Trouble loading Rainmeter

[Parsonm]

My understanding to load rainmeter is that you "Run it". I have downloaded it and when I right click it "Run" does not appear. Trying "Open" opens  a second window asking which software to use to open it. This does not appear to be right as I am obviously doing something that is not correct. What should I be doing. Thanks.

 

[stangowner]

Did you install the rainmeter application? That should set the .rmskin file extension association for the demo skin downloaded from this site.
https://www.rainmeter.net

 

[Parsonm]

All I did was to download the rainmeter package (.rmskin) software from this site as I thought that was what you had to do. I am obviously not following the correct procedure for all of this. Is there documentation somewhere that i can follow to ensure a correct install? I have now downloaded rainmeter from the site you stated and it runs OK, so that bit works but how does it tie in with HWINFO?

 

[stangowner]

Ok, good. So now that the rainmeter application is running, you can double click the .rmskin file you got from here to install the skin.
https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/installing-skins/

And you need to ensure HWiNFO is running as well, so it can provide the data to the skin.

 

[Parsonm]

Yes, that did it. Thanks for the link to the manual. The skin is up for my processor but all the data is zero, so I presume the rainmeter manual will tell me what to do?

 

[stangowner]

No, the rest of the configuration is based on HWiNFO and the skin. You.need to follow the instructions here:
https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Rainmeter-plug-in-for-HWiNFO-2-0
Or
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=118&t=21939

 

[Parsonm]

Thank you for those links. I have to say that at present I don't fully understand them but will persevere. One question if I may. How do you specify a particular entry/position in the skin or does it automatically load the next free slot?

 

[stangowner]

You can do both. You specify the x and y, and they can be relative to the previous entry, or a specific position. For creating and editing skins, you should look at the documentation and examples on the rainmeter.net site. It can be quite a big endeavor though. If you are looking for something more complete out of the box, search for skins others have created that use HWiNFO. There are many out there (some mentioned in this forum). Some are quite nice.

A second alternative if you have the sidebar feature in your OS is to use a gadget. This is much simpler to configure and has some display changing options. But it's layout is limited by the sidebar, whereas rainmeter does not have any limits.
https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-HWiNFOMonitor-2-0

 

[Parsonm]

I have been trying various options to see what happens with the default skins and although I have had some success with the results, lack of knowledge/understanding is limiting what I achieve.

If you could clear up a couple of points for me as searching through the documentation I haven't found the information that I need to resolve the issues I have. (Probably because I am a newbie).

I have a basic desktop PC so I don't need a bells and whistles skin, just something that I can use to monitor what is happening.

I am using the Illustro skin and have modified/extended the System area to include temperatures and fan speeds which I can see. However, getting the meters to display what is happening is proving difficult. I have found all the relevant settings in HWiNFO and inserted them into the relevant .inc file. The first question is that there appears to be various options on the format to use for these settings as the original texts in that file are different to what you would use normally? Help here would be appreciated.

Secondly, how does the System .ini file in the Illustro skin work with the .inc information, what is each entry looking for?

And finally, what is the format of the information in the System.ini file for the meters to work correctly to display temperatures and fan speeds? If there is a "beginners section" in the documentation, then I would be happy to run through it.

Thanks.