Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

PantherX · Post by **PantherX** » December 15th, 2012, 7:43 pm

I did come across Kaelri's wonderful post and it works fine for USBs. However, for the CD/DVD Drive, I tweaked it after reading the documentation and it doesn't work. Any ideas as to how I can achieve it?

Code: Select all

[DriveType]
Measure = FreeDiskSpace
Drive = "#Letter#"
Type = 1
IfEqualValue = 6 
IfEqualAction = [ !ShowMeter Background ]
IfAboveValue = 7
IfAboveAction = [ !HideMeter Background ] 
IfBelowValue = 5
IfBelowAction = [ !HideMeter Background ]

Thanks in Advance

Post by **eclectic-tech** » December 16th, 2012, 4:36 am

PantherX wrote:I did come across Kaelri's wonderful post and it works fine for USBs. However, for the CD/DVD Drive, I tweaked it after reading the documentation and it doesn't work. Any ideas as to how I can achieve it?
Code: Select all
[DriveType]
Measure = FreeDiskSpace
Drive = "#Letter#"
Type = 1
IfEqualValue = 6 
IfEqualAction = [ !ShowMeter Background ]
IfAboveValue = 7
IfAboveAction = [ !HideMeter Background ] 
IfBelowValue = 5
IfBelowAction = [ !HideMeter Background ]
Thanks in Advance

Worked for me if I enter my CD drive letter... (I removed all those extra "spaces" in your code)... shouldn't matter.

Did you see what the measure is returning in the !About 'Skin' tab for this skin?

I have not used this that often, but my other thought is if you are using a removable CD (USB interface) you may need to add IgnoreRemovable=0 to the measure.

EDIT: This will not show if the drive is "empty", it shows if the drive "exists" or not...

PantherX · Post by **PantherX** » December 16th, 2012, 12:55 pm

eclectic-tech wrote:...Did you see what the measure is returning in the !About 'Skin' tab for this skin?

I have not used this that often, but my other thought is if you are using a removable CD (USB interface) you may need to add IgnoreRemovable=0 to the measure.

EDIT: This will not show if the drive is "empty", it shows if the drive "exists" or not...

The DriveType is CDROM. Your edit explains what my code actually does.

However, I didn't explain myself clearly (sorry for that), what I want to do (if possible) is to hide the skin if the Drive is empty. Since we can work with Type and Label, I though that if the Label, is "not present" (About Skin shows blank), hide the skin. If the label is present (About Skin shows value), show the skin. The statements would be something like this but I can't get it to work:

Code: Select all

[DriveName]
Measure = FreeDiskSpace
IgnoreRemovable = 0
Drive = "#Letter#"
Label = 1
IfEqualValue = ""
IfEqualAction = [ !HideMeter Background ]
IfAboveValue = ""
IfAboveAction = [ !ShowMeter Background ]

Any suggestions as to how I can get it to work?

Post by **jsmorley** » December 16th, 2012, 1:06 pm

Code: Select all

[Rainmeter]
Update=1000

[Variables]
Drive1=F:

[MeasureLabelDrive1]
Measure=FreeDiskSpace
Drive=#Drive1#
Label=1
IgnoreRemovable=0
Substitute="":"-1"

[CheckDrive1]
Measure=Calc
Formula=[MeasureLabelDrive1]
IfEqualValue=-1
IfEqualAction=!SetOption MeterDrive1 Text "I have no LABEL!"
IfAboveValue=-1
IfAboveAction=!SetOption MeterDrive1 Text ""
DynamicVariables=1

[MeterDrive1]
Meter=String
MeasureName=MeasureLabelDrive1
FontSize=12
FontColor=255,255,255,255

You can't do "IF" actions on a string value like "" or "SomeLabel". IF actions only evaluate numbers. So what we are doing is turning an empty string ("") into a string that is "numeric", in this case -1.

However, if we put the IF actions right on the FreeDiskSpace measure, it will use the original value of the measure, and will not take into account the Substitute. So, we use a Calc measure to evaluate the value of the measure, by using the section variable [SectionName] and DynamicVariables=1. This causes the Calc measure to use the string value of the FreeDiskSpace measure, which has been changed from "" to -1 by the Substitute.

Calc measures will convert any string measure values that are "numeric" into actual numbers when used in a formula, and now the IF actions will work to evaluate the value and take any actions you need. You can !HideMeter / !ShowMeter or !SetOption the text as I did in my example or whatever you like.

PantherX · Post by **PantherX** » December 17th, 2012, 2:20 am

Thanks for the explanation and code jsmorley

Unfortunately, it still can't do what I want so I am going to try my best to explain myself so please bare with me. What I want to be done is broken down into steps to make it easy for me to explain:

Drive action -> Skin action
1) Empty Drive - > Skin is loaded but is automatically hidden
2) Load Drive -> Since skin is loaded, it is now visible as there is a disk
3) Unload Drive -> Skin automatically hides since the drive is empty

If the loading and unloading of the drive is done, I would like the skin to cycle between visible and hidden automatically without refreshing the skin or anything. Basically, just like the USB Drive, when I insert it (assuming the same drive letter), the skin shows and when I eject it, the skin hides but with the DVD Drive.

Attempt 1
I have attached a skin sample (1.ini) which works with Step 2 and Step 3. However, it won't go from Step 1 to Step 2 without me refreshing the skin.

Attempt 2
I have attached another skin sample (2.ini) which works with Step 1 and Step 2. However, it won't go from Step 2 to Step 3 without me refreshing the skin.

Thus I have two skins which needs to be combined into a single skin and I that is where I am lost

Would appreciate some help

Mordasius · Post by **Mordasius** » December 17th, 2012, 3:43 am

You could just combine the two substitute statements in [MeasureLabelDrive1] but that will change the Disk Label to a series of '2s' (e.g. 2222222222) when a disk is loaded. To get around this you can use two measures: one to check if there is a disk loaded and show or hide the background, and; one to get the disk label.

Code: Select all

[MeasureLabelDrive1]
Measure=FreeDiskSpace
Drive=#Letter#
Label=1
IgnoreRemovable=0

[MeasureDriveLoaded]
Measure=FreeDiskSpace
Drive=#Letter#
Label=1
IgnoreRemovable=0
RegExpSubstitute=1
Substitute="[\d\w\s\-]":"2", "":"-1"

[CheckDrive1]
Measure=Calc
Formula=[MeasureDriveLoaded]
IfEqualValue=-1
IfEqualAction=!HideMeter Background
IfAboveValue=-1
IfAboveAction=!ShowMeter Background
DynamicVariables=1

Note that the code above will only show/hide the background image. If you want the image and the text to be shown/hidden when a disk is loaded/unloaded you'll need to add Group=DriveMeters to all the meters and change [CheckDrive1] to:

Code: Select all

[CheckDrive1]
Measure=Calc
Formula=[MeasureDriveLoaded]
IfEqualValue=-1
IfEqualAction=!HideMeterGroup DriveMeters
IfAboveValue=-1
IfAboveAction=!ShowMeterGroup DriveMeters
DynamicVariables=1

One potential problem is still that if the CD/DVD has no label then the skin won't show it as loaded.

PantherX · Post by **PantherX** » December 17th, 2012, 6:52 pm

Thanks very much for the explanation and code Mordasius

I have tested it on an internal (SATA) DVD Drive and external (USB) DVD drive and it works perfectly

I am not very bothered about the no label disks since I don't own any like that plus I can't think of a solution for it.

I do have an observation, when ever I load or unload the drive (with the skin activated), the entire Rainmeter application (including other skins) hangs for few seconds, Task Manager reports "Not Responding" and then everything is back to normal. I tested this on Windows 7/8 64-bit so is this a Windows issue, Rainmeter issue or skin? Personally, it doesn't really bother me but I would like to know.

Mordasius · Post by **Mordasius** » December 18th, 2012, 5:52 am

PantherX wrote:.. is this a Windows issue, Rainmeter issue or skin?

I get the same thing and guess it must be a bit of both Windows and Rainmeter as the FreeDiskSpace measure is niggling the OS to tell it what the disk label is while the OS is still trying to read the label from the CD/DVD.

Read only CDs/DVDs seem to respond much quicker than the read/write versions.

PantherX · Post by **PantherX** » December 18th, 2012, 2:00 pm

Got it. Thanks for that

Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive

Re: Autohide Empty CD/DVD Drive