Version 1.2 available here.
Version 1.1 available here.
Mirage is my brand new skin suite. I worked very long with it, trying to make it to work flawlessly, with no errors. Hoping I succeeded, but it definitely uses a lot of resources and probably won't run properly on slower computers. However here it is:
The elements of this suite:
- AudioVolume - controls the volume and can mute / unmute the computer
- Battery - see the charging level and use of your battery (if there is any)
- BrokenDesktop - randomly simulates the broke of your desktop
- Calendar - month calendar, where you can set up reminders or holidays for different days. On the appropriate date the skin will show a notification. The reminder can be set for specific date or for specific day of year (repeating every year on the appropriate date), with a click to the appropriate day. Holidays can be set right clicking the day
- Clock\Classic - Classic clock
- Clock\Digital - Digital clock
- CoreTemp - Shows the temperature, load and speed of each core, using the Core Temp application (which must run in background)
- CoverVisualizer - A visualizer which dynamically reveals the cover of the currently played music (if you are using a supported media player app)
- Disks - Shows the drives present on your system, offering suplimentar information about each, on click
- Games\15Puzzle, Games\2048, Games\EggHunt, Games\StickHero, Games\Sudoku and Games\TicTacToe - Games
- Gmail - Gmail notifier, for up to five different accounts (can play sound or read the number of new emails)
- Launcher - Launcher for programs, websites and skins of the Mirage suite
- MediaPlayer - Controls the supported media players
- MultiSearch - Search the web, images, YouTube, facebook, people and groups on facebook
- Mute - Mute / unmute the skins of current suite. Can automatically mute the skins when full screen programs are running (watching movies or playing games)
- OpticalDriveTray - controls the optical drive (CD / DVD / BD) (if you still are using one)
- Power - Shows the uptime and control the shutdown of the computer
- Process - Shows the running / loaded processes, after CPU or memory usage
- RainForum - Shows the last 10 posts on the current forum
- RotatingGlobe - Rotating Earth, on four colors and two sizes
- RSS - News reader, which can indicate the unread articles
- Settings - A setting tool for the whole suite. You can use it to set the suite up as you want (very complex and large skin, can create problems on slower machines)
- Slideshow - Slideshow of images, with 12 animation effects
- SunMoon - Calculates (not downloads) the Sun / Moon rise / set, the length of day and some other related information as well
- Timer - A tool to shutdown / sleep / hibernate / restart, etc the computer when different events occur (at certain moment, after a preset time, or when the currently running download ends), plus a stopwatch.
- Weather - Weather for the set up location
- Wireless - Shows the current wireless network (a subvariant: WiFis - shows all available networks. Can switch to any of them, if it's accessible)
- Addons:
- NirCmd - used by four skins: Disks, OpticalDriveTray, Power and Timer.
- identify (element of ImageMagick) - used by Slideshow
- Plugins:
- ConfigActive - used by all skins
- CursorColor - used by Settings
- HotKey - used by 15Puzzle, 2048 and Sudoku
- ImageSize - used by CoverVisualizer, 15Puzzle and Slideshow
- IsFullScreen - used by Mute
- Mouse - used by Volume, Launcher, MediaPlayer and Settings
- OpticalDriveStatus - used by OpticalDriveTray
- Speech - used by Gmail and Settings
- UDisk - used by Disks
- WavLength - used by Mirage and Settings
When installing the suite, after an introduction skin (Mirage.ini), the Settings is loaded. There are 12 tabs, to customize everything. The tabs are the followings:
- General - you can choose the desired language (right now only English, Romanian and Hungarian are available, but translators are sought - see below), as well as some settings related to the background of the skins and some additional general settings.
- Clock&Date - set the time and date format.
- Calendar - settings related to the Calendar skin. You can set the first day of the week (Sunday or Monday)and the colors of the event marking on the Calendar skin (you can set up events on Calendar).
- Weather - First you should set your location. The easiest way for this is to click the Detect button. Usually the skin will automatically detect your location, however there might be issues. If not detected correctly, enter manually the information (weather code, name of city and country, geographical coordinates, time zone and so on).
- Optical drive, also includes the settings related to the Rotating Globe - There is a skin which shows the status of your optical drive, if there is any. You can set here the drive letter of it (chossing from a dropdown menu) and also the color, size and rotation of the animated globe.
- Media player - choose the used media player application and the format of the Cover Visualizer (a visualizer animating the cover of the currently played music).
- Slideshow - set the folder of the images you'd like to see in the Slideshow skin, the desired animation (including random animations), times and so on.
- Gmail - there might be set up to five Gmail accounts, adding the usernames and the appropriate passwords. You also can manage and test the accounts.
- Launcher - set the applications and websites available into the Launcher skin. If the Broken Desktop skin is enabled (down on this tab), sometimes randomly your desktop will broken (activating the appropriate skin).
- Games - settings related to the available games.
- Timer&System - set up the sounds played by the Timer skin and customize the System skin.
- RSS&CoreTemp - set up the source of the RSS skin (you can choose a preset source from a dropdown menu, or enter manually the desired URL) and customize the CoreTemp skin (which obviously requires Core Temp to run).
When clicking OK or Apply the Launcher skin is loaded, asking you to load either the Mirage layout, or manually the desired skins, one by one.
Many people helped me developing this suite. I hope I don't miss someone. If I do, please let me know. So many thanks to:
- Doctor-Digital for Rotating Globe images.
- eclectic-tech & jsmorley for Color Triad and the CursorColor plugin.
- killall-q for Rain and Snowfall.
- ikarus1969 for WiFis.lua, included into AllWiFi skin
. - jsmorley for WavLength plugin.
- Pul53dr1v3r for debugging the earlier versions of the suite. He found more issues, which have been fixed.
- oZone for fixing an issue of the UDisk plugin, recompiling it.
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Translation - If you'd like to get the suite working in your language, you have to translate it. There is one single file you have to translate, the Mirage\@Resources\Messages1.inc. Save this file with the next available number (right now as Language4.inc) and open it. Translate all variables. Note that:
- LanguageCode is the code of the language which you are translating into.
- DecimalSep and ThousandsSep are the symbols used as decimal and thousand separator (usually dot and comma).
- Let the Index variable as 2.
- Translate the other strings, one by one. Take care, there are 739 (!!!) of them.
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