The simple answer to this for beginners is "yes" (so as to avoid them being confused and messing around the skin in a chaotic manner), but the real answer is "partially". I have the exact same question in another thread, where [Variables] is placed first and [Metadata] and [Rainmeter] afterwards (personally I always use this order) and because [Rainmeter] has some actions that need to know the value of some variables, changing the order to what you mentioned leads to unexpected (and undesirable) results. Now, I don't know yet if the user in the other thread is swapping them properly - though I believe he does -, but the right way to put this is that it all boils down to DEPENDENCIES.LooseAllTheMonies wrote: ↑July 30th, 2021, 7:20 amAlso does the .ini file have to be ordered [RainMeter] [MetaData] [Variables] [Measures] [Meters]? It makes the most sense that way and I don't think I would ever rearrange it but it's an extension of the previous question.
In other words, the safest way to think about it is that you'll always put the B after A if B depends on A and its value - first the horses, then the carriage. Meters depend on measures' values, so they come after the measures. If a measure value depends on another measure value, you will put the former after the latter. Sure, you can then do "back-references" and modify a previous measure value through some bang in a later measure's action, but that doesn't change the fact that the former first needs to be "initialized", so to speak, in order to be used by the latter.
There was a discussion a while ago about this order of main skin sections, where the devs (specifically, jsmorley) participated as well, but I can't find it now.
Anyway, for the time being, following death.crafter's advice on this is recommended. It's simpler and good practice. I use a slightly different approach here, but that's just me - I don't expect folks to follow my way over the "official" recommendation and it's not something I'm concerned over.