Big, Bold and Brassy (BB&B)

[Mordasius]

This collection of Big, Bold and Brassy skins was inspired by IllustratorG's Steampunk Construction Kits. It was intended for use on widescreen resolutions (1440x900, 1920x1080, etc.) and will gobble up 20MB-25MB of your RAM but that's not going to be a problem if you have 4GB plus installed. There is nothing particularly special or unique about the skins. The emphasis is on bars and dials for visualising information with details given in tooltips and/or pop-ups (mouse-over and/or left-click).

[ Direct Link ]

[Alex Becherer]

nice collection of skins. there's a lot in there that i like. a few examples:

- the bold look. while this might be not so popular, it is inspiring me to do my own analog weather station. inspiration is always good.
- the use of big icons in the tooltips. fits nicely here.
- the animation on the feed reader is very nice. this set could use even more animations with the gears or even some smoke of steam.

what i do not like:
- the double-click for mute on the volumeslider. also launches the regular single-click flyout. maybe a single middle click would be nicer.
- main culprit is the different sizes among the skins.

[Mordasius]

Thanks for the feedback Alex.

I have to agree with your concern about the different sized skins. I started out with the good-sized background and CPU-RAM-SWAP skins, but then I lost my nerve and things got smaller and smaller until I ended up with that pathetic little apology of a wifi signal strength indicator.

I also agree that any steampunk theme calls out for moving cogs and chains along with the sporadic emission of steam. The constraint was the mark-up in CPU usage associated with the use of tooltips and low update values which we touched upon here. The Feedreader should however have been a target for more animation as it doesn't have any tooltips. I've already started on an alternative background with rotating cogs and will try toggling a few steam emision and/or cog spin skins on and off with certain events.

Thanks for the MiddleMouseUpAction= suggestion on the volumeslider. That's a much better way to toggle the mute but I didn't think of it because I always use MiddleMouseUPAction=!Refresh when testing skins. No need for MiddleMouseUPAction=!Refresh on something like the volume control skin once it's ready for distribution. Tnx.

P.S. I don't know when you downloaded the collection but if it came with the weather set to Chernobyl there will be errors in the thermometer bar graphs when the temperature is around 0°C. I corrected the problem a few hours after first uploading the skins and there won't be any problems if the weather was set to Oslo in the version you downloaded.

P.P.S. October 22nd. Updated the collection to include a larger wifi signal indicator, MiddleMouseUpAction to mute the volume and a few other tweaks.

[SteveWeerdOZ]

I love your theme, absolutely fantastic! One (perhaps silly) question: How to change the weather location?

[SteveWeerdOZ]

Never mind, found it!

[frankenworm]

SteveWeerdOz I'm still searching how i can change weatherlocation :/
edit: problem solved

[vulterey]

Hello,

I just start my adventure with Rainmeter. But because I'm quite like steampunk my choice of skin couldn't be nothing better than BB&B.
Purely lovely skin, good designed well balanced good job.

But because I can't keep me far from trying to adjust, or add something from me, I made small search skin, I found missing in this set of skins.

I've used already existed graphic from BB&B music player and simple code from default Rainmeter, Ilustro skin.

So if anyone wish to use you can find it under here ->http://vulterey.deviantart.com/art/Search-skin-for-BB-B-skin-set-340847518?ga_submit=10%3A1354466962.

I hope I'm not messing around with your project, if yes, please let me know and I will remove it from web.

thanks

vulterey

[Mordasius]

Nice job. You're most welcome to make skins which add to the BB&B collection.

I've attached a .PSD with layers for the main components of the music player skin to help with any other ideas you come up with.

BBBMusicPlayer-PSD.zip

[jsmorley]

When people ask what Rainmeter is about, they should be told that THIS is what it is all about. Creative possibilities only limited by your imagination, and a community that is second to none.

[vulterey]

Hello,

Nothing motivates so well as the support of the community. Thank you gentlemen for your support. Thank you, for attached .PSD file it will be more than helpful in a future. I have some more ideas, which I hope, will be useful for this set of skins.