Rainmeter 0.1

[Bekarfel]

Now I feel like I'm in a history museum. Thanks a lot, mom! *huff*

[moshi]

on December 26th 2001 Rainmeter 0.5 was released. it got various improvements and changes. one of them was the introduction of plugins. the first and for now only one was the PerfMon plugin.

but the most significant change was the separation of measures and meters. until now a meter did look like this:

Code: Select all

[C-Drive]
Type=BAR
X=20
Y=213
Measure=FreeDiskSpace
Drive=C:\
BarImage=Gray-bar.bmp
BarOrientation=HORIZONTAL
InvertMeasure=1

that looks familiar if you spent some time with the "help-me-i-dont-know-how-to-read-a-manual" posts on this forum.

from Rainmeter 0.5 on the code has to look like this:

Code: Select all

[MeasureDiskSpaceC]
Measure=FreeDiskSpace
InvertMeasure=1
Drive=C:\

[C-Drive]
MeasureName=MeasureDiskSpaceC
Meter=BAR
X=20
Y=213
BarImage=Gray-bar.bmp
BarOrientation=HORIZONTAL

skins from this time should still be compatible with the current Rainmeter.

btw: these old Rainmeter versions still run on Windows 7, not all measures work though (cpu and swap memory for example):

Untitled-1.jpg

[jsmorley]

You have to be the world's biggest "code pack rat". You saved all that stuff all this time?

[moshi]

You have to be the world's biggest "code pack rat". You saved all that stuff all this time?

nah, not me. Joel (rootrider) is, his Shellfront site is still up after all these years (and providing a great service as LiteStep can load modules from the internet).

have a look: http://www.shellfront.org/modules/
many older modules got lost forever when Modulo went down, there was weird stuff like Black Jack or Snake games, even a tv display, all in 64x64px wharf module size

there are also some gems in the utilities section: http://www.shellfront.org/utils/
most of those do no longer work on newer Windows versions

[moshi]

Rainmeter 0.6 - 0.8 saw a lot improvements, bug fixes, additional plugins like the MBM plugin, which was for Motherboard Monitor the standard app for fan speed, cpu temperature at this time. skin variants were also introduced at this time among with many new bang commands.

it got new meters like the image and line meter. so in Rainmeter 0.8 a third default skin was added to Gray and the string meter showcase skin from version 0.3. it showed an example how to use line meters:

Code: Select all

[Rainmeter]
Background="background.png"
BackgroundMode=0
AccurateText=1

[Metadata]
Author=Rainy (Kimmo Pekkola)
Name=Simple
Information=default skin for Rainmeter 0.8
Version=2.0
License=

[MeasureCPU]
Measure=CPU

[MeasurePhysMemory]
Measure=PhysicalMemory

[MeasureSwapMemory]
Measure=SwapMemory

[MeasureNetIn]
Measure=NetIn

[MeasureNetOut]
Measure=NetOut


[MeterCPU]
Meter=LINE
MeasureName=MeasureCPU
X=1
Y=7
W=46
H=32
LineCount=1
LineColor=225, 225, 167
AntiAlias=1

[MeterCPUText]
MeasureName=MeasureCPU
Meter=STRING
X=44
Y=1
FontColor=191, 191, 142
StringStyle=NORMAL
FontSize=6
StringAlign=RIGHT
FontFace=Small Fonts
PostFix="%"
AntiAlias=1

[MeterMEM]
Meter=LINE
MeasureName=MeasurePhysMemory
MeasureName2=MeasureSwapMemory
X=49
Y=7
W=46
H=32
LineCount=2
LineColor=225, 225, 167
LineColor2=225, 127, 127
AntiAlias=1

[MeterNet]
Meter=LINE
MeasureName=MeasureNetIn
MeasureName2=MeasureNetOut
X=97
Y=7
W=46
H=32
LineCount=2
LineColor=225, 225, 167
LineColor2=225, 127, 127
AutoScale=1
AntiAlias=1

[MeterNetTextIn]
MeasureName=MeasureNetIn
Meter=STRING
X=138
Y=1
FontColor=191, 191, 142
StringStyle=NORMAL
FontSize=6
StringAlign=RIGHT
FontFace=Small Fonts
AutoScale=1
AntiAlias=1

[MeterNetTextOut]
MeasureName=MeasureNetOut
Meter=STRING
X=138
Y=10
FontColor=191, 191, 142
StringStyle=NORMAL
FontSize=6
StringAlign=RIGHT
FontFace=Small Fonts
AutoScale=1
AntiAlias=1

Background.png

Rainmeter's user base remained small. in LiteStep most people were using Maduin's label.dll to display stats in text form. for non LiteStep users Rainmeter just wasn't on the radar, and did not offer enough to choose it over some point-and-click app.

this all would change with the release of Rainmeter 0.9 and the fast growing popularity of Rainlendar.

[moshi]

Rainmeter was released on February 10th 2003 and intoduced something huge for this time: alpha-transparency (using GDI+).

very few skinnable applications did this at this time and us Windows users could only look in awe at the smooth Mac and Linux desktop screenshots. then the common way to have transparency was the so called "Magic Pink" (255,0,255) and that simple method to do transparency always got you jagged lines where it clashed with the window drawn behind it. please compare:

Sphere-noalpha.png

Sphere.png

another significant change was that Rainmeter.ini was separated from the skin's INI files. but for now you still could run only one Rainmeter skin at a time.

this release got three new default skins celebrating the new alpha-transparency:

i attached them at the bottom.

and this got people interested. Skinbase.org was the first skin site to add a Rainmeter section and Customize.org soon followed.

[moshi]

use the Wayback Machine to glimpse at Rainy's site in 2003:
https://web.archive.org/web/20031128171503/http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/

and here (this is a must-read) is an interview with Teknidermy:
http://teknidermy.com/issue/13/rainy/

[Mordasius]

.. and here is an interview with Teknidermy: http://teknidermy.com/issue/13/rainy/

All good wholesome stuff but how stilted and stuffy the interview style seems now.

I wonder what ever happened to Rewind? The link seems to lead to a blank page on skinbase.org but another search leads to something which can charge two iDevices at once http://www.moshimonde.com/product/rewind.aspx. Strange offshoot/namesake of Rewind but there you go.

[moshi]

I wonder what ever happened to Rewind?

it is here: http://customize.org/rainlendar/skins/55764
it still works with the latest Rainlendar version.

[moshi]

ok, i think it is time to come to an end now. Rainmeter 0.10 made it possible to run multiple configs at once and from then on Rainmeter wasn't really that much different from the Rainmeter we know today.

Rainmeter 0.11 brought the webparser plugin and a a new default skin: Tranquil. jsmorley has already posted it earlier in the thread, so i think a screenshot will do:

Untitled-1.jpg

Rainmeter development continued, but got slower and slower. this wasn't due to lack of interest, the "problem" was that Rainlendar's popularity was growing exponentially at this time. you could hardly see a screenshot without it and it was on every CD/DVD that came with magazines (yes, there were print magazines and optical media, Wikipedia might have articles about that). This obviously kept Kimmo very busy.

Rainmeter 0.14, released on January 22nd 2006, was the last version that Kimmo developed. it came with a new icon. unfortunately i do not remember who created it, but it is still cool. i attached it in ICO format at the bottom.

103.png

fortunately Rainmeter development was picked up by a few dedicated folks, but that's a different story.