Taskbar Skins Layout

[sl23]

This is my daily use suite of skins that have become an invaluable part of my workflow. Without this, it would seriously make my PC usage a lot slower and more difficult. I thought I'd share in case others like to use them or adjust to suit. I have had a great deal of help from forum members, mostly Yincognito, deathcrafter and JSMorley. There are no Log errors in this suite, but there are three warnings due to skins being deactivated when not active.

Please be aware that these were created on a Windows 11 PC and Yincognito's version of Input Volume didn't work on my PC, only on his Windows 10 PC. So I kept my code, which probably isn't as optimised as his, but it works on my PC whereas Yincognito's seemed very jittery for me. Everything else should be ok.

Taskbar.gif

Taskbar Suite_2024.6.27.rmskin

There are only five skins included:

• Clock aka 'Taskbar'

• Drives

• Launcher

• Screensaver

• Weather

I have set the first skin 'Clock', actually just called 'Taskbar' to centre the clock to midscreen.
Everything has their Zpos set to Topmost in order to show on top of the Windows Taskbar.

Here is a somewhat short description of what each skin contains and how to use it.

The Clock skin has the following functions, left to right:

CPU % - L-click to open Windows Explorer.
RAM % - L-click to toggle the Screensaver skin.
Wifi - L-click to open Network settings. Hover to display connection info.

Clock - L-click opens Task Manager. M-click refreshes app. R-click opens Foobar, obviously this can be changed to your media player.
Keystate - The 3 shape meters below the clock show the state of CAPS, NUM, SCROLL, lock setting. You will need the KeyState.dll plugin. I was unable to add this to the rmskin package as I don't have the 32bit version and it is exceedingly likely no-one will ever need it.

I'm thinking of adding simple weather skin to this. Just Current temp and location Tooltip.

Note Icon - L-click to toggle the hourly chime sound. This also gets disabled when certain apps are running. Again, you can easily change these.
Shape Meter - Appears on hover. L-click opens Rainmeter Manage window. M-click Rm Tray Menu. R-click Rm About window.

On opening Foobar, the track details are displayed to the right of the Note Icon. Showing Cover art, hover this to toggle Play/Pause. Track info is also shown to the right of this. Hover Artist name for full track info. Select position by L-clicking the Progress bar. Time elapsed and total time below that. L-click track time to focus the Foobar window.

Launcher skin next:
Most of it only shows on hover, as it's more about functionality rather than displaying info.

Output Volume - L-click set volume to 25%. M-click toggle Mute. R-click set volume to 80%. Scroll to adjust in steps of 5%.
The current output device is displayed in the 'name' box on hover. The green indicator lets you know at a glance the volume level and when audio is playing there is a spectrum analyser displayed inside the circle.

Shape Meter - ToolTip shows current output device, L-click to change that device. M-click to Refresh the skin.

Name Box - Displays info depending on what you hover on, a kind of dynamic tooltip. If you hover over this area, it will show 'buttons' for shutdown, restart, hibernate, lock.

Input Volume - Right of Name Box is the Mic and Line In controls. They have the same controls as the Output Volume for adjustment. To set the device you will need to L-click the Aqua Mic icon and paste the info copied to the clipboard to your text editor. Then replace the Mic and LineIn variables in this skin to the info from your system. The Aqua Mic icon is for Microphone input and the Orange Mic icon is for Line In. L-click orange icon opens System Sound Settings. R-click opens Control Panel Sound Settings.

Launcher - Hover the bottom half of the skin and a set of app icons will be shown. These are easily changed by creating shortcuts on your desktop and then cut and paste them to Launcher/Shortcuts folder. Anything can be added. Files, URL's, Apps, Folders, etc. Single L-click to open. Scrolling is possible if there are more than 7 shortcuts.

Bluetooth - Toggle BT on/off with L-click. M-click opens BT settings. Status shown in the Name Box. Icons also changes colour depending on status.

Volume indicators - The two coloured 'dots' represent the input volume levels. Aqua = Mic, Orange = Line In. As you adjust the volume when scrolling on the relevant meters above, these change position to give you a quick way to check levels.

VU Meters - Three bar meters finish this off. Mic, Line In, Output bars give a quick way to check db levels, though these aren't 100% accurate so only use as a rough guide or for fun.

Drives skin is the last:

Recycle Bin - Shows number of items in Bin. Hover to show total size of items in bin. L-click opens Bin. M-click opens Bin properties. R-click empties Bin.

Drives - Connected disks are shown here. Internal and external devices are shown, but only external USB disks will be shown. Hover a disc to show info: (Letter: Name - SpaceRemaining / TotalSize). The RoundBar meters give a quick idea of space usage. The drive letter will change colour to indicate usage:(Red - Write, Green - Read, Orange - Both). L-click a drive to open in default file manager. M-click to safely remove drive, if it's removable, of course. Only connected drives are shown. I've only added Measures and Meters for 10 drives as I have never had more than 8 different letter associations before, so if you want more you can check the code and add more, shouldn't be hard to do.

Two additional skins:

Screensaver - This skin will be shown only when you either L-click the RAM % meter as explained above, or when certain processes are running. I found this useful if playing windowed emulators. You can use it as an eye protector to open at a certain time, code for that isn't included though. The four circles at the bottom are there to adjust RGBA settings, just hold CTRL and scroll on the specific meter to adjust it's colour setting. Then CTRL and L-click to save that setting

Weather - A simple skin to display current temp and a tooltip for location. I am thinking of integrating this into the Clock skin, maybe...

Credits for all skins, either forum help or supplying demos, allowing permission to use code, etc:

Brian
JSMorley
Yincognito
Death Crafter
EclecticTech
ActiveColors
Balala
Jelle Dekkers
Poiru
Dayuyu
and others that have long been forgotten...

Thank you for creating this great application and to those that have helped so much over the years. It's been often frustrating but great fun playing with this.

[Yincognito]

Please be aware that these were created on a Windows 11 PC and the Input Volume didn't work for Yincognito on his Windows 10 PC.

Just a minor observation, now that the final skin has been released: just like during its development, the mic's input level is 0 for me at skin load / refresh. On the other hand, unlike during the development phase, the rest of it (bar the Line In device which I don't have on my system) works well now. So basically the only issue I saw after testing the mic input part of your Launcher skin is the zero level at skin load / refresh. Other than that, didn't test much, but I always liked your design.

[sl23]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I did try your code, but I just didn't like the way it kept jumping to zero every few minutes for a few seconds. Not really sure how to resolve it seeing as I only have two computers with Windows 11 on them. But perhaps I should have supplied your code with it? I'll add a link to your version and if people wish to try yours if mine fails, then at least it's an alternative.

Thanks again for all your help

[Yincognito]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I did try your code, but I just didn't like the way it kept jumping to zero every few minutes for a few seconds. Not really sure how to resolve it seeing as I only have two computers with Windows 11 on them. But perhaps I should have supplied your code with it? I'll add a link to your version and if people wish to try yours if mine fails, then at least it's an alternative.

Thanks again for all your help

No, no, I didn't mean that, your code is fine as it is. I only said that on some systems (like mine, for example), the Mic level isn't displayed at skin load, and you might see if that can be fixed, that's all. It's optional, of course, since that's not that big of a deal, so it's up to you. Oh, and of course, you're welcome for the help, nice to see that you managed to use it and implement things the way you did.

[sl23]

Tbh, I wouldn't know how to fix something I don't have an issue with!
The only odd thing about the Mic level is that when I Lock, Restart, Hibernate or Shutdown my PC, even though the Mic is set at 80 the last few days, it seems to always be at 77 when powered on again?! Is there a way around this? It seems to be a Windows issue I think. I could set the volume to the last used level I suppose, which is why I asked how to WriteKeyValues. I have a skin that uses that, so I'll check it out and update if I get it working.

Btw, I know you are ok with however I use the code, just didn't want you to think I was ungrateful by me not using it after all the help you provided.

Out of curiosity, did you try the skin above? That one has the Mic Level hidden on load and only shows on MouseOver anyway, so shouldn't be a problem used that way. Though I understand, not everyone will want that.

[Yincognito]

Tbh, I wouldn't know how to fix something I don't have an issue with!
The only odd thing about the Mic level is that when I Lock, Restart, Hibernate or Shutdown my PC, even though the Mic is set at 80 the last few days, it seems to always be at 77 when powered on again?! Is there a way around this? It seems to be a Windows issue I think. I could set the volume to the last used level I suppose, which is why I asked how to WriteKeyValues. I have a skin that uses that, so I'll check it out and update if I get it working.

Btw, I know you are ok with however I use the code, just didn't want you to think I was ungrateful by me not using it after all the help you provided.

Out of curiosity, did you try the skin above? That one has the Mic Level hidden on load and only shows on MouseOver anyway, so shouldn't be a problem used that way. Though I understand, not everyone will want that.

Yes, I did try your skin, that's why I posted my findings. I know the Mic level is hidden at load, I was just saying that on hover it's initially 0 although it should be the actual level, as per the code. But maybe it's a NirSoft thing, since for me, in my code that runs svcl.exe at every skin update, the issue doesn't happen. No, it's not a problem which code you use, especially since both codes are based on the same ideas, with only slightly different approaches - after all, you have a good reason to use yours since it appears to work for you. Didn't restart or shutdown to see if the level stays at 80, since I rarely do restarts anyway and the 80 thingy is more suited for your usage, but I'd go for either the Mic or Windows having some automatic behavior regarding this, or the skin itself or the NirSoft tools playing a part in it.

[sl23]

What do you mean by automatic behaviour exactly?
You think it should set the volume on load/refresh?
I did think about that, but decided against it as others may prefer it stay at what they set during the last session.

[Yincognito]

What do you mean by automatic behaviour exactly?
You think it should set the volume on load/refresh?
I did think about that, but decided against it as others may prefer it stay at what they set during the last session.

You know, like the Windows sound settings that can reduce sound (application?) volume automatically when a call is received, that kind of things (you find the settings in the Control Panel > Sound). It was just an example, as those settings only reduce it to 50% or 80% or something like that and I'm not even sure they have anything to do with the Mic (unless the Mic has some resident app doing such stuff in the background, but that's unlikely), so it doesn't fit the behavior you describe anyway.

No, not set the volume. I mean that it doesn't GET the volume on load / refresh for me. After I set the volume it works fine in getting the volume though. Just not on load / refresh, that's all.

[sl23]

Well, I could set it so users could add their own paths to the apps they want to take that action, ie reduce volume to 50%.
Not something I use personally, so didn't think about it.

Is that issue to do with Windows 10 or your set up? It works for me. Like I said I get 77% when it was last set to 80% on a restart of my PC!

[Yincognito]

Is that issue to do with Windows 10 or your set up? It works for me. Like I said I get 77% when it was last set to 80% on a restart of my PC!

If by "that issue" you're referring to displaying the mic level as 0 at skin load, I don't think it has something to do with Win 10 or my setup, which are both perfectly fine (didn't reinstall Windows or had any significant issues for 3 years, so that says something). If you're referring to the level becoming 77% instead of the previous 80% after a restart, that is "your issue", which I didn't test it yet on my system (I might do that though tonight, just out of curiosity).