nivram wrote:hmmm... rainmeter seems dangerous... I could spend way too much time messing around with it...
Is there any way for me to cache the last 3-5 images I downloaded and then fade between them?
This is likely doable, but would be a bit (ok, a lot) complicated.
First and foremost, you MUST know how often and when that image is updated. If it is updated once an hour, there is no sense in getting the image every 10 minutes, the last 3-5 will all be the same.
If you can know that information, you might set up a Time measure that checks the time, and when it hits the target hour or minute, uses !CommandMeasure to update the WebParser that gets the image.
You will also need some kind of Loop measure, that counts from 1 to 5, that you use to name the file that is downloaded in such a way that it is "Image1.jpg", "Image2.jpg"... etc.
Then you will need some FinishAction on the WebParser measure that fires off an ActionTimer plugin that fades out one Image meter and fades in a second.
You would have to first change the ImageName option on two Image meters, so they use the correct two images (1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-1) that should be in the pair that are faded out and in.
It wouldn't be trivial, but with some WORK, it could probably be done if you can KNOW when the image is transitioned... Based on what I'm seeing by refreshing that website in my browser, it's not all that often. The keys are that you can know when, and that it is on a reliable schedule.
There are some other "housekeeping" issues about how to deal with the fact that when you first load the skin, there won't be any images yet, and if you unload it and load it again later, all but the latest image will be out of date. Even if you just refresh the skin, that is going to throw off the Loop measure that names the image files. Those are tricky, but likely can be solved by using !WriteKeyValue to make some thing "persistent", if the core functionality can be made to work.