How-To: Deck Out Your Desktop with the 12 Best Rainmeter Skins

Posted 01/25/2010 at 11:00pm | by Paul Lilly

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Dissecting a Rainmeter INI File

Okay, so editing an RSS feed's title is pretty easy, but what's all that other junk contained in the .ini files? If you plan on doing a lot of editing, or even making your own skins, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the different terms and file structure. Here's how it breaks down:

Metadata: This section is where a skin's author can include important information about his applet, including the name and version number, but also specific instructions on how to use it.

Measures: Aptly named measures are used to measure system stats such as the time and date, or to pluck information from a website, such as the local weather, among many other tasks. In short, measures tell Rainmeter what it needs to do.

Meters: These describe how Rainmeter outputs a measure, be it with a histogram, an image, a button, and a bunch of other options.

Variables: Variables are keywords that will be repeatedly used in a skin and are sort of like a master list. To use Rainmeter's example (which we'll link below), if you set a variable for the size of a font to use on all meters as FontSize=11, you would then use FontSize=#FontSize# in each meter. This way, you can change the font size in all your meters later on by just changing the master variable (from 11 to 13, for example), rather than editing each meter.

For a more in depth break down of skins and Rainmeter's nomenclature, see both here and here.

Installing Skins

Now that you have a pretty good idea how Rainmeter works, it's time to start experimenting with skins, which is where the real fun begins. You'll find user-created skins all over the Web, but we suggest poking around these sites:

• Customize.org
• SkinBase.org
• DeviantArt.com

When you find a skin you want to try out, download and unzip the archive. You should find a folder with the name of the skin you just downloaded, and you'll need to place this in:

C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins

You'll also find a Skins folder under the Rainmeter directory in your Program Files, but putting them there won't do you any good. After you've transferred your skin to the correct location (and, if applicable, installed any included fonts by copying them over to C:\Windows\Fonts), right-click the Sidebar and click Refresh All. To load applets from your new skin, right-click again and navigate to Configs. You should see the skin(s) you just installed, and you would use them just like you did with Enigma.

Quick Tips

Don't be afraid to play around with different skins by mixing and matching them. There's no need to restrict yourself to a single skin, and in many cases, downloaded skins only offer a handful of applets to play around with, such as a customized clock or system monitor. Skins like Enigma, which contain a whole host of applets, are fairly rare compared to all the skins that are available.

Your choice of wallpaper will also play a big role in how your skin(s) look on your desktop. Combining a skin that makes use of a futuristic sci-fi font or Star Trek them will look pretty silly on a Spongebob background, but will be right at home with a wallpaper depicting space scenes. And if your skin doesn't blend in quite like you hoped, either try a different wallpaper, edit your wallpaper, or play with the transparency settings.

After spending a ton of time mixing, matching, and customizing your desktop with Rainmeter, the last thing you want to do is start the process all over again following a system reboot, which, at minimum, you should be performing once a month (Patch Tuesday). And nor do you have to. When you have your desktop just the way you like it, save it as a theme. Right-click and select Themes>Manage Themes. Enter a name in the blank field and click Save. As you play with other themes and skins, you can always return to your custom setup by selecting the saved theme from Themes>Manage Themes.