Rainmeter and Circle Dock Proposal

[sgtevmckay]

Greetings folks

Among all the things that, apparently a couple of, you do. I would like to propose a concept of interest to me, the programs and the communities I represent. Hopefully, after the proposal and concepts, I hope you will be interested as well. As the two software that I intend to mention are both free, and may possibly enhance (if not increase usage) the use of Dexpot.
Granted there is some confusion surrounding these software. That these are strictly for "Desktop Customization". This only a single aspect of the software that I represent.
We are looking for cleaner use in these programs in order to work and communicate with Dexpot better.

CIRCLE DOCK
I will start with the easiest of the two proposed software: Circle Dock
Circle Dock is a free Application Launcher. Small, versatile, and portable.
I am looking not so much for an integration, with Circle Dock, but rather an expansion to Dexpot to better serve Application Launchers, and not just Circle Dock alone.
What I propose is to add "Command Line" functionality to dexpot.
Not many Command Lines would be required, I am thinking of the following:

Ability to select a desktop via Command Line
-desktop1
-desktop2
-desktop3
-desktop4
-desktop5
and continue to 20. When the Command Line sequence is utilized in a shortcut, Dexpot would then go to that screen.

Ability to navigate Next and Previous Desktop(s)
-Next
-Previous
-Back
Simple Navigation through the VD screens

Ability to pull up a short list of additional functionality
-WindowCatalogue
-FullScreenPreview
-DesktopPreview
-Settings
Primary List of quickly accessed Windows, any other you may think of adding here would be great.

A Command Line Argument could then be added to a simple Desktop Icon or Program Launcher.
The Command Line argument would look like the following:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -desktop3

I have derived this idea from older software and that I control Winamp and other programs via Command line.
A closer integration with Circle Dock would be preferable, but I am unaware of how integrated we would want or need to be (???)
The proposed Command Line solution I think would be best for all concerned.
If this is something Viable that can be programmed in to Dexpot.
Since I am unaware of your coding, I am also unaware of how difficult this would be.

More information on Circle Dock can be found here:
http://circledock.wikidot.com/start
I would be honored to be your contact if you have any questions regarding Circle Dock

RAINMETER
This concept we are definitely looking into from our end, but apparently are hitting some limitations, that I am not completely clear on.
As it stand at this moment. If we run Rainmeter, all desktop skins will either be repeated to all the desktops, or "Sticky" to a single desktop.
What would are looking to accomplish is that we can select what skins/gadgets/tools go to which desktops.
Such as: Placing a CPU and RA monitor in one desktop, but having RSS and Weather in another, and then Network Monitors in another desktop.
As I understand it, programming would have to be developed so that Dexpot could communicate with Rainmeter or vice versus.
As it is now, Rainmeter does not understand That it is operating on a Virtual Desktop, therefore can not save the appropriate information to reset to Virtual Desktops. I am certain that this is only part of the issue at large.
I know I am probably not making much sense at this point, and would seem that unless you have tried Rainmeter in the Dexpot environment, I fear I have lost you in the description.
Rainmeter is incredibly versatile, and completely open source.
Rainmeter easily accepts plug-ins and add-ons.
It is my hope that you can assist us at Rainmeter to accomplish this goal, or develop a third party tool that would communicate with Rainmeter to produce the same results.
As I have said; Rainmeter is completely open source and reviewing teh software and code is easy.
If this seems like a project that you would be interested in handling, you are welcome to contact our programmers through the Rainmeter web sites or through me directly, and I will try to answer any questions you may have.
So long as you understand I am no programmer myself. I am just the organizer and promoter (for lack of better terminology)

More information on Rainmeter can be obtained at the following URL's:
Code Site: http://code.google.com/p/rainmeter
Home Page: http://www.rainmeter.net
Forum: http://www.rainmeter.net/forum

Well I hope I have peaked your interest and that you will seriously consider above proposed, and that Rainmeter and Circle Dock can have a great relationship with Dexpot software and community.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me at any time, and I will respond as soon as I can

Take your time, I am patient, and shall await your response

As a final suggestion: Would it be possible for you folks to get the RSS feeds up and working for the forum???
Thanks

Regards
SGT. E. V. McKay

[Sebastian]

,

What I propose is to add "Command Line" functionality to dexpot.

already built-in. See the Dexpot start menu folder called 'main menu'.
'Next, previous desktop and back' shortcuts will be implemented.

As it stand at this moment. If we run Rainmeter, all desktop skins will either be repeated to all the desktops, or "Sticky" to a single desktop.

As far as I can see, Rainmeter uses a single window class name for all windows. No title. There's currently no way to distinguish each window.

We'll publish a really tiny plugin SDK soon, so that the Rainmeter guys (or whoever) may write a plugin.

As a final suggestion: Would it be possible for you folks to get the RSS feeds up and working for the forum?

Just for the news (should be available now), not the forum.
Tell the guys that we wanna share links.

[Patrick]

[FAQ] Which command line options are available?

[Patrick]

We're always looking to achieve compatibility with other tools. In the case of Rainmeter, I can think of several approaches to integrate it with Dexpot. In order of decreasing amount of work for us:

• Make Rainmeter windows identifiable
  That's what Sebastian hinted at. At the moment, all Rainmeter windows look the same to Dexpot. If we had a way to ask Rainmeter what skin a particular window belongs to, we could write a Dexpot plugin that lists all the skins and lets you choose which ones to show on which desktop.
  
  
• Multiple Rainmeter configuration files
  Store a separate Rainmeter configuration file for each desktop and add some way (e.g. command line switch) to tell Rainmeter to load a given file. We would then load the respective file on every desktop switch, again using a Dexpot plugin. Doesn't seem very user friendly though.
  
  
• Make Rainmeter virtual desktop aware
  Add the notion of multiple desktops to Rainmeter and let it handle all the configuration and switching. Then add an interface for a virtual desktop manager to provide the number of desktops, desktop names, and notifications about desktop switches. We would contribute an implementation of this interface for Dexpot.

[sgtevmckay]

[FAQ] Which command line options are available?

My apologies on the Command Line requests....I feel like an idiot, but I am reminded that I need to study all aspects of the software I use

I will take your concept proposals to our developers immediately. This should generate some controversy for a day or two
If they have any direct questions; would it be appropriate to have them list their inquiries via this thread???

I will have a link posted in our Important Links forum by end of my day tomorrow (sooner if I can help it). It is not much, and seems like a remote site location, but does generate quite a bit of traffic to other sites. So hopefully this will be of service to you and the community here.
Actually I have just completed listing you at our forum link area. You are the seventh down, and I have set it up so that re-directs from our site are counted. So if you are at all curious about how many hits are generated from Rainmeter, you can peak in at anytime; Here:
http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=34
Since we are not AD supported in any way (Strictly Donation Supported) it is the best that we offer, and offered to a limited few

I want to thank you for the extra work I have imposed on you folks, and appreciate the opportunity that you have extended to working with the communities that I work with.
I hope to help and support this community as I learn more as well.

Thank you both

[Sebastian]

,

This should generate some controversy for a day or two

really? Why?

If they have any direct questions; would it be appropriate to have them list their inquiries via this thread???

Hmyup. Or via email.

Thanks for the link. Ambitious description.

[Patrick]

This should generate some controversy for a day or two

really? Why?

That's how you get stuff done in an open source community.

[sgtevmckay]

:dex:,

This should generate some controversy for a day or two

really? Why?:

LOL...Because everything I present creates Controversy
I never propose anything simple, or so I am told

Thanks for the link. Ambitious description.

Ambitious, but true in my honest opinion, if not somewhat biased.
I can re-write the description, or you are welcome to create one, and I will get it up.

Being a Program Team Member and Forum Administrator (1 of 2 only at this time) gives me a bit of flexibility, but we are community run and openly programmed

[sgtevmckay]

This should generate some controversy for a day or two

really? Why?

That's how you get stuff done in an open source community.

Indeed

[sgtevmckay]

Greetings Sebastian and Patrick

I have taken the information to the small team we have at Rainmeter, and Markham at Circle Dock.

Markham and I are looking at an interesting Option in Circle Dock to better communicate commands to dexpot....this could be interesting to be sure

At Rainmeter we are currently barreling down the road to to the first release candidate in over 6 months.
Since our programmer resources are incredibly limited (volunteers only), we may have to wait until we get some issues ironed out and 1.2 full release out before we can fully visit this collaboration.

I have communicated your thoughts thus far, and if you have any additional thoughts I am honored to pass these on as well.
Also If you have questions, that can be asked via forum communication, I will be happy to propose any questions you have, and forward them to you folks as a response is received.

We are also eager to see what you propose in the future SDK.

Thanks for your time in this.
If you require anything, do not hesitate to ask, at any time

Regards
The Sarge

[dragonmage]

Hello guys,
I'm the other admin of the Rainmeter forums. I am no programmer and do not know what it would take to make Rainmeter "virtual desktop aware" or how that would work with other VD platforms. I do have a couple of thoughts on the idea here. I have not explored your program yet, so forgive me if any questions I ask should be common knowledge to users.

1. Can Dexpot send commands to other apps on desktop switch? If so a "quick and dirty" solution would be sending Rainmeter a command to hide all configs and then commands for which configs to show for the new desktop.

2. Would adding a VirtualDesktop=#,#,# key to each config entry in Rainmeter.ini allow for a Dexpot plugin (and possibly other platforms) to read which desktops a config should show on and send the proper Show/Hide commands depending on the active desktop?

Just a couple of ideas...

[Patrick]

Can Dexpot send commands to other apps on desktop switch?

Sure.

If so a "quick and dirty" solution would be sending Rainmeter a command to hide all configs and then commands for which configs to show for the new desktop.

Hm, I wasn't aware of all the commands one can send to Rainmeter... Looking through the manual, everything we need seems to be already in place. Quick proof of concept:

New Raindexer

Would adding a VirtualDesktop=#,#,# key to each config entry in Rainmeter.ini allow for a Dexpot plugin (and possibly other platforms) to read which desktops a config should show on and send the proper Show/Hide commands depending on the active desktop?

We'd have to locate and parse the Rainmeter.ini, but yes, that would also work.

[sgtevmckay]

Nice

I will speak of what I am aware of, and I am certain that my highly respected colleague, and friend, will be by later on.

If we utilize the Rainmeter.ini file.
It is typically stored in:
C:\Users\[User Profile Name]\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\Rainmeter.ini.

Since we keep Rainmeter portable...This parameter may have to be user identified, as it could end up on a portable flash drive or other portable media, or in another HDD all together.
So I am unaware of how much of an issue that would be.

I received the following while testing while testing the Raindexer:


I will test again in a moment, running Dexpot with Admin Privileges, and see if I get similar results.

Just completed a test running Dexpot with Administrative Privileges and received the same error

Either way; I believe I understand where you are going.
Handling Rainmeter individual skins in a fashion "Similar" to how Dexpot handles Desktop Shortcuts, Folders and Files.
Is this a correct assumption???

if my assumption is correct; would it matter then which of the two software starts first, Rainmeter or Dexpot???
As teh most likely scenario is that Dexpot and Rainmeter will be start at logon, so the start up order may change from time to time.
I will let DragonMage Speak on this issue on this issue.

Also may wish to be able to keep certain skins Viewable on all Virtual Desktops, as Skin Builders, like myself, will want skins present on all Virtual desktops.
As I write this I am also working on a Rainmeter skins that, via Command Line, will switch between the Desktops, and also utilize the new Command Line Parameters that you folks instituted in the latest release. So this skin will need to be visible on all desktops.

I know I keep adding things on to this, but my feeling is to do it right

I have also noted my thoughts in our forum regarding a skin combining issue if a user decides to shut off or not use Dexpot....all the skins may appear in a cluster in the native desktop.
May be no way around this, but we are looking at the issue.

Thank you Patrick. and Sebastian as well, I am so grateful that you both have agreed to work with us on this.

Regards
The Sarge

[dragonmage]

Ok, we've bounced some ideas around and want to run a concept by you guys.

We would add a VDesktop= key to each config in the ini. It's default value would be *. Which would mean "All Desktops" (if a different value would work better for you that would be fine) It would also take comma separated numbers: VDesktop=1,4,6. Would there be any issue with your plugin polling Rainmeter.ini for changes to these values?

We would like to add a context menu item to the skins, that is used to set the values of VDesktop=. I think that will be the most user friendly way of setting a particular skin to a particular desktop. Since the default value of a newly loaded skin will be "All Desktops" the skin will appear on any desktop that you are on. You could then use the skin's context menu to specify a desktop. Rainmeter would determine the number of desktops to list in the context menu by reading a value (that your plugin would write)from the key VDesktopCount= in the [Rainmeter] section of the ini.

The plugin would need to be aware of a user changing the number of desktops (is this possible?) so that it can change the value of VDesktopCount= then send a !RainmeterRefreshApp allowing Rainmeter to update the desktop list in the context menu.

This is the basic concept, we do have some other ideas to expand on this, but wanted to get your take on the concept first. Especially we wanted to know about the polling. Will it cause any issues?

Also wanted to let you know !RainmeterHide * will hide all configs, so you can hide all before showing the ones for a specific desktop.

[Patrick]

Sorry about that missing control; I forgot that we're not yet distributing the file. I've uploaded a new version of the Raindexer.

Since we keep Rainmeter portable...This parameter may have to be user identified, as it could end up on a portable flash drive or other portable media, or in another HDD all together.

We can check AppData and the Rainmeter program folder (or any path relative to it). Could the .ini be located anywhere else?

Either way; I believe I understand where you are going.
Handling Rainmeter individual skins in a fashion "Similar" to how Dexpot handles Desktop Shortcuts, Folders and Files. Is this a correct assumption???
if my assumption is correct; would it matter then which of the two software starts first, Rainmeter or Dexpot???

That's correct. Wait, let me add some exclamation marks!!!
At the moment, the plugin requires that both Rainmeter and Dexpot are already running. If the plugin loads with Dexpot, this means Rainmeter has to be started first. But we can add a feature that lets the plugin wait for Rainmeter to load, so it's not a problem.

As I write this I am also working on a Rainmeter skins that, via Command Line, will switch between the Desktops, and also utilize the new Command Line Parameters that you folks instituted in the latest release. So this skin will need to be visible on all desktops.

Great. Keeping a particular skin visible on all desktops is certainly possible. While we're at it, we could also create a Dexpot plugin for Rainmeter (or would that be a Rainmeter plugin for Dexpot?), i.e. a DLL that provides the number and name of the current desktop as measures for Rainmeter skins. It could also expose commands for switching desktops and anything else you might need. Would that be of any help?

[Patrick]

Would there be any issue with your plugin polling Rainmeter.ini for changes to these values?

Other than that it's ugly and wasteful? We could probably use a file system change notification instead. How does Rainmeter itself handle this?

We would like to add a context menu item to the skins, that is used to set the values of VDesktop=. I think that will be the most user friendly way of setting a particular skin to a particular desktop.

Well, at the very least, it's consistent with how you change other skin properties. You could hide the menu item for VDesktopCount=0, so it won't show up for users who don't have virtual desktops.

The plugin would need to be aware of a user changing the number of desktops (is this possible?) so that it can change the value of VDesktopCount= then send a !RainmeterRefreshApp allowing Rainmeter to update the desktop list in the context menu.

No problem.

This is the basic concept, we do have some other ideas to expand on this, but wanted to get your take on the concept first.

I like it (apart from the polling). One small point: When a skin is visible on multiple desktops, it will always be at the same position. This makes completely different layouts using the same skins difficult. Is this an acceptable limitation? It seems that with "!RainmeterMove" we could realize different skin positions on each desktop.

Also wanted to let you know !RainmeterHide * will hide all configs, so you can hide all before showing the ones for a specific desktop.

Already using it in the Raindexer.

[dragonmage]

Other than that it's ugly and wasteful? We could probably use a file system change notification instead. How does Rainmeter itself handle this?

I had thought of another solution. Keep in mind I'm trying to keep these changes open to being used by any VD app. My idea was to have you write the path to Dexpot to VDesktopApp= in the [Rainmeter] section. Then add a commandline option to Dexpot "rainmeterupdate". Rainmeter could use the value of VDesktopApp to send "rainmeterupdate" to the Virtual Desktop App anytime the context menu option is activated. This would allow the VDApp to know that a change has been made so it can re-read the ini. What do you think?

One small point: When a skin is visible on multiple desktops, it will always be at the same position. This makes completely different layouts using the same skins difficult. Is this an acceptable limitation? It seems that with "!RainmeterMove" we could realize different skin positions on each desktop.

I think for an initial version the skins being in the same position on each desktop would be fine. The !RainmeterMove thing might be something to explore, but creating an interface for setting up the moving of skins will need some serious thought.

[sgtevmckay]

We can check AppData and the Rainmeter program folder (or any path relative to it). Could the .ini be located anywhere else?

As the end user of Rainmeter can install to literally Anywhere....This has brought up the suggestion of allowing the end user to define paths, to Dexpot, as needed.
Instead of Dexpot doing any extra work in identifying the location.

Most Rainmeter users are fairly efficient and new users tend to catch on quickly.
So if the end user has to define the appropriate path to any Rainmeter file.
It should be little more than Cut and Paste from the windows address bar, Into a defined path area.
Could also consider a path search parameter. Similar to the buttons that ask where you wish to install.
The end User can then direct an application to the Rainmeter.*** as needed.

[Patrick]

I had thought of another solution. Keep in mind I'm trying to keep these changes open to being used by any VD app. My idea was to have you write the path to Dexpot to VDesktopApp= in the [Rainmeter] section. Then add a commandline option to Dexpot "rainmeterupdate". Rainmeter could use the value of VDesktopApp to send "rainmeterupdate" to the Virtual Desktop App anytime the context menu option is activated.

Specifying the path to the actual VDM (dexpot.exe in our case) is definitely not a good idea. Now we'd have to modify the Dexpot core to accept the new parameter and then route it to a particular plugin. Writing the path to the plugin would work better. Then we also could easily adapt the plugin so that it would work with Virtuawin (the only other extensible VDM I'm aware of) as well.
Still, I think it's an unnecessarily inflexible solution. Other - existing or future - addons to Rainmeter might be interested in this information too. You could, for instance, broadcast a named window message on every configuration change. Or, implement a really small notification infrastructure, where we could pass a window handle to Rainmeter which would then receive messages on relevant events. This could also be used to request the path to the .ini file by WM_COPYDATA.

I think for an initial version the skins being in the same position on each desktop would be fine. The !RainmeterMove thing might be something to explore, but creating an interface for setting up the moving of skins will need some serious thought.

Ok.

[sgtevmckay]

Then we also could easily adapt the plugin so that it would work with Virtuawin (the only other extensible VDM I'm aware of) as well.

Now this is something that is inline with the Rainmeter philosophy.

Plugins are always good.
This way they can be used elective-ly by end users and limit resource uses on both ends. In Cases where an individual is not using VDM