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[Itnetlolor]

I've been getting a little bored with my usual setup, or at least selection of Rainmeter skins on my desktop, and am also fairly new to making them as well. I have at least attempted to make the effort to craft some new ones, but the only one I have been able to craft so far was through modifying one that played an animated clip and isolated it so that played 1 frame, and tossed in the picture of Bloodfist you see in my sig. You know, as a test to see how it works. Surprisingly, considering my current background, it fits in rather well, even though it has no other purpose right now than to look pretty. I might try to animate it to look like it's floating and the propellors are moving.

Anyway, basically, what this thread is about is: Are there any other things you have done or made in Rainmeter either just for the hell of it, to see how well you can use it, take on a challenge, and so on?

I mean, I'm interested to see what everyone else has crafted themselves, and if you have any tips for newbies like myself to making different things to add in this desktop trinket, feel free to provide some.

I had an idea for a project one time to craft a clock that looked like it was made from stone discs that rotated, and possibly used the D'Ni number system from the Myst series (being Base 6 (or was it base 5?) would exploit the 24-hour system rather well; as well as the 12-hour version). I also wanted the time displayed to glow when lined up as well, but also adjustable coloring through editing the INI file. I understand the layering effects, and kinda wanted to exploit them a bit and make this really awesome clock. Pressing the central button on it would display the digital conversion of the time in case the discs are a bit tough to read. Of course, having the thing work (at least loading the images alone for it) would maybe cost a pretty penny of resources, but with how finely crafted it would look, at least have something as cool as that for posterity. I mean, not like I would distribute it (unless it would be resource friendly if done right).

Spoiler: You can say it's also somewhat inspired by the stone discs from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as well (click to show/hide)

Other ideas I wanted to see were some DF-based rainmeter skins, but I wasn't sure exactly how that could work out for the time being. I guess there could be a makeshift window that looks like the Z-stats screen, but has the calendar (in DF terminology and such) listed, an RSS feed that replicates the announcements screen, a TO-DO list that replicates how the manager screen is, and etc. Heck, even a binary clock that involves cats for each binary node. Nothing like a catsplosion to tell the time.

But yeah, if you have anything to contribute, feel free to toss them in. If it's just an INI file alone (no extra stuff like pictures or anything included), go ahead and use the CODE tags as well to distribute or get help in debugging.

EDIT:
Regarding my clock idea, I think what I should do first is craft a rough mesh of the idea (really basic stuff, like flat placeholders maybe made in Illustrator or something), align them as I see fit, get the clock part programmed in, and then refine the art work until I have it finalized and pretty (shadows, textures, and everything; done in Photoshop). It should also help with pre-optimizing it as well. All the transparency settings in the images might be a bit of a resource hog though, that's my main concern. So I would have to make various scaled versions of it. A really large one to get the whole idea and hi-res stuff illustrated (and really high precision), and shrink it down progressively. It shouldn't be too hard to adjust. I intend for it to be squared out (like begin with 801x801 scale or something) for easy adjustment. The stray 1x1 pixel is to allow precise centering.