It’s a staple of science fiction—the futuristic heads up display and the hacker’s elaborate monitor.
From left to right: J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man series (Marvel/Disney), Tron Legacy boardroom (Disney), and Westworld tablet (HBO)
While we don’t have the hardware at this level quite yet, did you know that you can get a lot of the same aesthetic and functionality from your personal computer? Imagine turning your boring Windows desktop from this:
(Image from 1 Stop Design Shop)
Into this!
Umbrella Corp Theme using Burnwell88’s Tech-A Skin
Or this!
NicoNoFace’s Gorgeous Zelda Theme
Using a tool called Rainmeter, you can make almost any desktop that you can imagine, from movie hacker to minimalist to saccharine sweet. And the best part is, it’s FREE! It also seems to work on pretty much any computer running Windows. I have a very small, somewhat glitchy netbook and it still runs great!
What is Rainmeter?
This may get confusing, but power through to the next section! You don’t need to know the exact terminology or understand precisely how the program works in order to use Rainmeter. However, for those interested, read on.
Rainmeter doesn’t replace the desktop itself. Rather, it is simply a dashboard that controls a series of widgets, which work together to create an interactive desktop on top of your old ugly one. These widgets, called “skins” are fully customizable, and are created by users, not Rainmeter itself. There is a huge list of popular skins later in this post. Skin text files are also sometimes called “configs”.
Sometimes, the authors include multiple “variants” within a single skin. For example, a 24-hour clock and a 12-hour clock, or different color options for the same skin.
These are the “with logo” and “without logo” variants of Duck Duck Search.
“Suites” are a collection of skins, usually by the same author or customized to share the same aesthetic. These sets of skins are meant to be used together to create a cohesive style.
This is the Glasses Suite by vClouds. You can use a few or all of these skins, over any wallpaper you want.
Finally, a “theme” is the finished product. It’s the sum of all of the suites or individual skins, your customizations, and how they are positioned on the screen. You can see several examples of themes throughout this post, including my current theme at the bottom.
Sounds Complicated…Why Should I Bother?
First of all, for the same reason that we hang art on our walls or wear fashionable clothing. It’s nice to enjoy something beautiful, especially in a space that most of us spend a lot of time working and relaxing every day. Also, clutter can have many negative effects on mental health.
On a more practical level, my custom Rainmeter setup has definitely increased my efficiency and reduced distractions when I’m working on my computer. I am incentivized to not lazily save everything to the desktop and to actually keep it sorted in folders in my documents. My Reddit RSS feeds give me a glimpse of what is going on without actually having to browse several different subreddits or news sites.
Most importantly, my Launcher (program/site menu) is uncluttered and keeps me focused on tasks that need to be done. Instead of opening a general “Internet” button and getting distracted by YouTube or something out of habit, I’m able (and reminded) to go directly to Google Docs to work on a blog post, or to launch my family’s cafe site to update the weekly menu. If I do click on the “Reddit” or “Twitter” links, it’s an intentional choice, not a thoughtless impulse.
How Do I Use Rainmeter?
First, start by clearing your desktop so that you have a blank canvas to work with. Hide files in folders, delete unnecessary shortcuts (you may have to right click the desktop and hit “personalize” to remove things such as the recycle bin), and unlock the taskbar so it will slide down and hide when not in use, or make it transparent if you want just the icons to show.
Set your base wallpaper the same way you normally would.
Then, download Rainmeter here. I got the 4.1 “Final Release” version rather than the more recent 4.2 “Beta” because I didn’t want to deal with potential glitches while I was trying to learn. If you aren’t running Windows, you can’t use Rainmeter, but can try something like GeekTool for Mac or Conky for Linux instead.
Once installed, Rainmeter will automatically launch a very basic suite called Illustro, which will appear on your desktop. You can drag and drop all of the skins around the screen, and can remove unwanted skins at any time by right-clicking and selecting “unload skin”, or clicking on that skin’s .ini file in the dashboard and selecting “unload skin”.
Similarly, you can add any skins that you have installed by clicking on the correct .ini file in the Rainmeter dashboard, and selecting “load skin” at the top.
Here are some other useful tools for arranging your skins:
- Position- Default is “normal”, but I put most of my skins “On Desktop” so that they won’t accidentally come forward in front of browser windows, etc.
- Load Order- Default is blank, and you can usually leave it that way. But you can put numbers (e.g. 1 for load first and 2 for load second) if two skins are interfering with each other or overlapping.
- Transparency- Can change if you want to be able to see through a skin a bit. Can be helpful if you’ve got a wallpaper or visualizer that you want to be able to see underneath.
- Draggable– Default is on. This lets you drag skins around the desktop. May be useful to disable once you have the theme completed and don’t want to edit anymore.
- Keep on Screen– Default is on. This keeps skins within the boundary of your screen. May be useful to disable if a skin has a large outside margin and you want to push it right to the edge or corner, or if you want to straddle a skin between two monitors.
- Snap to Edges– Default is on. If a skin is placed within 10 pixels of an edge or another skin, it will “snap to” that edge or skin, allowing you to move them as if they are a single unit, and keeping launchers and other skins flush with the edges.
Where Do I Get Skins?
You can find them all over the internet, just by Googling “Rainmeter Skins”! However, three of the best places to safely and reliably find popular skins are Rainmeter Global on DeviantArt, /r/rainmeter on Reddit, and Rainmeter Hub. Some will be direct file downloads that will automatically install to the Rainmeter folder, and some will need to be unzipped due to a large file size.
In either case, once they are installed, the skins should automatically appear in the Rainmeter folder and on the Rainmeter program’s dashboard. If they don’t, try closing the program and reopening. Once they appear in the Rainmeter program, you can load or unload them, and drag and drop them around the screen as described above.
Types of Skins to Look For
There are tons of different types of skins to add to your desktop. A few examples of popular ones are:
- Time and Date– Lock Clock, Elegant Clock, Textime, AClock, Simple Media, KitKat
- Weather– Do I Need a Jacket?, Dresses Temperature, vClouds, Very Flat
- System Information– vClouds System, Lines, Minimalistic, Flat & Blurry, Just a Bin, Coffee Battery, SimplyRound
- Launchers and Docks (Menus)– Honeycomb, Circle Launcher, B’Loved, Animated Circular Icon, Silmeria Dock, Launcher, unFold
- Feed Readers (News, social media and blog feeds, etc)– RSS Feed Reader Pack, vClouds RSS, Subreddit Viewer, Scrolling RSS
- Search Bars– Google Bin, Search+, Duck Duck Search
- Visualizers– Monstercat, VisBubble, Fountain of Colors, Rainy Days
- Music Players– Monstercat, Cleartext, Muziko
There are so many more that I couldn’t possibly list them all here. Not only are there tons of other options for the categories listed above, but there are skins for pretty much any purpose you can think of. You are limited only by your creativity (and maybe your battery life).
For beginners or people who don’t have time to make deeper customizations, you can still make a cohesive, beautiful desktop by downloading a suite of skins or a full theme, so they all coordinate. There are many easy but creative ones like the the newspaper theme, the semicircular suite (pair w/ VisBubble for a cool effect), and the Glasses Suite.
I also love the endless anime and gaming themes you can find on /r/rainmeter (here’s a Kimi No Na Wa one, and a Samurai Champloo/Overwatch one). Even though these may require some mild customization as listed below, users often make it easier than designing your own theme by providing a link for the full theme download, or providing links to all of the individual skins, fonts, and wallpapers they used in the comments.
The Next Level: How to Customize Rainmeter Skins
If you’re willing to try out a little common sense coding—reading the text code and making a few minor, easy tweaks—you’ll open up a whole new world of customization, which is where Rainmeter really shines!
It sounds complicated, but it’s easy, I promise! Keep reading and I’ll show you some examples. I have no coding experience or training and still had fun with this project!
To start, it is easiest to search for a skin that’s already similar to what you want in terms of layout. I find that ones tagged “minimalist” tend to work best for beginners because they need the fewest modifications—often just a font change—to make them match other skins.
To edit skins, right-click on the skin on your desktop or select the .ini file in your Rainmeter dashboard, and click “Edit”. A text file will open which contains the code for that skin.
(Tip: If you’re not confident with your coding abilities, copy this code over to a Word Document immediately. That way, if you mess up the code in the text file beyond repair, you can copy the original code from the Word Doc back over to the text file and restart!)
In the text file, you can modify any element of the skin that you want to change. Some common ones that I used in making my first Rainmeter were:
Changing Fonts
Find any lines that reference “Font”. Change the ones you don’t like by simply deleting the name of the font you don’t like, and replacing it with one you do. I wanted to change only the header in the example below, so I had to go to the header section in the code. If I wanted to change the font for the entire skin, I would change the font in the yellow box instead of the green. More on this later in the “More Customization Tips and Troubleshooting” section.
If you don’t have the desired font on your computer, you’ll need to install it first. I got two fonts I liked from this site.
If you change the font, you may also need to adjust the size, which is usually a cue like”fontsize=” right near the font name. Increasing the number increases the font size, and vice versa.
Changing Color
The color format in most Rainmeter skins is in RGB format (sometimes with a fourth number dictating transparency), though you can change it to a Hex value if you’re more comfortable with that. You will see cues like “fontcolor=” or “backgroundcolor=” followed by four numbers that you can change. Use this tool to look up either RGB or Hex for the color you want.
Resizing The Skin or Elements Within It
If you want to resize the entire skin, or resize just a part of it, look for code lines containing “H=” (controls height) or “W=” (controls width). The number to the right of the equals sign is usually the size in pixels. Making that number smaller makes the skin or element smaller, and making that number bigger makes the skin or element bigger.
Deleting Parts of a Skin
Delete the section of code that controls that part of the skin, and that element should disappear. Nice and easy! In the example below, I wanted to remove the album name and the progress bar.
Moving Parts of the Skin
Some of the skins I downloaded either had elements within them misaligned, or I wanted a part in a different place. To change the location of an element within the skin, look for “X=” (controls horizontal movement) or “Y=” (controls vertical movement) in the relevant part of the code. On a computer screen, the top left is the origin (0,0), so increasing x moves it right and decreasing x moves it left, while decreasing y makes it move up and increasing y moves it down. A little counterintuitive, but not difficult!
Changing Text and Titles
Some skins come with text or titles included, such as Feed Readers or Launchers that have text instead of icons. Just find the phrase you want to change and replace it.
Adding Links
Some skins, like Launchers and Feed Readers, let you link to websites or open programs on your computer. The code usually shows input cues like “URL=” or “Link=”, and you can input the link to the right of the equals sign. To launch most programs, insert [ProgramName].exe (e.g. “iTunes.exe”) in the same spot. To launch Windows-specific folders, like My Documents, you’ll need to specify the path in that same input space.
The most complicated project for me was trying to figure out how to get my RSS feed readers to work with Reddit.
Adding To a List (Repeating an Element More Times) or Reducing Lists
My Launcher only allowed for ten links, but I wanted eleven to fill the space. Similarly, one of my Feed Readers only allowed for three links, when I wanted five. To add to a list of elements, you can often just copy the code section for one of the existing elements and paste it to the end. Change any labels in the copied code to create the new button or list item.
For example, if you copy the section “LaunchButton10”, which references “ActiveButton10” and “PassiveButton10” has a link and title, make sure you change all of the pasted versions of those to read “LaunchButton11”, “ActiveButton11”, “PassiveButton11”, etc. and add the correct title and link.
If your RSS Feed, Launcher, etc has too many list items, just delete the sections of code for the excess sections.See “Deleting Parts of a Skin” above.
Making Your Wallpaper 3D
It’s really popular to make your desktop “3D”, with music visualizers or other moving elements behind the main subject but in front of the background scenery. However, the process is a little too complicated to explain here. This is the tutorial I used to make my background 3D. I don’t have Photoshop and GIMP crashes my computer, so I use sites like LunaPic to make my transparent foreground “cut”.
To execute any of these edits, save the text file after editing, then right-click the skin on your desktop and select “refresh skin”. All changes should automatically show at that point! I recommend that you do this every single time you make a change, that way you can just hit “undo” if you don’t like the edit and re-save.
Once you’ve finished your entire theme, you can save it in the “layouts” tab. That way, you can easily switch between themes.
More Customization Tips and Troubleshooting
- Like I mentioned before, save the original code to another document in case you mess up and want to restart! Alternatively, if you mess it up beyond repair and don’t have it saved elsewhere, delete the skin’s file in the “Rainmeter” folder on your computer and close the Rainmeter program. Re-install the skin from your downloads folder or your original source, and when you reopen Rainmeter it will be good as new!
- If a newly installed skin isn’t showing up on your Rainmeter program, or one you deleted hasn’t gone away, close the program and reopen. If the skin still isn’t showing up in the program, try manually opening it from the Rainmeter folder on your computer.
- Some skins need input information, such as links to feeds (mentioned above) or usernames. They may seem intimidating, but a lot of the code in these skins are just shorthand English, so just read through carefully and you can almost always figure out what is missing or needs to be changed. Luckily, some authors even include instructions at the beginning of their code!
- Code authors often make user editing easier by specifying “defaults” or “variables” at the beginning of the code, which they can then link back to for other parts. So, for example if you look at the “Changing Fonts” example above, the code on the left says that the “Fontname” (general default font) for the entire skin is “Segoe UI”. Throughout the rest of the code, you only see #fontname# to define the font for various parts of the skin. This is a great feature, because then if you want to change the font for the whole skin, you only have to edit that one line of text in the beginning, and the rest will automatically reference it. However, you can override that setting for specific sections of the skin by replacing that “link” with your specific input. So in my example, I just wanted to change the header font, so I put “Earwig Factory” instead of the default #fontname# (defined as “Segoe UI” earlier in the code) in the relevant header section, so that only that section’s font changed. This can be done for any color, sizes, fonts, etc in the skins.
- If you can’t find a piece of code in the main text file, go to that skin in the “Rainmeter” folder on your computer. Sometimes there is a second “Reference” or “Variables” text file that the main one is pulling information from. Just open it to edit.
- Use Wallpaper Engine from Steam to set up a moving wallpaper and add just add one or two simple skins for an easy, but really cool effect. Here’s an amazing example. I think I’ll be doing something like that next!
- Get inspiration from other Rainmeter users! For example, Googling “Persona rainmeter” is how I found a ton of cool ideas for my current desktop, such as the Persona Calendar, and the “Earwig Factory” font that ties the whole thing together.
Bonus: My First Rainmeter- Makoto from Persona 5!
(When I play music, a rain visualizer appears behind Makoto!)
Skins Used:
- Wallpaper Before Editing
- Wallpaper After Editing– Removed the scarf for a black background, and mirrored it.
- Wallpaper Cut– a terrible, sloppy cut of Makoto, used to make it 3D
- Persona Non Grata Font– The font I originally started with, but changed to Earwig. Good if you want a grittier overall appearance
- Earwig Factory Font– A quirky font that is present in almost every skin in my theme
- Launcher– Changed to Earwig Factory Font and added another button for a total of 11
- Rainy Days Visualizer– Appears only when I play music as rain behind Makoto
- Duck Duck Go Search– Black no logo variant to keep it subtle
- Muziko– Removed the progress circle and the album title, moved the buttons below the title/artist, and changed the font to Earwig Factory
- RSS Feed Pack– This took the most work. Removed the title divider lines and the minimize, launch, and refresh buttons. Changed the title font to Earwig Factory and increased the size. The first box links to a multireddit of /r/worldnews and /r/news. The second links to /r/Cleveland. The third links to my self-improvement multireddit. I’ll probably keep tweaking the content of these.
- Persona Calendar– Kept as is, and needs the Earwig Factory font to load correctly. I really would have rather used this one, but couldn’t figure out how to make it smaller without having to change the size of every individual png file in the folder. No time for that!
Need Help? Don’t Get Discouraged!
Customizing Rainmeters (and doing any sort of coding) is a lot of trial and error, especially if you’re a beginner! For most of the skins I did, I had to undo and retry several times. I botched two skins so badly that I had to uninstall and reinstall them to try again.
But the end result brings me the same pride as sewing a piece of clothing or putting together some furniture. It’s something tangible that you built yourself, and that you can enjoy the benefits of every day!
If you need help, feel free to ask me in the comments, on social media, or via email. You can also check out Rainmeter’s manual, or ask for help and feedback from the friendly users over at /r/rainmeter. I can’t wait to see your creativity!
What kind of Rainmeter do you plan to build? If you already have one, show us your setup! And as always, I’m happy to help if you have any issues…just ask!
This post was not sponsored.
Also published on Medium.
