It is currently March 29th, 2024, 7:18 am

Rainmeter in OBS

Skins that control functions in Windows or Rainmeter
User avatar
Jeff
Posts: 326
Joined: September 3rd, 2018, 11:18 am

Rainmeter in OBS

Post by Jeff »

Demo Video: https://streamable.com/0j1e5v
(recommended to watch)

Requirements: Windows 10 (1903 and up), OBS (25.0.0 and up)

Download Link: https://github.com/Drgabi18/RM-in-OBS/releases
(get the latest .rmskin)

Short(ish) Description: This skin aids Rainmeter users by allowing them to remove the barriers from the Rainmeter window so it can be captured in OBS.
Window Capture's Capture Method in OBS must be set to Windows 10.
The skin shows a list of the currently active configs, clicking on the Config Name will remove WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW Extended Window Style from the skin window so they appear in OBS list of windows it can capture. Click the green icon to refresh the list when you (un)load a skin.
More info is inside the skin.

Problems: Oh boy... User Experience, Rainmeter Windows are now permanently selectable in the taskbar and in ALT+TAB/WIN+TAB as they have never been intended to not have that extended style removed.

Credits:
  • JSMorley for their ConfigActive plugin, which is the skeleton of this plugin, the reason I was even able to return the list of active skins, thank you very much!
  • icons8.com for the refresh icon as I was too lazy to recreate it with vector
Image Preview:
Image
Last edited by Jeff on July 23rd, 2023, 5:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
eclectic-tech
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 5384
Joined: April 12th, 2012, 9:40 pm
Location: Cedar Point, Ohio, USA

Re: Rainmeter in OBS

Post by eclectic-tech »

Thanks for offering this solution, Jeff :thumbup:

I haven't played with this yet and may have a dumb question:

Is this a permanent change to the skin, meaning it will always be accessible in the taskbar, etc. even if deleted and reinstalled?
User avatar
Jeff
Posts: 326
Joined: September 3rd, 2018, 11:18 am

Re: Rainmeter in OBS

Post by Jeff »

eclectic-tech wrote: December 28th, 2022, 3:36 am Thanks for offering this solution, Jeff :thumbup:

I haven't played with this yet and may have a (not) dumb question:

Is this a permanent change to the skin, meaning it will always be accessible in the taskbar, etc. even if deleted and reinstalled?
Not a dumb question! and the change isn't permanent, the change is there for the window only (like, any window in Windows™, the Firefox/Chrome window you're on right now!), not the skin's content(s) at all.
If you unload the skin and load again (not refresh, since that dosen't kill the window process that shows the skin), then the change is reverted. No need to delete or reinstall anything!

Some technical rambling from here on, the devs have said previously that the Extended Window Style I'm removing is necessary for Rainmeter to run, I can see why, it's annoying Alt+Tabbing into them as they don't maximize, clicking on the X to kill the window dosen't unload it (math/cpu is done in the Rainmeter process, the skins are just windows with images/graphics for show) and a part of it is used for transparency (the blending mode that happens between the skin window and everything else). Readding the style back dosen't fix these, so just a fast unload and load is enough.
User avatar
eclectic-tech
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 5384
Joined: April 12th, 2012, 9:40 pm
Location: Cedar Point, Ohio, USA

Re: Rainmeter in OBS

Post by eclectic-tech »

Thanks! Now I just need to try this to display some of my visualizers with music accompaniment :great: