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A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

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NOTHEREFORLONG
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Joined: August 11th, 2022, 2:13 am

A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by NOTHEREFORLONG »

Hi all,

I hope you're all well. :welcome:

I'm gonna keep this fairly short and succinct as possible but a few things need explaining. Firstly, I'm on Windows 11 Pro and have the latest version of Rainmeter and a very powerful PC with all the latest updates AFAIK.

1). I wanted to have/use a dark grey and simple weather skin for Rainmeter that works. So far none have worked, of course I now know why.
2). There are pages upon pages upon pages I have found across the internet with discussion after discussion but not ONE clearly and succinctly offers the one working solution. The posts go on and on for far too long without actually giving the solution up-front and accurately (esp' for the UK).
3). I'm fully aware the old location codes from the weather.com site no longer work. Pity.
4). I have very limited patience to deal with software that doesn't work (its author's fault or not).

So - simply, how I do I get a simple, clean and functional weather skin for Rainmeter to give me the weather over my part of north east London (UK)?

Saying this respectfully, but I'm not here to debate or discuss or anything except to find out a functioning solution that does exactly what it needs to. Nothing more, nothing less. I didn't install Rainmeter for fun or to learn or to join a community - I installed it to get a glance at the weather in my area at any given moment; I have other problems in my life that need my attention, so troublesome Rainmeter weather skins is definitely not one of them. Thanks for your understanding. :)

From the (working), English language skin, I'd like to see only:

1). Current temperature (degrees C not F).
2). Current conditions (sun, cloud, rain, wind, snow etc).
3). Wind speed (pref' mph but kph is ok too if needs be).
4). In a simple, clean, simple, small, grey skin that works. No bright or garish colours or overly 'busy' skins (i.e. with lots of info).

If it helps you help me on the colours/styles, I currently use two grey skins simultaneously for system info, the time and a better shut-down menu:

1). E-tech for the time and system info.
2). Minimal Shutdown; self explanatory.
3). Your weather skin suggestion? :)

Any help to get what's desired without too much fuss, please? Thank you. :)
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SilverAzide
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by SilverAzide »

Why don't you try the Gadgets? https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=20699

There's a weather skin that you can configure large or small (if you prefer concise info), and change the appearance in a few other ways. It should automatically detect your Windows locale and configure itself for the UK. Sometimes is doesn't work, so you can simply right-click the skin and from the Skin Actions menu pick your UK locale (temp in C, UK date/time formatting, etc.). The Settings skin (click the wrench icon in the upper right corner) will allow you to search for your lat/long, down to the level of your street address.

Should be easy enough. Let me know if it doesn't work.
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NOTHEREFORLONG
Posts: 10
Joined: August 11th, 2022, 2:13 am

Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by NOTHEREFORLONG »

SilverAzide wrote: August 11th, 2022, 3:48 am Why don't you try the Gadgets? https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=20699

There's a weather skin that you can configure large or small (if you prefer concise info), and change the appearance in a few other ways. It should automatically detect your Windows locale and configure itself for the UK. Sometimes is doesn't work, so you can simply right-click the skin and from the Skin Actions menu pick your UK locale (temp in C, UK date/time formatting, etc.). The Settings skin (click the wrench icon in the upper right corner) will allow you to search for your lat/long, down to the level of your street address.

Should be easy enough. Let me know if it doesn't work.
Hi Azide,

Thanks muchly for the prompt response. :)

I applaud your suggestion thank you ;-) and yes it works save for a few minor issues encountered but nothing stopping the skin from giving me the weather except, in all honesty, it's a little too busy and lacks much in the way of an aesthetic and visually pleasing style befitting of my setup.

I like that it has a 'Lat Long' location setup but after giving it the colour scheme setup changes and reducing it to a minimal setup, it looks somewhat out of place on my desktop. I'll admit, I'm a little fussy and I feel there is probably a functional skin out there that will fit my Rainmeter setup better than this Gadgets skin.

10/10 that it works. :D
3/10 for its theme-matching aesthetic failings. :confused:

if I seem ungrateful, I assure you, I'm not, I'm particularly grateful for the suggestion (thanks again!) :thumbup: - but, could there be a better looking skin out there? :) Here's hoping. :)
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Active Colors
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by Active Colors »

1) The weather.com issue: The majority of weather skins use weather.com to retrive information, however, couple of years ago they changed the way they provide the weather information which was the reason many skins stopped working. The long thread you found was a collaborative effort of coming up with a sustainable way of making weather skins. This thread specifically https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=34628. The first message in this thread is the "upfront solution" for skin makers. However, for this matter there can't be a quick upfront solution for a user, because the user would need to redo the skin from grounds up. Here is a guide that you can use to redo a skin but it will certainly be a "fuss" https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=36016. Many developers recently picked the proposed solution and implemented it in their skins. But of course, not everyone did it. Your best tactic would be finding a recently published or updated skin.

– Check recently published suits https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewforum.php?f=130
– Check recently published weather skins https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewforum.php?f=134
- Check the curated list of working weather skins
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=34689
- And of course check DeviantArt

2) The weather.com API key issue: After the weather.com drama, the skins were working for a while until suddenly our weather.com API Key stopped woking. This is something that users can fix on their end. Here is more about changing the API key https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=41101 – read the first point.
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SilverAzide
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by SilverAzide »

NOTHEREFORLONG wrote: August 11th, 2022, 4:22 am if I seem ungrateful, I assure you, I'm not, I'm particularly grateful for the suggestion (thanks again!) :thumbup: - but, could there be a better looking skin out there? :) Here's hoping. :)
Well, no worries, I concede that this skin isn't that pretty. (A "3" tho? Ouch, that's kinda harsh... :-( )
But -- this is where it gets fun -- there's nothing stopping you from making it (or any skin) fit your esthetic perfectly.

All the difficult work of fetching the data from TWC has been done for you, so all you need to do is adjust the appearance to your liking. See Step-by-Step Basic Weather Skin Tutorial for more info.

You didn't say what the style you are looking for is. Post a screenshot, or a link to a skin that does fit your style but doesn't work, and it would be a lot simpler for the community to provide recommendations.
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NOTHEREFORLONG
Posts: 10
Joined: August 11th, 2022, 2:13 am

Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by NOTHEREFORLONG »

SilverAzide wrote: August 11th, 2022, 11:57 am Well, no worries, I concede that this skin isn't that pretty. (A "3" tho? Ouch, that's kinda harsh... :-( )
But -- this is where it gets fun -- there's nothing stopping you from making it (or any skin) fit your esthetic perfectly.

All the difficult work of fetching the data from TWC has been done for you, so all you need to do is adjust the appearance to your liking. See Step-by-Step Basic Weather Skin Tutorial for more info.

You didn't say what the style you are looking for is. Post a screenshot, or a link to a skin that does fit your style but doesn't work, and it would be a lot simpler for the community to provide recommendations.


A '3',. I'm sorry,.. I'm sure for many users, the skin's visual and technical appeal is more than pleasant and helpful, but for me, it's less so (I'm a stickler for tidy, clean, simple yet stylish designs in almost everything, from cars to planes to cutlery to clothes and as far as skins for applications). :) No hard feelings (from me) about your skin's design. My apologies if my (admittedly rather low) score offended you; t'wasn't my intention. :thumbup: I'll revise it: "6/10" for its technical prowess and fulsomeness of the information it relays to the end user. Fair? :)

Ok, so, yesterday I had already homed in on realising it would be newer skins that'd work and had, immediately prior to posting my original thread message ^up^ top^, been looking at the recent (2020-2022) weather skins, though sadly there aren't that many (understandably so).

I had also mentioned the two Rainmeter skins I currently use to help thread responders maybe come up with a skin suggestion that was more in keeping with those aforementioned designs. :) 'E-tech' and 'Minimal Shutdown' *grey.

I do think though that the E-Tech skin could be a lot neater and more symmetrical, it's a bit of a scattered-about-visual-mess, but it's still very technically useful on my desktop. :) I may change it for something better/symmetrical.

This is my current desktop; clean, simple, practical and not too jarring on the eyes, IMHO:
Image

Note the Minimal Shutdown skin, top right. It 'closes' when you click the bar on its left; tucking away nicely into the far right hand side of the top corner of the screen - unobtrusive. Perfect.

I tried to get one particular skin to work yesterday called 'Minimet' (I think it was [the one I'm referring to], I tried so many skins yesterday that I actually lost count). It was a predominantly text-based date skin with 24hr clock and a weather component that looked kinda good except it was a right mess to try to get set up; using those %d and %e parameters.

It was far too advanced for my head and for the life of me, I just couldn't get its layout right (such as time [m, d, h, m, s] +weather) within the given adjustable parameters, obviously. Also, it was just a pity the weather component didn't work; it'd have been great if it had AND if I could have got it looking visually (in its layout, I mean) how I wanted it to look.

I hope this helps any responders help me. :) Thank you! :thumbup:
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SilverAzide
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by SilverAzide »

NOTHEREFORLONG wrote: August 11th, 2022, 1:17 pm I'll revise it: "6/10" for its technical prowess and fulsomeness of the information it relays to the end user. Fair? :)
OK, I'll take it! ;-)

So that weather skin you are referring to is fairly simple and there are lots of similar ones. On DeviantArt you might want to look for skins by users Xenium, Adni18, or Apexx-Sensei (I might have the names slightly off). Xenium always keeps his stuff up to date. Apexx-Sensei (sp?) has been posting really nice weather skins for a long time and I don't know if he keeps all of them working, but his stuff gets ripped off constantly to the point where he's stopped posting some of them and just posts screenshots instead.

The links AC posted above for the weather.com templates make converting any old skin to use the new templates as nearly trivial a process as possible.

P.S.: That visualskins site is very out of date. No weather skin (based on weather.com) written before January 11, 2022 will function properly, as that is when TWC changed their site. Skins created before January can require anything from a minor tweak to a complete gutting and overhaul to get them to function properly.
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CodeCode
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by CodeCode »

NOTHEREFORLONG wrote: August 11th, 2022, 1:17 pm A '3',. I'm sorry,.. I'm sure for many users, the skin's visual and technical appeal is more than pleasant and helpful, but for me, it's less so (I'm a stickler for tidy, clean, simple yet stylish designs in almost everything, from cars to planes to cutlery to clothes and as far as skins for applications). :) No hard feelings (from me) about your skin's design. My apologies if my (admittedly rather low) score offended you; t'wasn't my intention. :thumbup: I'll revise it: "6/10" for its technical prowess and fulsomeness of the information it relays to the end user. Fair? :)

Ok, so, yesterday I had already homed in on realising it would be newer skins that'd work and had, immediately prior to posting my original thread message ^up^ top^, been looking at the recent (2020-2022) weather skins, though sadly there aren't that many (understandably so).

I had also mentioned the two Rainmeter skins I currently use to help thread responders maybe come up with a skin suggestion that was more in keeping with those aforementioned designs. :) 'E-tech' and 'Minimal Shutdown' *grey.

I do think though that the E-Tech skin could be a lot neater and more symmetrical, it's a bit of a scattered-about-visual-mess, but it's still very technically useful on my desktop. :) I may change it for something better/symmetrical.

This is my current desktop; clean, simple, practical and not too jarring on the eyes, IMHO:
Image

Note the Minimal Shutdown skin, top right. It 'closes' when you click the bar on its left; tucking away nicely into the far right hand side of the top corner of the screen - unobtrusive. Perfect.

I tried to get one particular skin to work yesterday called 'Minimet' (I think it was [the one I'm referring to], I tried so many skins yesterday that I actually lost count). It was a predominantly text-based date skin with 24hr clock and a weather component that looked kinda good except it was a right mess to try to get set up; using those %d and %e parameters.

It was far too advanced for my head and for the life of me, I just couldn't get its layout right (such as time [m, d, h, m, s] +weather) within the given adjustable parameters, obviously. Also, it was just a pity the weather component didn't work; it'd have been great if it had AND if I could have got it looking visually (in its layout, I mean) how I wanted it to look.

I hope this helps any responders help me. :) Thank you! :thumbup:
'Eye' 'see' what you mean by simplified and compact. O.O
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NOTHEREFORLONG
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by NOTHEREFORLONG »

Image

Here's my desktop now. Gold and black themed.

Ok, so it's not perfect by any means and it still needs more work to get my desktop looking how I really want but it's ok, for now. I may opt to get a better weather skin when one comes along (many upon many great looking weather skins don't work unfortunately, they all need to be updated if they're ever going to work again).

I made the wallpaper myself (took the idea (not the design, that's mine) from a wallpaper artist on Deviantart) and improved it a little. If anyone wants a specific size / colour (white, red, gold, blue, green, pink), let me know via DM and I'll make it for you.

Starting top left to bottom: The weather suite (top left) is: Weather Desk API by Xxenium.

The shutdown drawer/panel (top right) is: Minimal Shutdown by Saifulkader. *I've 'opened' the drawer, it can be closed when not in use.

The date & time suite is Rainmeter Simple Media by Lilshizzy on Deviantart.

The system info suite is: Circuitous Two by Flying Hyrax, also on Deviantart. *Note, if you want the GPU temp to be displayed, you'll need to run either HWInfo or Speedfan (I used Speedfan, it worked, HWInfo didn't).

The audio visualiser is: Radian Linear Visualizer, also on Deviantart.

Lastly, but by no means least, the glass taskbar; I had to make some of the Rainmeter Glass Taskbar icons myself from existing logos found across the interwebz, but yeah, looks ok, right? It needs many more icons though and there's a problem with the taskbar opening up a new instance of my browser instead of restoring the one I have minimised. :oops: Apart from that, I like it.

So, there it is, my desktop, all in a sweet gold and black theme. 8-)

There's definitely room for improvement, but, it's pretty sweet, if I say so myself; I couldn't have done it without the hard work of creatives who put in countless hours of time and dedication to help make sexy designs freely available for fools like me who hate how Windows (11) looks natively WITHOUT having to use that crappy (and frankly, dangerous/unstable) Multi Theme Patcher or junk like Stardock (yes, I've used both, both are a right royal pain in the a$$).
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CodeCode
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Re: A no-fuss solution to get a working (UK) weather skin please?

Post by CodeCode »

That desktop image looks like the window of a space station with the sun behind the verticals. Nice work.
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