceship on the cover of the box?"

[Yoshimanitsu]

It was just a suggestion.

I love it it and I've learned how to customize it and all but it would be nice if it wasn't as time consuming.
I mean you say "Its not for everybody" but why not make it for everybody? Its a wonderful thing, why only share it with the few of us who have the skills with computers to work it? Why not expand it for those who maybe aren't as good? It wouldn't be hard.

[Kaelri]

First of all, we have gone to extraordinary lengths to make Rainmeter more accessible to the average user. Six months ago, the skin browser and the theme manager did not exist. Neither did Enigma's configuration utility or global settings. If you wanted to change anything, you had to do it by hand, in code, for every single skin that applied. Frankly, the fact that you can set up your feeds, your Google account, the text colors, and a hundred other things, without ever touching a line of code, was a bit of a breakthrough. And it took a lot of work. (Try programming an app that processes metadata for a library of thousands of skins and still loads in under five seconds, and then come back and say it "wouldn't be hard.") Make no mistake, we're not done - more changes and improvements will come in the future. So, in fact, we have expanded it quite a lot, and we will continue to do so.

That said, it is simply impossible to provide automated GUI utilities for every possible modification of a Rainmeter skin, and that's because the number of possible modifications is literally infinite. If I made a tool to expand the number of apps in the Launcher Menu, someone would want it to resize the buttons, too. If it did that, too, they'd want it to launch two apps at once. If it did that, they'd want to combine it with the feed reader in one click. If it did that... you see my point.

As skin and software developers, we can't afford to devote our time to every niche feature that might be of use to a handful of people. Instead, we have to work on general improvements that will do the greatest amount of good for the least amount of resources. And we're happy to do it. But until Windows learns how to read your mind, it's simply not an option to anticipate and streamline the implementation of every new idea. Rainmeter, as JS aptly described, is like a set of Legos. We can make the box easy to open, and teach you how to create some simple shapes, but at the end of the day, our product is a pile of blocks, and you have to build stuff with your hands.

And this is a good thing. It may be harder to learn, but the rewards are infinitely greater. Sure, we could make an app "for everybody," but at the expense of severely limiting what it actually does "for everybody." If this were just a Windows Sidebar or a Google Gadgets, it would not have the variety, the flexibility and the capability that makes it so attractive to people. I am much happier working toward the goal of a platform that enables the most powerful, efficient means of unlimited creative synthesis.

How's that for curmudgeonly, Jeff? ;)

[poiru]

I've created configuration tools for Vista Rainbar, but because they're made for Vista Rainbar, they won't work with other skins (except if the skin follows the same [Variables] format).



There is a problem, however. The app launcher for Vista Rainbar uses a max of 6 icons. The configuration tool only supports 6 icons. What if you wanted to have 100 icons? Or what if you'd want to have more than 3 (config tool only supports 3) RSS feeds? Coding something capable of adding the launcher/feed variables, and actually creating/editing INI files for the new meters and measures is, well, impossible (too much time compared to the benefit)..

[Chewtoy]

Well. Start of: Whow did your post NOT seem liked. :P

Now to the post.
I do feel like it would be nice to have something that does everything for me. It would be awesome to just say "Do this!" and I wouldn't have to touch a single line of code - And it would still work the way I wanted it to!
This however, brings a baaad baaad thing with it. Where's the fun with it? Where is the joy in having something make things for you?
Sure. You can buy a prebuilt legocastle. But where's the fun it? It's, in my deeply personal opinion, more fun to actually get to build it! I wan't to be the creator, not just the person who thought about it. I want to be the constructor. I want to be the builder. I want the MAKE THINGS!... *ehum*

So. Sure. It would be nice if there was some sort of Easy-Editor. But the fun in it all would be lost.
Though, you could have some sort of "Easy mode" and "Advanced mode". Where in Easy you could use a simple editor and do some really basic stuff. And in advanced mode you can do what ever you want to (meaning it would be the standard Rainmeter it is today).
Tough, as some of the folks who actually makes the magic has alrady said - "it is simply impossible to provide automated GUI utilities for every possible modification of a Rainmeter skin".

[Yoshimanitsu]

Now your not seeing my point, I'm not saying you should go to extraordinary lengths to make an something for every app ever, I know that's impossible. All I'm suggesting is just 1 simple tool for launchers.
I mean, you have a suggestion box, I'm putting something in. That's what they are for. I'm simply trying to be an active member of the rainmeter community and helping come up with some ideas. No need to shoot it down so hard.

[Alex2539]

Making an app for even one very specific kind of skin isn't practical and, in terms of the Rainmeter community as a whole, not very useful. Launchers are one of the simplest skins to code and if after reading Rainmeter 101 and asking on the forums a user is unable to create one, then they just weren't destined to have a custom launcher. Enigma and Vista Rainbar come as close as anyone ever will with their own dedicated apps to tweak the settings of their configs. Unfortunately that's pretty much the limit.

Either way, consider that each launcher is probably coded in a very different way. There's absolutely no way to create an app that could effectively modify each and every one of them.

The long and short of it is that any sort of GUI or automated skin creation tool is pretty much outside of the scope of Rainmeter's design. It is meant to be highly customizable and any such app would put in place hard limitations to its capabilities. Many things in Rainmeter are not hard to accomplish as long as the user is open to learning a couple of simple techniques and some key words. The developers should not slow down because a small portion of the user base is too lazy to read.

[Yoshimanitsu]

The long and short of it is that any sort of GUI or automated skin creation tool is pretty much outside of the scope of Rainmeter's design. It is meant to be highly customizable and any such app would put in place hard limitations to its capabilities. Many things in Rainmeter are not hard to accomplish as long as the user is open to learning a couple of simple techniques and some key words. The developers should not slow down because a small portion of the user base is too lazy to read.

I have 2 things to say

1. is that it wouldn't be limiting anything, because you'd still be able to go into the code and edit it more, it just make the basic outline quicker and easier to make, so the fun part (customizing it) would be able to be accomplished faster.

2. The lazy thing was simply a joke, you guys should stop stressing on it so much. Clearly I'm not lazy as I've been sitting around for the past 9 hours customizing the way I want things to look.