Rainmeter is a desktop customization platform. Through Rainmeter, you can enhance your Windows computer at home or work with skins: handy, compact applets which float freely on your desktop, much like Windows Sidebar gagdgets, or dashboard widgets for the Mac. Rainmeter skins provide you with useful information at a glance. It's easy to keep an eye on your system resources, like memory and battery power, or your online data streams, including email, RSS feeds, and weather forecasts. Many skins are even functional: they can record your notes and to-do lists, launch your favorite applications, and send your tweets to Twitter - all in a clean, unobtrusive interface that you can rearrange and customize to your liking.

Changelog:

What's new in Rainmeter 1.4

Change to how featured skin suites are distributed

First and foremost, we have changed the way "default skins" are distributed for Rainmeter. No longer are Enigma and Gnometer part of the build, but are added after you install Rainmeter from our Downloads pages. This allows us to reduce the size of the installer and the footprint of Rainmeter on your system if you don't use Enigma and / or Gnometer, as well as providing a way to have the "Recommended Skin Suites" updated by the authors without having to wait for a release of Rainmeter. This will also allow us to feature new skin suites over time!

You will see a new "Download recommended skins" check box at the end of the install process. If you are new to Rainmeter, this will be checked and the page will automatically load in your browser. If you are upgrading Rainmeter, you can still check this box to view / download the latest versions of our recommended skin suites. Simply view the details of the skin suites we are featuring, and with one click you can install one or more and be up and running.

New illustro "default / starter" skins

Of course there needs to be some skins distributed with the installer, so our wizard poiru has created a new set of skins called "illustro" which are automatically installed. These are designed to show off some of the capabilities of Rainmeter to a new user, be very simple to edit and change, and are fully commented so someone looking to get started with editing and creating Rainmeter skins has a good place to start and learn.

Other changes to Rainmeter 1.4

* Updated the installer to support UNICODE characters in paths and file names

* MeterStyle now supports multiple styles in a single meter
You can use multiple MeterStyles with MeterStyle=Style1 | Style2 | Style3 in a meter. MeterStyles later in the .ini will override ones earlier if there are conflicts in settings.

* Added support for image effects on BAR and ROTATOR meters
The settings GreyScale, ImageTint, ColorMatrix(x), ImageFlip, ImageRotate and ImageAlpha supported in Image meters previously, have been added to Bar and Rotator meters as well.

* ToolTipHidden can now be used under [Rainmeter]
ToolTipHidden can now be added to the [Rainmeter] section of a skin to turn off / on ToolTips for an entire skin.

* Added a link to the new "Downloads" page on the Rainmeter context menu.

Program Information Category: Tools and Utilities Type: Free Version: 1.4 RC Size: 3.04MB Works on: Windows Product page: here