can i have "groups" of skins to load up or turn off?

[ariamo7]

im sure theres a way to do this that i havent found but i cant find a way to word it. id like to switch my background sometimes from an animated one to my default background .. but of course, they're two different backgrounds, so i want to easily change the skin colors/positions/etc. when i change bgs. but .. of course, i will have to keep switching them everytime i change bgs. is there any way that i can create groups of skins, or groups of the same skins but different files, to load all at once?

[balala]

You can creat group of skins, by adding a Group=MyGroup option to the [Rainmeter] section of each skin you want to include into the group, but this is not acctually what you want, because you can't activate all skins belonging to the group, by one. There is no bang for this. You can deactivate all activated skins of the group (by the [!DeactivateConfigGroup "MyGroup"] bang), but you can't activate them by one.
However there is an alternative solution: the layouts. A layout includes so many skins as you want. Activate all skins you want to get activated when you set a background on the desktop, then click Rainmeter icon in the Notification Area, open the second tab, named Layouts and enter the name which you want to use for your layout, into the Name field of the Save new layout area. Click Save. You get the new layout on the right side of the window (into the Saved layouts field).
If needed you can create another layout, for your second background (or obviously even more). Save each of them with a sugestive name.
Finally you'll want to load the appropriate layout when you set a new background. Note that there might be some automation for this task as well, but this depends on how are you setting the new background (let this for later).
To load a layout, just click its name on the Saved layouts field and click the Load button.
For first, try out please the described method on creating and switching the layouts. Please let me know if you succeeded and if you need automation for loading the appropriate layout on background change.

[Yincognito]

id like to switch my background sometimes from an animated one to my default background

In addition to what balala said about saving layouts, if by any chance by "background" you meant the Windows wallpaper, Rainmeter has a bang (basically, a command) to change the wallpaper as well, it's called !SetWallpaper. This means that you can change the wallpaper when you change the layouts, if one of the skins in each layout you switch to has something like OnRefreshAction=[!SetWallpaper "SomeWallpaper.gif" Stretch] in its [Rainmeter] section.

You can even do the reverse and have a skin load whatever layout you previously saved, via the !LoadLayout bang, if you make 2 buttons in a skin that you include in both layouts you switch between, and add to those buttons something like LeftMouseUpAction=[!LoadLayout "YourSavedLayout1"] and LeftMouseUpAction=[!LoadLayout "YourSavedLayout2"], respectively.

It all depends on what you want to do and how you'd like to approach things.

[balala]

if by any chance by "background" you meant the Windows wallpaper,

I supoosed this by the beginning. Didn't even thought to something else. But now reading you reply, maybe I was wrong?

[Yincognito]

I supoosed this by the beginning. Didn't even thought to something else. But now reading you reply, maybe I was wrong?

Hmm... I don't think you were wrong. He mentioned skin colors separately, so I don't think he meant the skin background. And if it's not the skin background, the other logical possibility is the Windows background aka the wallpaper (which can be animated via slideshows, from what I recall). Unless he's using Wallparer Engine, that is.

[balala]

Hmm... I don't think you were wrong. He mentioned skin colors separately, so I don't think he meant the skin background. And if it's not the skin background, the other logical possibility is the Windows background aka the wallpaper (which can be animated via slideshows, from what I recall). Unless he's using Wallparer Engine, that is.

Has not been precised how the wallpaper is changed (if it's about the wallpaper, as we assumed). So, still waiting for some needed details...

[Yincognito]

Has not been precised how the wallpaper is changed (if it's about the wallpaper, as we assumed). So, still waiting for some needed details...

Yep, that's why I mentioned doing both (changing the wallpaper and the layout) at once above, maybe the OP isn't aware that it could be done from Rainmeter.

[ariamo7]

You can creat group of skins, by adding a Group=MyGroup option to the [Rainmeter] section of each skin you want to include into the group, but this is not acctually what you want, because you can't activate all skins belonging to the group, by one. There is no bang for this. You can deactivate all activated skins of the group (by the [!DeactivateConfigGroup "MyGroup"] bang), but you can't activate them by one.
However there is an alternative solution: the layouts. A layout includes so many skins as you want. Activate all skins you want to get activated when you set a background on the desktop, then click Rainmeter icon in the Notification Area, open the second tab, named Layouts and enter the name which you want to use for your layout, into the Name field of the Save new layout area. Click Save. You get the new layout on the right side of the window (into the Saved layouts field).
If needed you can create another layout, for your second background (or obviously even more). Save each of them with a sugestive name.
Finally you'll want to load the appropriate layout when you set a new background. Note that there might be some automation for this task as well, but this depends on how are you setting the new background (let this for later).
To load a layout, just click its name on the Saved layouts field and click the Load button.
For first, try out please the described method on creating and switching the layouts. Please let me know if you succeeded and if you need automation for loading the appropriate layout on background change.

hi, sorry for the late response! this is exactly what i was looking for .. thank you!!
also, for yincognito, im using an animated wallpaper, so the actual windows wallpaper change doesn't apply. right now im just switching between a still and an animated.
originally, when i wrote "change skin colors/positions", i thought you could have different variants of the same skin in different presets lmao. that's why i said that; but i didn't know there was an option for rainmeter itself to change the bg.. i will keep that for future reference! thank you!

[balala]

this is exactly what i was looking for .. thank you!!

You're welcome and I'm glad.

originally, when i wrote "change skin colors/positions", i thought you could have different variants of the same skin in different presets lmao. that's why i said that; but i didn't know there was an option for rainmeter itself to change the bg.. i will keep that for future reference! thank you!

There are more possibilities. You can have different instances of the same skin, each with its own setting and you can add any of them to any of the layouts you are saving. But this is a redundancy and should be avoided in most cases. Alternatively you can have one instance of the skin but can set it's options depending on how are you loading the skin. And finally you can use the already described layouts, which is far the best solution, in my opinion.
And in each case you can set the wallpaper through Rainmeter if needed. Please let us know if you need further assistance.

[Yincognito]

also, for yincognito, im using an animated wallpaper, so the actual windows wallpaper change doesn't apply. right now im just switching between a still and an animated.
originally, when i wrote "change skin colors/positions", i thought you could have different variants of the same skin in different presets lmao. that's why i said that; but i didn't know there was an option for rainmeter itself to change the bg.. i will keep that for future reference! thank you!

Ah, I see. No problem, glad you managed to achieve what you wanted!