R A I N M E T E R

• CPU load
• Allocated Memory
• Network Traffic
• NT performance data
• Uptime
• Free diskspace

The data can be displayed in a histogram, a bar, bitmap frames or just plain numbers.

The application is a Litestep LoadModule plugin, but it can be used without the Litestep as well. You can use it even with the normal Explorer-shell if you like. Rainmeter also implements Litestep's wharf-interface so that it can be used with the lsbox-module. It might also work in a real wharf but this has not been tested as Rainmeter is not meant to be used in a wharf.

Rainmeter is developed and tested on Win2k, but it should work on Win9x also though Win9x is not officially supported.

And no, Rainmeter does not measure how much it rained last night (at least not yet ;-)

To install just copy the Rainmeter.dll and to your Litestep directory (e.g. C:\Litestep\). You don't need the Rainmeter.exe if you are using Rainmeter as Litestep plugin. Also do not copy the included lsapi.dll over your original file as Litestep might not work after that (or at least it will become unstable). After copying, open your step.rc and add following line:

LoadModule C:\Litestep\Rainmeter.dll

... and recycle. The configuration of Rainmeter is done in a Rainmeter.ini file and not in the step.rc. Make sure that the Rainlendar.ini-file is in the same folder as the DLL. If you want to place the ini-file in a different folder, you can define it's place with RainmeterIniFile in your step.rc.

Installing for some other shell (e.g. Explorer)

Copy all the stuff in the zip-file to some location (e.g. C:\Program files\Rainmeter\). The Rainmeter.ini file should be in the same folder where the Rainmeter.dll is. You also need the lsapi.dll somewhere in the path. The place of the Rainmeter.ini-file can also be given as command line argument for the Rainmeter.exe, if you want to move it to somewhere else.

The different meters and measures can have custom settings. All the settings that are specific to a meter or to a measure are placed in the section where they are used. Check the example that is supplied with the package if you didn't understand the previous sentence (I don't blame you :-).

Here is some info what goes where:

[Rainmeter]

Background
Name of the background image. If this is omitted a copy of the background is taken and used as the background for the meters. Pink color [FF00FF] can be used as transparent color.

WindowX
X-position of the meter window. Negative values can be used too, in which case the position is relative to right edge of the screen. If Rainmeter is ran inside a lsbox the window position should be set to 0.

WindowY
Y-position of the meter window. Negative values can be used too, in which case the position is relative to bottom edge of the screen.

AlwaysOnTop
If set to 1, the window is always on top of other windows. If 0, the window stays back of the other windows.

Draggable
If set to 1, the window can be dragged around with the mouse. If 0, the window stationary.

Update
The update time for the meters. The value should be given in milliseconds. The default value is 1000 (i.e. one second).

HideOnMouseOver
If set to 1 the meter window will disappear if the mouse pointer is moved on it. The window will reappear when the mouse pointer is moved off the position where the window was. If shift, ctrl or alt is hold while moving the mouse, the window will not disappear (or reappear).

StartHidden
If set to 1, Rainmeter is hidden when started. You can use !RainmeterShow-bang to make it visible.

LeftMouseAction
Command or a bang that will be executed when the Rainmeter's windows is clicked with left mouse button. Note that this disables the dragging.

RightMouseAction
Command or a bang that will be executed when the Rainmeter's windows is clicked with right mouse button. Note that this disables the context menu.

General settings for the meters

X
The X-position of the meter inside the meter window.

Y
The Y-position of the meter inside the meter window.

W
The width of the meter. It is not necessary to define this if the width can be calculated from an image or if you are using a STRING meter. If you use the desktop as background for the Rainmeter you should always define the correct height and width for the meters or the window's dimensions might be calculated wrongly.

H
The height of the meter. This can also be left undefined under same conditions as W.

Type
Type of the meter. The valid values are:

• HISTOGRAM
• STRING
• BAR
• BITMAP

Measure
This defines what is measured. The valid values are:

• CPU - Measures CPU load. Gives quite random results on Win9x.
• Memory - Measures overall memory utilization.
• PhysicalMemory - Measures allocated physical memory.
• SwapMemory - Measures allocated swap.
• NetIn - Measures incoming network traffic.
• NetOut - Measures outgoing network traffic.
• FreeDiskSpace - Measures free diskspace.
• PerfMon - Gets NT's performance data. Only works on NT (naturally).
• Uptime - Shows how long your computer has been on. This works only in a STRING-meter.

InvertMeasure
If set to 1, the measured value is inverted. E.g. you can measure allocated diskspace instead of free space.

Histogram

SecondaryMeasure
This defines the measure for the secondary histogram that is drawn on the same meter. It is not necessary to define this if the other meter is not needed. The allowed values are the same as for the Measure.

PrimaryColor
Color for the primary histogram. The colors are given in RGB format. Separate the color components with ",". E.g. 10,30,255

SecondaryColor
Color for the secondary histogram.

BothColor
Color that is used when the primary and secondary histograms are on top of eachother.

PrimaryImage
Name of the image that is used behind the secondary histogram. You can only use either colors or images but not both at the same time. So, if you define PrimaryImage you must also define SecondaryImage and BothImage (if you have a secondary measure in the same histogram).

SecondaryImage
Name of the image that is used behind the secondary histogram.

BothImage
Name of the image that is used when the primary and secondary histograms are on top of eachother.

String

FontColor
The color of the text.

Prefix
String that is displayed before the value.

Postfix
String that is displayed after the value.

FontFace
Name of the font

FontSize
Size of the font.

StringAlign
The alignment of the string. The valid values are: LEFT, CENTER and RIGHT.

StringStyle
Style of the string. The valid values are: NORMAL, BOLD, ITALIC and BOLDITALIC.

Scale
Scaling factor for the measured value. The measured value is divided with the scale value, so in order to get 1000 times smaller values just set the scale to 1000. If the scale value has a decimal point (e.g. 1000.0) the resulting measured value is displayed as floating point value with one decimal.

AutoScale
If set to 1, the value is scaled automatically. This setting overrides Scale. The value is automatically postfixed with T, G, M or k depending how much it was scaled.

Percentual
If set to 1, the value is displayed in percents.

Bar

BarColor
The color of the bar.

BarImage
The image that is used behind the bar. This can be used instead of the BarColor.

BarOrientation
The orientation of the bar. Valid values are:

• HORIZONTAL
• VERTICAL

Bitmap

BitmapImage
This is the name of the image that holds the image frames. The images can be laid horizontally or vertically in the bitmap. The orientation is determined automatically form the hieght or the width of the bitmap (whichever is larger). Also the size of one frame is calculated automatically so you need to crop the image so that there is no extra space around the frames.

BitmapFrames
The number of  frames in the bitmap.

NetIn

NetInSpeed
The maximum speed of your network connection input. The value is given in bits per second. If this value is omitted or set to zero, the maximum value is determined from the input. Watch out for peaks.

NetOut

NetOutSpeed
The maximum speed of your network connection output. The value is given in bits per second. If this value is omitted or set to zero, the maximum value is determined from the input.

FreeDiskSpace

Drive
This is the drive which diskspace is measured. E.g. "C:\"

PerfMon
(use NT's performance monitor to find out the valid values for these settings)

PerfMonObject
The name of the performance object. E.g. Memory, Process, Processor, ...

PerfMonCounter
The name of the performance counter. E.g. "% Processor Time", "Disk Read Bytes/sec", ...

PerfMonInstance
The name of the instance. E.g. _Total. If the counter doesn't have any instances you can leave this empty.

PerfMonMaxValue
The maximum value for the measured counter. This needs to be set if you are displaying the measure in a histogram or use the InvertMeasure setting. If this value is omitted or set to zero, the maximum value is determined from the input.

PerfMonDifference
If set to 1, the difference between two updates is measured instead of the actual value. This is useful as many of the performance values are counters and you usually want to know how much the counter has increased since last update.

!RainmeterShow
Displays the Rainmeter-window.

!RainmeterHide
Hides the Rainmeter-window.

!RainmeterRefresh
Reloads the Rainmeter.ini file.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Please note that this software is still in beta-state and is most likely to have defects and may not work as it should. Use it at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, direct or indirect, that this software may cause.

http://www.iki.fi/~rainy/

You may also send comments and bug-reports to author:

rainy@iki.fi

Please put the name of the product (i.e. Rainmeter) in the subject-field of the mail. It may be useful if you write the version of the product also. If you are reporting a bug, please try to be as exact as possible when describing the symptoms. Also some details of your system (like OS version, Litestep build, and so on) might be helpful.

• More things to measure (any suggestions?)
• Properly autoscaling histogram
• GUI config (yeah right :-)

1 SEPTEMBER 2001 (Version 0.4 ß)

• If the maximum value for the meters (e.g. NetInSpeed) is not given it is determined automatically from the input.
• All measures can be displayed as percentual strings.
• Added uptime-measure. Usable in a string-meter only!
• Added two new meters: Bar and Bitmap.
• Added !RainmeterRefresh bang.
• Added left and right mouse button actions.
• Now it is possible to define the location (and the name) of Rainmeter.ini-file in the step.rc with RainmeterIniFile.
• Added context menu, which can be used to refresh the window and quit the program if ran as standalone.
• Added possibility to use images as the backgrounds for the histogram graphs.
• Small adjustments so that Rainmeter can run in a lsbox as *WharfModule. Dunno if it also works in a real wharf.

19 AUGUST 2001 (Version 0.3 ß)

• Added support for NT performance data.
• Added support for measuring free disk space.
• Added possibility to display the measure values as plain strings.
• Added automatic scaling for the string values.
• Added possibility to invert the values (e.g. measure allocated disk space instead of free space).
• Improved mouse over hiding.
• Now it is possible to start Rainmeter hidden.
• Added support for Litestep's Revision ID.

19 JULY 2001 (Version 0.2 ß)

• Rewrote (almost) everything.
• The CPU & memory are now measured a bit different way.

22 FEBRUARY 2001 (Version 0.1 ß)

• Initial beta release