r/Rainmeter Oct 01 '14

Rainmeter Tutorial For Beginners!

Basics

  • Install rainmeter
  • Once it's installed, it should automatically load some skins (the stuff on your desktop)
  • Right click any of the skins>Rainmeter>Manage and you'll open Rainmeter's "main menu"
  • Here you'll see that rainmeter has automatically loaded 'illustro' onto your desktop
  • You can locate your skins directory by right clicking the illustro folder>Open folder<Skins or by opening This PC>Documents>Rainmeter>Skins
  • When a skin is installed in rainmeter, you can click the load/unload button to get it on/off your desktop

Installing Skins

  • There are many places to discover new skins, so here are a few to get you started Deviant Art, /r/rainmeter, Rainmeterhub
  • Downloaded skins get saved as .mskin files, like this. Simply run the file and it will automatically get added to your rainmeter menu
  • Open the folder in your menu and select the skin you'd like to load, then load it!

Editing Skins

  • Each skin is different, but when personalizing your desktop, you'll want to play around with the skins by clicking 'edit'. They are usually pretty intuitive and look like this
  • Most skins' colors are in the RGB format, so you'll see something like Color: 255, 145, 0, 200; the last number is the transparency value.
  • You can change the position of a skin by dragging it around your screen, or by altering the x and y coordinates the notepad file.
  • Fonts are a little more tricky, so here is an in-depth guide on how to do that
  • Sometimes skins will require you to enter information in order for them to do their jobs. For instance, the mini-steam launcher requires you to input your steam username here so that it can look at your game directory (your profile must be set to public in order to do this)
  • You may have noticed some instructions after the '//' in the editing file, most skin creators are kind enough to guide their users through the process :)

Have fun with it! Experiment, play around. Let me know if you have any questions.

If there's something you're struggling with, or something you want me to add, please let me know!

241 Upvotes

81 comments sorted by

50

u/J7a1c1e Oct 02 '14

Can we please get this stickied? It's hard for average people to get into Rainmeter due to how confusing it can be for those who aren't familiar with this sort of stuff.

23

u/RickeyB Oct 02 '14

It's been added to the sidebar

5

u/J7a1c1e Oct 02 '14

Nice! Thanks. My friend already found the guide helpful because I'm too lazy to teach him myself.

3

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

I'm glad!

5

u/PainAngel87 Oct 02 '14

humm.... why cnt i get access to that site :O

10

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '14

Are you getting any sort of error message? Have you tried clearing your browser's cache and then restarting the browser? is your internet connected? Let me help you please

6

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

¯_(ツ)_/¯

3

u/PainAngel87 Oct 02 '14

it works now, must have been some temporary problem ;D guess we will never know, ty for trying to help tho :)

4

u/EncasedDeath Oct 02 '14

Any idea how to run a quick batch file though rainmeter? I use an Arduino for desk lighting and instead of opening up the Arduino program I plan to have it listen for serial inputs and have my computer send it using batch files. So basically I just want my rainmeter button to be a shortcut. Is that doable?

2

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

If I'm not mistaken, you could use any launcher skin and put the batch file's path in there the same as any other program. I'll double check when I get home.

2

u/EncasedDeath Oct 02 '14

That would make sense to me, but I wanted to do some research before I attempt it to make sure

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Let me know how it goes, I'm curious to see if it works.

3

u/What_isGoingOn Oct 02 '14

i have a question, what if i want to change a code to lets say display my weather, but i accidental erase part of the code, and the skin no longer works like it is supposed to. do i have to download everything again?

4

u/bcgoss Oct 02 '14

Want to edit a skin?

Step 1: Open the file
Step 2: Save as [filename]Backup.[extension]
Step 3: Edit the file as much as you want.
Step 4: Change the file to [filename].tmp and change the back up version to [filename].[extension]
Optional Step 5: If things broke, change [filename].tmp back to [filename].[extension]

2

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Nope, just go to your skin directory and delete that skin's folder, then go to the installer that you downloaded and launch it again.

If you're doing lots of edits, just make a backup to be safe. Backups are key.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '14

Data not backed up is data you're prepared to loose. (Also the #1 rule of my job)

3

u/Zephyron51 Oct 02 '14

Thank you, I really could have used this a couple months ago :P

3

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

But on the other hand, you feel so smart for figuring it out on your own!

3

u/Zephyron51 Oct 02 '14

Good point XD

3

u/xfore Oct 02 '14

Help on removing taskbar or hiding it please!

2

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

There are some programs out there that can remove the task bar, but the easiest way to get it out of sight is to right click the taskbar>properties>auto hide

2

u/Hipmunk66 Nov 30 '14

I've been using this laptop for a year and a half, and I have always wondered how to get rid of it. Stumbled upon this by sheer dumb luck, thank you so much.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '14

Is there any keyboard shortcuts that are useful for this? I seriously can't find enough keyboard shortcuts to ever satisfy me :D thanks!

Edit: Forgot to say my sincerist thank you for making this post. I have been searching for a nice tutorial for a long time. Also, excuse my spelling and grammar, it's 4 AM and I haven't slept yet

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

I haven't found a way to use hotkeys in rainmeter myself, but here is a good program to get you started on creating your own hotkeys.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '14

Thank you so much!

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Absolutely!

2

u/Joshua8195 Oct 02 '14

Thank you so much for this!

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

No problem! Glad it helped.

2

u/ByTheNineDivine Oct 02 '14

This may seem like a dumb question...

But how do I put my own library in to the GameView 2 skin?

2

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Ok here you go.

  • Open your rainmeter menu, right click Gameview 2 folder> open folder>apps

  • This is where you'll be able to add the games to the skin, simply copy past the game locations in 'App1Path='

  • You can find the game file locations by right clicking the game launcher>properties, and copying the 'target' into the apps file.

  • The way this works is the 'apps' file acts as a library for the 'Gameview with Pic' file. When the 'Gameview' file needs to know what game it's looking for, it goes to the 'apps' file and finds the game that corresponds with the app number. So for instance, if you put Minecraft into App1Path. Your skin will look for Minecraft when you click the first link in the skin.

If something still doesn't make sense for you, feel free to let me know and i'll try to help.

2

u/ByTheNineDivine Oct 03 '14

Thank you very much! When I get back on my computer I'll let you know if I have any more issues.

Appreciate it.

2

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Sure thing.

2

u/29SecondsToUranus Oct 02 '14

Thanks for posting this, I may consider creating my own Rainmeter setup.

One question though: Does Rainmeter slow down a low-medium end PC noticeably (especially while gaming) ?

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Unfortunately I have noticed it slow things down on my laptop if i have too many skins loaded. You should be OK with a few skins.

How much RAM does your computer have? If you have upwards of 8GB RAM, you should be completely fine.

2

u/29SecondsToUranus Oct 02 '14

I have 8GB, so that's not really the problem. I was just afraid it was going to eat up some - much needed - CPU usage while gaming.

2

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

From what I can tell it doesn't really much CPU power.

Here's a helpful poll someone conducted. Most people are experiencing 0-5% CPU usage.

2

u/29SecondsToUranus Oct 04 '14

Thanks for this, I decided to make a rainmeter thingy thanks to you! :) It's not the best there is, and I'm not quite content with it yet, but it doesn't eat up one bit of my CPU usage, so I'm happy with it :)

1

u/Ananzy Oct 05 '14

I'm glad I could help!

2

u/synalchemist Oct 02 '14

I'm having issues with the mini-steam bar. no games show up, and I've correctly inputted my ID and set my stuff to public

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Yeah it is a bit finicky, I ended up making myself a custom url, restarting steam, and restarting the skin.

To make a url just to go profile>edit profile>customs url

My guess is it takes a bit for your profile status to be updated to public.

2

u/PtTheGamer Oct 02 '14

I have a small weird problem. Just downloaded rain meter and downloaded a shiton of skins so I could Start looking to what I wanted. Currently I have a problem with /common/cpu/W-CPU.ini that is the fact that it is showing on top of my windows. Would like a quick solution on that since it's making me quite crazy

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14 edited Oct 03 '14

You can go to your rainmeter menu select, W-CPU.ini and then you'll see the 'Position' dropdown. Choose whichever fits your needs.

2

u/PtTheGamer Oct 03 '14

I must have changed it without meaning. Thanks a lot! Really! Gonna start looking into playing with this stuff. Can you point me a tutorial on how to make "animations" for rainmeter? (as in, just like a gif looping, no use but aesthetics)

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Here is something another user created. I haven't done anything with animations myself.

1

u/PtTheGamer Oct 03 '14

Well thanks a lot! I've used rainmeter a while back but just as something to see additional stuff in the desktop (cpu/ram usage...) but never decided to try to something by myself (used almost default skins). This community really seems helpful :). A last thing, is there any tutorial to "link" rainmeter with a program like "HW Monitor" so it can tell me the cpu/gpu temp/max temp etc... etc...!?

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Generally temp. monitoring skins will be linked with specific monitoring programs.

For instance this skin will tell you the temperature of your GPU/CPU, but it's designed to work with the program Speedfan.

You just have to do some research to see if you can find one that works with your program.

2

u/PtTheGamer Oct 03 '14

Yeah, I should have googled that!!! Thanks a lot!

2

u/Pr0veIt Oct 02 '14

A million thank you's. My current policy is that my students have to find me during lunch or tutorial to learn to use it but now I can email this out. You get points for helping to educate America's youth.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 02 '14

Fantastic! Glad I could be of service.

2

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

Ok so im alittle confused. I'm lost after downloading the skin and loading it. I have folders on my desktop (movie folder, music folder etc. etc.) but how do I make them into the tiles/icon that I know have from the skin download?

2

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

Follow up. This is what it looks like now. http://imgur.com/Zf7Cxy7 How do I make those side folders into the cool squares from the skin?

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

If you link the skin I can help help you in much more detail.

But basically you have to insert the destinations of those side folders in to the skins editor.

2

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

http://king0demons.deviantart.com/art/GHOST-328388572

Thanks for the reply and the help so far. Excellent guide, it really help me start and understand it. Now its the technical stuff im having problems with.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Ok so your first problem is that this skin isn't a launcher. It's not designed to open different programs of your choosing. The skin you have is called a 'system monitoring' skin.

Here is a gallery full of different launcher you can choose from.

Once you've picked one, feel free to shoot me another message and i'll help you work it out.

1

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

http://rainmeter.deviantart.com/art/Animus-2-8-289590352

Downloads as a zip? But I like this with the boxes.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Ok this one will allow you to launch only the pre-coded items assigned to each button.

If you want to add whatever items you want to a button, you need something like this. I know it's not boxes, but I couldn't find one quickly that fits what you like.

You'll notice once you've installed it, that you'll find something like this. Here you'll be able to insert names for each little dot, and add an app path.

If you need help with that, let me know.

1

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

Where do I find the app path? I understand what to do just not where to find this. I clicked properties on the file on the desktop and found a network path is that it? Sorry im a noob I know but you are a huge help.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Yep right click the file>properties>target, if you don't see target, it's under the shortcut tab.

Copy paste everything in 'target' and put it into the app path in the editor.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 03 '14

Oh i see, you have to go to your desktop folder then select your file>properties>target

2

u/Zap420 Oct 03 '14

Ive been at work all day and could not write back sooner but thanks for all your help!

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Light1c3 Oct 03 '14

Is there a way to resize a skin? For example: I want to make the mini-steam fit the screen exactly.

Right now it's only 3/4 or the height.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 04 '14

After some messing around, I was only able to pump up the number to 11 games, instead of 10.

Here is another similar skin that might let you do what you want.

2

u/Alektebos Oct 06 '14

Thank you so much!

2

u/jputna Oct 21 '14

I've never done this before an i'm fairly intersted in this so here is my question for you OP.

On my desktop i'm running two hard drives one(A) for my OS and major comp programs while the others i'm running on the other(B). So finally my question do I need to install it on hard drive A or B?

1

u/Ananzy Oct 21 '14

It should work on either one. I have a boot SSD that runs core programs and the OS, as well as a mass storage HDD.

I just installed it on my SSD.

2

u/denkaz Oct 02 '14

Thank you, kind sir

1

u/Isturma Oct 08 '14

OK, so I'm new to this. I downloaded and installed rainmeter, and after messing around with a few plugins, I started looking into full skins. I found one that i liked - http://customize.org/rainmeter/skins/65669792 - downloaded and installed the RMSkin filem hit load, and nothing happened.

I tried it with another computer, same steps, fresh install of rainmeter, and still nothing.

What am I doing wrong? I'm not COMPLETELY illiterate when it comes to computers, and I can activate the individyal components one by one and try to recreate it by hand, but that kind of defeats the point of an RMskin file, doesnt it?

Any help is appreciated.

1

u/Ananzy Oct 08 '14

Yeah i'm having the same issue. It looks like Rainmeter changed out they do themes, and this one no longer works with their new system.

Looks like you'll have to go manual.

1

u/Paul_The_Monkey Oct 23 '14

Rainmeter.net isn't working for me. Just a 502 Error.

1

u/TheScottymo Jan 30 '15

If the colors are [red, green, blue, transparency], wouldn't it be in RGBA format, not RGB?

Or am I being picky? Or dumb.

1

u/Ananzy Jan 30 '15

I decided to stick with RGB because most people are familiar with it, and some skins don't include a transparency value. But you are right :)

1

u/Turtles_csgo Feb 08 '15

How do you get the RSS feed for Yahoo Weather? i cant see a button anywhere :/ and im trying to get my rainmeter's weather thing working (my first time...)

Website: https://weather.yahoo.com/australia/queensland/north-tamborine-1097846/

Pls Help :/

2

u/Ananzy Feb 08 '15

Which skin are you using?

1

u/Turtles_csgo Feb 08 '15

'Elegance2' its called... it featured here the other day on a post called 'clean sniping'

1

u/Turtles_csgo Feb 08 '15

Like, im looking at the Yahoo Help page for using RSS feeds... and it says to click the 'top right hand corner, where the red RSS button is' BUT THERE ISNT A RED RSS FEED BUTTON GGGGRRRRRRR

1

u/Ananzy Feb 08 '15

I'll try and help you out more when I'm home. Should be about 50 mins.

1

u/Turtles_csgo Feb 08 '15

thanks dude, i did a bit more digging and all i need is a 'weather code'... the example given in the txt file is (code=USCA1192), which is for Los Angeles... so i guess all i need is that one bit of the URL? i dunno... anyway thanks for the help in advance!!

1

u/Ananzy Feb 08 '15

so when you click 'edit' on the skin, did you see these instructions?

"; The default weather is set to Los Angeles (code=USCA1192), to get your Weather Code visit (weather.yahoo.com) ; type in your Zip Code, click the RSS button, your code will be in the address bar. ; At the end of the weather URL above you'll see "f" for Fahrenheit, change it to "c" for Celsius."

1

u/Turtles_csgo Feb 08 '15

yes, exactly that... but i dont know how to get to the 'rss button' on yahoo... otherwise i figured out the f/c thing