Help With Transparency On Monterey

[y0himba]

Hello.

I am currently in love with a skin suite called Monterey. It has the perfect Now Playing skin except for a small detail. I'd like the background on the gadget to be 100% transparent. As a matter of fact, if they could ALL have transparent backgrounds...

I have tried searching through the files in the @resources folder, but I am old and drive for a living so my brain feels like it is grasping what is going on, but I cannot figure it out.

The skin is located at https://github.com/creewick/MontereyRainmeter/releases.

It's been archived, but I still tried getting in touch with the author for their help. There has been no response.

If anyone can help me with the code, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

[eclectic-tech]

Hello.

I am currently in love with a skin suite called Monterey. It has the perfect Now Playing skin except for a small detail. I'd like the background on the gadget to be 100% transparent. As a matter of fact, if they could ALL have transparent backgrounds...

I have tried searching through the files in the @resources folder, but I am old and drive for a living so my brain feels like it is grasping what is going on, but I cannot figure it out.

The skin is located at https://github.com/creewick/MontereyRainmeter/releases.

It's been archived, but I still tried getting in touch with the author for their help. There has been no response.

If anyone can help me with the code, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

The themes in this suite do not use any alpha values, so to make the backgrounds transparent requires editing each theme file.
Those files are located in 'Monterey\@Resources\Scripts\Themes' folder. They are named: light.inc, dark.inc, auto.inc, color.inc, and blur.inc

You need to open each file in your editor, locate the BackgroundColor values and add '01' to that value. Save the file.

Here is the modified light.inc file:

Code: Select all

[Variables]
BackgroundColor=#LightThemeBackground#01
ForegroundColor=#LightThemeForeground#
DarkMode=0
WidgetPadding=#PaddingBase#
WidgetRadius=#RadiusBase#

The dark.inc should be edited the same way.

The auto.inc is a bit different, edit the [AutoThemeMeasure] section:

Code: Select all

[Variables]
WidgetPadding=#PaddingBase#
WidgetRadius=#RadiusBase#

[AutoThemeMeasure]
Measure=Calc
Formula=#DarkMode#
IfCondition=(#DarkMode# = 1)
IfTrueAction=[!SetVariable BackgroundColor #DarkThemeBackground#01][!SetVariable ForegroundColor #DarkThemeForeground#]
IfFalseAction=[!SetVariable BackgroundColor #LightThemeBackground#01][!SetVariable ForegroundColor #LightThemeForeground#]

And the color.inc uses Chameleon plugin, [ColorThemeBackground] and [ColorThemeForeground] sections are edited, so modified it looks like this:

Code: Select all

[Variables]
WidgetPadding=#PaddingBase#
WidgetRadius=#RadiusBase#

[ChameleonMeasure]
Measure=Plugin
Group=ColorTheme
Plugin=Chameleon
Type=Desktop

[BackgroundColor]
Measure=Plugin
Group=ColorTheme
Plugin=Chameleon
Parent=ChameleonMeasure
Color=Average

[ForegroundColor]
Measure=Plugin
Group=ColorTheme
Plugin=Chameleon
Parent=ChameleonMeasure
Color=Foreground1

[ColorThemeBackground]
Measure=String
String=#ColorThemeBackground#
Substitute="%0":"[*BackgroundColor*]01","%1":"[*ForegroundColor*]"
OnUpdateAction=[!SetVariable BackgroundColor [&#CURRENTSECTION#]]

[ColorThemeForeground]
Measure=String
String=#ColorThemeForeground#
Substitute="%0":"[*BackgroundColor*]01","%1":"[*ForegroundColor*]"
OnUpdateAction=[!SetVariable ForegroundColor [&#CURRENTSECTION#]]

[DarkMode]
Measure=Plugin
Group=ColorTheme
Plugin=Chameleon
Parent=ChameleonMeasure
Color=Luminance
RegExpSubstitute=1
Substitute="0.[5-9].*":"0","0.[0-4].*":"1"
OnUpdateAction=[!SetVariable DarkMode [DarkMode]]

[Variables]
BackgroundColor=#ColorThemeBackground#
ForegroundColor=#ColorThemeForeground#
DarkMode=1

I would suggest not editing the blur.inc because it uses the 'acrylic' FrostedGlass plugin and will always show a non-transparent background.

With those edits, you will have transparent backgrounds.
The 'Themes' will work in 'Settings, but the foreground and background colors will not work. to correct that, I would need to look a lot deeper into this, and feel it is not something that will be easily modified right now.

[y0himba]

Thank you for the reply. I made the edit as described and ended up with this:

y0himba-FDocumentsRainmeterSkinsM-324.png

Edit: After tinkering a bit, I got this:

y0himba-NVIDIA_GeForce_Overlay-325.png

Now I just need to figure out how to square the cover art again...

[eclectic-tech]

{blip}
Now I just need to figure out how to square the cover art again...

Yeas, sadly, this suite appears to be abandoned.

It still needs changes to the Music and Weather widgets (skins) because they DO NOT use the "global" color scheme.

The settings skin also uses the modified "global" transparency values, which cause issues when trying to edit user inputs.

Adding transparent backgrounds can be done as described but will result in breaking other features of the suite.

I don't like to make changes that cripple skins, and so will leave any other changes to your desires.

[y0himba]

Thank you. Wish they weren't abandoned, they are quite nice.

[eclectic-tech]

Thank you. Wish they weren't abandoned, they are quite nice.

I decided to correct this suite at least to a useable point and add transparency options. It took a while to get into creewick's head, but all log errors (except large weather) and display issues have been corrected and transparency added.

Monterey 2

monterey2.jpg

Download from my DA site: Monterery 2

[y0himba]

Holy crap! You're Brilliant!. I also grabbed one of your suites,mthe all text one. Whoa...

[eclectic-tech]

Holy crap! You're Brilliant!. I also grabbed one of your suites,mthe all text one. Whoa...

Happy to help!

Well, I also liked what creewick had created and didn't want to see it abandon... so it was an act of appreciation for his work.

Ah yes, "SimpleSentence" is an "oldie but goodie" just text suite, originally by White Baron... of course I tinkered with the original a bit

[y0himba]

A lot of it is unworking, which is the only reason I unloaded it. It's beautiful though!

[y0himba]

I decided to correct this suite at least to a useable point and add transparency options. It took a while to get into creewick's head, but all log errors (except large weather) and display issues have been corrected and transparency added.

Monterey 2 monterey2.jpg

Download from my DA site: Monterery 2

I finally got home from work and downloaded this. The only issue I am having is that the cover art vanishes when the music is paused. Music player is WNP (Web Now Playing)

y0himba-FDocumentsRainmeterSkinsM-326.png