It is currently March 28th, 2024, 4:52 pm

[SOLVED] Detect skin visibility/load status

Get help with creating, editing & fixing problems with skins
User avatar
balala
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 16110
Joined: October 11th, 2010, 6:27 pm
Location: Gheorgheni, Romania

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by balala »

Yincognito wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:21 pm after all, the user can easily see their status anyway, and doesn't necessarily need some info text to tell him the obvious.
It's probably not always so obvious. At a first look if you don't see certain skin on screen, is hard to tell if it is unloaded or loaded and hidden.
User avatar
jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by jsmorley »

Yincognito wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:21 pm It's not about reinventing the wheel, not wanting to use a plugin or disregarding Lua at all. It's first about the fact that I always try to minimize dependencies in everything I code, not just in Rainmeter (that's why I'm glad plugins like UsageMonitor or WebParser became "official"/"native" in Rainmeter recently). Secondly, as an amateur programmer, using Lua to do what I could do in Rainmeter code (and this could be done, probably, albeit in a less orthodox fashion) makes Rainmeter seems a bit obsolete - I mean, if I wanted to use a programming environment to build my skins, I would have done it right from the start in C#, Delphi or Lazarus and wouldn't have used Rainmeter at all. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying here or if you agree, but using Lua to do things feels to me like using some C code to do things that Rainmeter (also written in C) could probably do as well, if approached the right way. One of the reasons I made my own text calendar based on the Zeller's congruence instead of using an already made Lua calendar instead. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.
I do in fact disagree with you on this. 3rd-Party plugins and Lua are both ways to "extend" the functionality of Rainmeter, available as desired by any author / user to wants to do so, and can be very targeted at some functionality that a handful of people may find useful, while not bulking up Rainmeter itself trying to fill every "niche" need that someone may come up with.

The way we look at it, things that make sense and have wide application by a lot of users are likely appropriate to get into the main code. We certainly have done that hundreds and hundreds of times over the years. Things that either don't make a lot of sense to us, or that are not of wide applications by lots of users, we are happy to see done as a 3rd-party plugin, that users can use or not use as fits their needs.

It's entirely up to you of course, but do understand that we are just not going to react to a niche desire by changing the main Rainmeter code just because someone doesn't want to use 3rd-Party plugins or Lua scripts. Personally, I use Lua in probably 70% of my skins. Not always because it's the only way, it often isn't. Often because it can be very clean and straightforward, and doing the same thing in "native Rainmeter" feels like a hideous mess of extra measures, complicated IfConditions / Substitutions, complicated formulas and in general just doing it the hard way. I get no satisfaction of any kind of in wrapping myself around the axle just to be able to say that I did it in "native Rainmeter".
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7025
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by Yincognito »

jsmorley wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:31 pm I do in fact disagree with you on this. 3rd-Party plugins and Lua are both ways to "extend" the functionality of Rainmeter, available as desired by any author / user to wants to do so, and can be very targeted at some functionality that a handful of people may find useful, while not bulking up Rainmeter itself trying to fill every "niche" need that someone may come up with.

The way we look at it, things that make sense and have wide application by a lot of users are likely appropriate to get into the main code. We certainly have done that hundreds and hundreds of times over the years. Things that either don't make a lot of sense to us, or that are not of wide applications by lots of users, we are happy to see done as a 3rd-party plugin, that users can use or not use as fits their needs.
That's a valid and logical point indeed. I have nothing against it, I actually think it's a good way of doing things. I've encountered Lua extensions in other software as well, so I get what you're saying. My take was more of a personal preference, and it was not meant to suggest that things should be done differently. ;-)
User avatar
eclectic-tech
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 5382
Joined: April 12th, 2012, 9:40 pm
Location: Cedar Point, Ohio, USA
Contact:

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by eclectic-tech »

Yincognito wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:24 pm Yeah, that's the way I am doing it. Funny thing, eh: the ToggleConfig bang "knows" whether the skin is hidden or not (since it successfully toggles that state), it's just that there isn't an easy way to let the user know about it... :lol:
Yeah, that is funny... who knows, maybe the development team can wrangle a way to make the status, whether the skin is hidden or not, available in a future update... {Hint}

I understand your reasoning for not necessarily using Lua with Rainmeter; it is personal choice for each of us to make. :thumbup:
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7025
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by Yincognito »

balala wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:27 pm It's probably not always so obvious. At a first look if you don't see certain skin on screen, is hard to tell if it is unloaded or loaded and hidden.
Yes, good point. But then, the info is just a right click away anyway, that's why I said that it's not critical.
eclectic-tech wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:41 pmYeah, that is funny... who knows, maybe the development team can wrangle a way to make the status, whether the skin is hidden or not, available in a future update... {Hint}
Yeah, well, no need to put pressure on people just for this little thingy. They were busy releasing the last stable release lately, they might need to have some beers and just enjoy life for a while :D
eclectic-tech wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:41 pmI understand your reasoning for not necessarily using Lua with Rainmeter; it is personal choice for each of us to make. :thumbup:
Oh, nice - finally someone understands it. I was afraid that I was (again :? ) being too convoluted in my posts and confuse the heck out of people... :lol:
Whew.gif
User avatar
jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by jsmorley »

Base-jumping is a personal choice as well... Dosn't make it a good idea. ;-)
User avatar
balala
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 16110
Joined: October 11th, 2010, 6:27 pm
Location: Gheorgheni, Romania

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by balala »

Yincognito wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:53 pm Yes, good point. But then, the info is just a right click away anyway, that's why I said that it's not critical.
Yep, right, it's not impossible to know, but if there are dozens of skins loaded (right now I have 17, but sometimes even more), it takes a while to figure out exactly if the skin is loaded or not. But, yes, it's not impossible...
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7025
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by Yincognito »

jsmorley wrote: March 26th, 2019, 7:58 pm Base-jumping is a personal choice as well... Dosn't make it a good idea. ;-)
It is a good idea if you're still alive and well after doing it, right? Progress is built on people learning after having bad ideas, although a good point can be made that they never learn as well.
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7025
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by Yincognito »

balala wrote: March 26th, 2019, 8:15 pm Yep, right, it's not impossible to know, but if there are dozens of skins loaded (right now I have 17, but sometimes even more), it takes a while to figure out exactly if the skin is loaded or not. But, yes, it's not impossible...
I agree (although their active status is also available in Rainmeter's Manage window - ok, that's more than one click, LOL). This was one of the reasons I made this toggler skin (and thought about displaying those statuses) - it became hard even for me (their creator) to constantly load/unload every skin in my suite on an individual basis. I just wanted to do them all in one click, whether it was just showing/hiding them or loading/unloading.

That being said, there might be a hotkey for "doing them all" in Rainmeter (CRTL+ALT+whatever), but I'm not sure if that covers this area. I know it's possible to move a group, nothing about toggling and such - maybe jsmorley knows more about it. In my case, left clicking on a toggler skin is more suitable, I'm not that good at memorizing every hotkey for every software on my Windows system.
User avatar
jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Detect skin visibility/load status

Post by jsmorley »

Post Reply