Running VBS script from button

[LuciferVisuals]

Good Morning All.

I have used the RMskin packager for the first time, I think I have done it right. Can anyone take a quick look please.

I'm not concerned, about how anything in the skin works. (Well obviously I am but that is a work in progress), All I want to know just have I made an installable skin that works as expected.


Keith

[LuciferVisuals]

OOPS

Forgot to attach it! Still making beginners mistakes

[Yincognito]

I didn't say you weren't right, I simply said that if both variants were available, I would choose downloading instead of capturing, that's all. After all, the issue here is finding perspective text, the rest is achievable anyway. No, I don't know a site providing download for that, and even if it was, you already solved the issue yourself.

One thing I don't understand is why try it myself. I mean, unless there's something different that you need to do and you can't, my previous code will work for this too, you'd only need to adjust the value of the Frames variable, the Shape of the container if you still want to use it since I assume it's a plain rectangle now unless you want just the trapezoid, and the path used in the meter's ImageName. The code was written with the idea of flexibility in mind since I don't like repeating the same work if it can be avoided. Maybe I'm missing something and you want something else here?

Sure, I could have fun with this too, but as already mentioned, it would be less fun with Star Wars than with Stargate...unless there's some technical addition needed to boost my interest (I love challenges)...

P.S. I will try the .rmskin you posted later in the day since I'll be busier than usual today. Does it include the Stargate / Star Wars thingies?

[LuciferVisuals]

One thing I don't understand is why try it myself.

Sorry I was tired, and misunderstood your post, I cope pretty well for someone who is Dyslexic but I do screw up, especially if I'm tired and don't focus enough on working out the exact meaning of the written word. I mistakenly thought you were saying it wouldn't work. I 100% accept that you know a thousand time as much as I do, that doesn't mean I would always be wrong if we differ in opinion about something (Just usually... LOL). So having misunderstood the meaning of your post, I was basically fighting my corner pointing out that, that this was not a theory, I had actually done it. Well only a very rough copy as proof on concept.

it would be less fun with Star Wars than with Stargate...unless there's some technical addition needed to boost my interest (I love challenges)...

Yes to that, (no Amanda Tapping for a start). It was only that scrolling back text, it's now a cult a classic, and that's what got my interest, it will be a while but when you see what I want to do with it I think you will love it.... But I have put that on the back burner for the moment.

P.S. I will try the .rmskin you posted later in the day, ..... Does it it include the Stargate / Star Wars thingies?

Don't look at that one unless you have started, (the star wars thing is going to take me quite a while so no that's not in it) But I have made some serious progress on animating images. So assuming I'm making the RMskin packages right, I have made a new one, the help screen is animated (No Actual Help in it yet) spent all day on the graphics and getting it working.

Keith

PS Sorry for the confusion, hope it didn't offend.

[Yincognito]

I mistakenly thought you were saying it wouldn't work.

That's all you needed to say, no need for apologies or any of that (at least with me). Everybody, myself included, can be wrong from time to time.

So assuming I'm making the RMskin packages right, I have made a new one, the help screen is animated (No Actual Help in it yet) spent all day on the graphics and getting it working.

Yep, the .rmskin is fine. Just tested it and I'm glad you actually thought of something I thought as well, aka rotating the "ring" before making the "call"(just like in the series). Before posting that woosh GIF, I tried to find such a GIF with the ring rotating, but couldn't find one. You found a much better solution though by using rotators, something I didn't thought at the time (guess I was expecting to have all the necessary things in the GIF, forgetting that most of them - as long as they were not 3D related - can be replicated in Rainmeter anyway). Well done!

Amanda is pretty, but I was referring more to the story arc and the fact that one is close to a muppet show (though even the one that isn't has competition from Star Trek and Babylon 5).

[LuciferVisuals]

That's all you needed to say, no need for apologies or any of that (at least with me). Everybody, myself included, can be wrong from time to time.

I Had no intention to offend you and was worried I accidentally had. Long as we are good.

Yep, the .rmskin is fine. You found a much better solution though by using rotators, Well done!

Two things

First on the skin in the layout there is something I didn't put in there and don't want, can I just use Notepad++ to delete it? I Think I can, but wanted to make sure, it's my first skin.

Second, I don't deserve credit for the idea of using the rotators, I have seen three peoples Stargate Skins and they all did it that way, so that Idea wasn't original, (But all the images and coding was), So Ill take the credit for that.

Oh while I think of it now you have seen how most people make their stargates you will see why the whoosh would be better without the gate, I assumed you had the gate in one layer and the whoosh i another, but if it's all one image. Obviously my help screen is not actually intended to be a gate, just bear a striking resemblance to one.

Love your spoilers BTW.

Now a simple but important question strategic. First it was the Stargates that originally got me interested in Rainmeter, but I wanted to make something that was as useful as it was decorative, All the others I have seen are mainly decorative. So I started building a remote control for a gate..... and got totally carried away. But I have been thinking, and I think I should just finish the remote control off, and call that a completed project. After all it can now be used to control pretty much anything, it's overkill to control a Stargate.

Then start a new project making the gates, which of coursecan (and will on my pc) be controlled by my remote control. So for want of a better phrase release the remote control as a stand alone project. What do you think?

Obviously, either way I'll be getting back to what I was originally interested in. AS a matter of fact the help window was going to be a stargate, but as I was leaning so strongly towards separating the two projects I decided to make something different but "Inspired by" a stargate. Obviously I'll re-use that code for my first stargate, but with different images.

What do you think. better as two separate projects? Or keep them in one?

I suppose what I'm basically asking Is do you think my remote control is good enough to release on it's own as a stand alone Skin.

Keith

[LuciferVisuals]

What else would be a cool theme is" Lord Of The Rings", Ill make a note of that for after I finish with stargates.

Hmm........ It would probably only take a couple of days to make a new set of images and swap them to make a Lord Of the Rings Control Tablet. I could leave all the code as is... Just make a new set of images. I'll definitely make a note of that.

Keith

[Yincognito]

First on the skin in the layout there is something I didn't put in there and don't want, can I just use Notepad++ to delete it?

Yes, you can. I regularly do that, in my layouts. Just edit the Rainmeter.ini of your layout, you can add or adjust there any option from the 3 subsections of this.

Now a simple but important question strategic ... release the remote control as a stand alone project. What do you think?
What do you think. better as two separate projects? Or keep them in one?
I suppose what I'm basically asking Is do you think my remote control is good enough to release on it's own as a stand alone Skin.

It's your decision, but you can do either way. Merging them together has the benefit of not having to "invent" a design since you already have one, splitting the projects as two separate skins has the benefit of maybe a greater flexibility in how you design the remote control skin.

One thing I would say about the "remote control" idea is that it's not unique, it has been already done in various forms, not as a remote control per se (as far as I'm aware of) but as a "menu" with "submenus". In other words, if you do release it, you would probably have to offer at least the same level of flexibility as other similar projects to bring a plus to the whole thing (obviously, that's optional, I'm just saying): for example, the ability to easily adjust the names and commands for those "menus" / "buttons" so that any user could personalize it to his liking based on his needs, or, if you're feeling confident, offer more than just one possible design (a trivial example could be, say, rectangular buttons vs disk buttons, a stargate-like look vs a star wars one, etc). Bottom line, if the names and commands are hardcoded (as they probably are ATM), they will mostly interest you and a few others maybe, but if they can be adjusted, suddenly everyone can use your "remote" to build his own as he wants. Of course, these things will add layers of complexity to the project, but as I said, they're optional, in case you want it to make it more attractive in terms of functionality.

As for the stargate design, well, it's nice enough to be used somewhere (as opposed to nowhere). Whether that somewhere is the remote or some other skin having a different functionality, that's up to you, how you envision things or how you feel more comfortable.

What I personally like about your remote is that it's using the same space for basically unlimited "launcher" capabilities - generally, most of the other launchers come as either menus / submenus, docks, or skins where one has to expand the area / number of "buttons" if he wants more "commands". Your remote doesn't do this the most efficient way possible in terms of code and number of skins involved (for example, you too have to create other Remote-Active-....ini "subskins" to add more commands to it), but it's a great start for someone new to Rainmeter and there is plenty of room for improvement, if desired, not to mention the design is attractive. If you're curious to see one way to avoid creating new subskins for additonal functionality, you can check my tiny Launcher skin from my MYiniMeter suite, which is using, like your remote, the same space, but using a single skin (even having a single command displayed) and a text file. There are easier ways than that too, e.g. using dynamic variables in the skin to control what and how buttons are displayed and what they do - let me know if you'd like to see a simpleton example of such an approach.

[LuciferVisuals]

Yes, you can. I regularly do that, in my layouts. Just edit the Rainmeter.ini of your layout, you can add or adjust there any option from the 3 subsections of this.

Hmmm.... I deleted it, made a new layout from an empty layout and its back? So I assume this means that one of the skin packages I downloaded to look at has it and it auto loads. I'll put that on the list of things to find out on my back burner, it's harmless, but isn't used in my project. I have not downloaded many, but a couple are massive, I didn't actually like them, but because they do so much I have kept them to look through, to see how they do it.

Your remote doesn't do this the most efficient way possible in terms of code and number of skins involved

That's a polite understatement. LOL. In my defence this started as a learning project, and soon as I found how to do something I played with it, it did not even have an objective. Everytime I work on it I think this must be the most efficient way of doing things ever!! That said I would have to delve into areas new to do it better, and I'm still at the point where I need to focus on consolidating what I have managed to learn before doing a radical re think. Which in truth would probably mean starting from scratch. Probably part of my motivation for thinking about splitting the projects. The start with a clean slate is appealing. I know how my mind works, all the time I am working on this project, I will probably continue in the same vein, but will eventually squeeze every single bit of functionality possible out of the code. With a clean slate my mind would look at it differently. On the other hand, There is a lot to be said for continuing to use this as a learning project, For a start I have quite a lot to work with, as opposed to starting again with an empty Notepad++ file.

Thank you for obviously giving it a fair bit of thought. I had almost made a decision to split it, Now I'm leaning the other way. I suppose I can sit on the fence, after all there is no time limit or deadline to achieve anything. IT's A HOBBY after all, It was intended to stop me watching so much day time TV.... It certainly did that. Today was the first time I turned it on it ages, I HAD TO because my computer lost the internet... Wanted to see if the firestick was working, to pinpoint if it was my computer or the router, it was so just rebooted, and it's obviously fine now

You can check my tiny Launcher skin from my MYiniMeter suite, which is using, like your remote, the same space, but using a single skin (even having a single command displayed) and a text file. There are easier ways than that too, e.g. using dynamic variables in the skin to control what and how buttons are displayed and what they do.

Sidebar... Does this have an undo button ?, Just deleted more than intended, and couldn't see one?

I will take a look at yours, though in advance I'm guessing your code will be beyond me to follow. Mine is impressive (TO ME AT LEAST) which I find is very motivational..... But I am fully aware that it does it all with a very level of basic code, I have not even considered comparing it to anyone else's work, because it might demotivate me when I realise how little I actually know.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with one simple step, so sometimes it's better not to think about the bigger picture, because it can look too daunting.

Simple is good, so (that was the part I accidentally deleted), If for no other reason I can probably learn more from that, in terms of stuff I might be able to use now. I don't know about you, as different people have different learning processes and different motivations for learning in the first place, but I can't really learn by reading something, I have to use it, play with it, try "What IF" Break it a few times then by the time I have fixed it, I have learnet it. And I have broken and fixed sooo much code LOL.

Talking of learning code. What would help me a lot with moving forward to the next part of "Gate Building". Is if you have the time to put comments in that "Whoosh"you built telling me what each part does, this would save me a lot of time as I deconstruct it, break it and fix it.

And now what I hope id "A piece of Candy" for you not work this time, Have a look at the Credite, have not started on the starwars scrolling text ye, but probably will today. But you can at least see where it's going, so I stuck an event Horizon in it place, simply as a proof of concept.

Oh that reminds me I also have to redo the whoosh without a stargate, before the starwars text. So might not get to that today.


TTFN


Thanks again for all your time.

[LuciferVisuals]

Sorry cant send it to you atm, my project is suddenly 29 Mb, From 4, so it wort pack, obviously the image resolution is too high, I didn't even give that any thought at the time, So will have to put all my plans on hold and sort that out first. Frustrating, I hate doing something again when I think I have finished it. Still that's life

Keith