Taskbar

[EPBrassil]

I have been searching the forums all over and no one is telling me if it is or is not possible to change the look of your taskbar. Like i thought that Rainmeter would skin your taskbar and change how it works but I'm not sure. All I want to do is make it so I have only one bar at the bottom that does everything. I can get everything else to work but i would like to know if this is possible and if not then can anyone suggest something to me.

[jsmorley]

I have been searching the forums all over and no one is telling me if it is or is not possible to change the look of your taskbar. Like i thought that Rainmeter would skin your taskbar and change how it works but I'm not sure. All I want to do is make it so I have only one bar at the bottom that does everything. I can get everything else to work but i would like to know if this is possible and if not then can anyone suggest something to me.

No, Rainmeter is not a "skinning" application like WindowBlinds. It has no innate ability to change or "skin" core Windows elements like the taskbar or notification area (system tray).

[karmat]

But you can fake it by autohiding your taskbar and creating a rainmeter bar with whatever apps you want on it to come up with the look and usability that you want.

[Jeffreygee]

But you can fake it by autohiding your taskbar and creating a rainmeter bar with whatever apps you want on it to come up with the look and usability that you want.

Is a Start button possible though Rainmeter?

[jsmorley]

Is a Start button possible though Rainmeter?

You could easily have an image that when clicked launches the Windows Start Menu.

[MeterStart]
Meter=Image
ImageName=StartButton.png
X=0
Y=0
LeftMouseUpAction=!Execute [::{48e7caab-b918-4e58-a94d-505519c795dc}]


http://rainmeter.net/cms/Tips-LaunchSpecialFolders

[jsmorley]

But you can fake it by autohiding your taskbar and creating a rainmeter bar with whatever apps you want on it to come up with the look and usability that you want.

However that isn't really a "taskbar", it's just a "dock" or "launcher". There is no way in any practical sense to have Rainmeter display minimized applications and do the other things the actual taskbar does.

The long and the short of it is that if you are a keyboard jockey and use Alt-Tab to switch between apps and otherwise don't "need" the Windows taskbar, then by all means hide it, use Rainmeter to create some kind of launcher (or just use Launchy) and Bob's your uncle. What you can't do is replace the Windows Shell, Start Menu, Taskbar and Notification Area functionality with Rainmeter. It isn't a shell replacement app. It's more of a "shell enhancement" app.

[Jeffreygee]

[MeterStart]
Meter=Image
ImageName=StartButton.png
X=0
Y=0
LeftMouseUpAction=!Execute [::{48e7caab-b918-4e58-a94d-505519c795dc}]


http://rainmeter.net/cms/Tips-LaunchSpecialFolders

Are you sure that's the correct action? I can't get it to work.

[jsmorley]

Are you sure that's the correct action? I can't get it to work.

Hmm.. Not sure where that list of commands came from, but that one doesn't work for me either. The others do, but not "Start Menu". I'll have to look into it.

[jsmorley]

I think those CLSID commands just open the "folder" anyway, so it isn't really what we want.

Take a look at this skin. I wrote a little AutoIt3 app to pop the start menu. You just have to put StartOrb.exe in the same folder with your .ini (or in Rainmeter\Addons\StartOrb and call it with "#ADDONSPATH#StartOrb\StartOrb.exe") and call it like I do in this sample skin.

Code: Select all

;=================================================
; Rainmeter configuration file
; Updated February 6, 2009
;=================================================

;[BEGIN CONFIG FILE]==============================

[Rainmeter]
Author=Jeffrey Morley
Update=1000

;Metadata added by RainBrowser
;http://rainmeter.net/RainWiki/index.php?title=Rainmeter_101#.5BMetadata.5D

[Metadata]
Name=StartOrb
Config=StartOrb
Description=A simple image to pop open the Windows Start Menu
Instructions=
Version=February 6, 2009
Tags=Start
License=Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0
Variant=
Preview=

;End of added Metadata

[StartMeter]
Meter=Image
ImageName=StartOrb.png
W=40
PreserveAspectRation=1
X=0
Y=0
LeftMouseUpAction=!Execute ["#CURRENTPATH#StartOrb.exe"]

Here is the full skin with the sample image and the .exe.

StartOrb.zip

[groen]

best way to change the look of the start menu is to crack the uxtheme.dll and then use msstyles.

i do this, but i would prefer if rainmeter had a "running tasks" feature, then i could remove the taskbar completely and just run applications from rainmeter.

msstyles are the fastest (no cpu and mem usage) way to change the look of the taskbar
also use virtual dimension for multiple desktops and transpancy on windows. fyi, vd has had no update in 5 years.

virtual dimension actually works perfectly with rainmeter, when i switch desktops rainmeter stays on the desktop. Excellent!