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Firefly - Objects in Space 1.0.1 for Rainmeter

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Description

And again, something for all you Browncoats or space and science fiction lovers, my latest Rainmeter suite, inspired by Firefly... again:) Also, it is an experiment with new functions and scaling:)

Requirements:
Needs the latest 3.1 beta Rainmeter which you can get here rainmeter.net/ (3.0.2 will not work as it uses new ifConditions and other) (EDIT: from this afternoon, 3.1 is the final and stable release so no more beta:))
And of course, you will need to download this suite - use big friendly "Download" button on the right.

Features:
This shiny suite should work for any screen from 1920x1080 down as long as it has aspect ratio 16:9 (however, I could test it only on my 1366x768 screen). It consist of 13 individual skins that can be put anywhere on the screen (with the exception of Time and Weather). If there is a need to customise them (for example enter an email addres), it is usually done by right mouse click on the icon. Also, wallpapers for 1920x1080 and 1366x768 screens are included (in the Resources folder).

List of skins:
Ship systems - Usual stuff like CPU, RAM, ship control (land, autopilot, crash...), cargo bay usage (for up to four drives) and info about your ship (you know, that "Mid bulk Transport. Standard radio and accelerator core. Class code 03-K64-Firefly..." stuff), your pilot and how long have you kept flyin'.
Shuttles - Four individual skins for your shuttles (external drives). Each with editable label and always flyin' in another direction.
Time and date - Little sun, that shows the current date and time... even though the "Day" is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles and is not applicable. Left click the sun to switch between 12/24h clock.
Crybaby network barrel - As usual, shows the current download and upload, the name of the newtork you are connected to, allows you to search on the Cortex and shows if there are any unread emails for you - there will be blinkin' light and a note. Should work both for an email client like Thunderbird and also your GMail account - You will need to put there the password for the third side party software, not the usual one to your gmail account!
Serenity launcher - Simple launcher with up to 10 buttons. The frist two of them are Ship Computer and Ship Documets, the other you can edit to your liking to open any program (exe file) or folder in your computer. Just right click them to edit.
Shinding media player - A little smiling planet to play your favourite ball music. Rightclick the icon in the middle to set up your favourite media player (some of them need plugins so read carefully). It also can control the media player volume and Windows 7 volume.
Shiny weather - Usual weather skin showing current weather and forecasts for tonight and next two days in your place. Right click the today icon to edit and enter the weather location code and set your favourite temperature unit. To get the code go to the www.weather.com, put there your place to search (right top corner) and you will wind the code at the end of the address just before the colon, something like UKXX0085). Leftclick the today icon to open a webpage with more info.
Experimental trashbot - Show the number and weight of carried items and notes you if there are some really interresting things in your trash. Leftclick the trashbot to open the bin, rightclick to throw the trash away. It uses Moshi's experimental roundline meter for trash bin that should work for machines with up to 5 drives and requires RunCommand plugin.
'Verse news - Shows the latest news from the 'Verse, your planet or Top news. It also allows you to chose one of 12 planets and therefore a language. Click the title of any news to open a web page with it. News are kindli provided by Google.
Blue Sun notebook - Boring notebook so you can plan your crimes... I mean jobs... Leftclick the Blue Sun icon to edit it.
Funny hat wisdom - My greatest achievement of this suite. Every five minutes, this skin will give you another wisdom or quote. It has a database with some 700 quotes from Firefly, Serenity and some more from 10th anniversary Firefly panel at Comic con and by Joss Whedon about Firefly... So, basically, it has almost complete sripts for all 14 episodes and the Big Damn Movie in it:) Leftclick the hat for a new wisdom if you are inpatien.
Miracle Start button - When your miracle gets here, you just pound this button once... Or when you want to open Start Menu.
Firefly logo settings - Leftclick it to open a little skin manager (working only for this suite) or rightclick it to open the super settings screen where you can edit all the weather code, email address, drives labels, launcher buttons... in one place. It also has an experimental utility for changing the color of the text.
Lens flare - Shiny lens flare! Well, it does nothin' but it is there and looks shiny... It is supposed to give you a feelin' of a third dimension:)

Editing the skins:
The skins should resize according to your screen but if you want them smaller or bigger, there is a simple way. If you want to change a size of a single skin, just rightclick the skin click edit (or find the ini file and open it) and in the Variables section you will find ;Scale=1. So delete the semicollon and put there a new value. The new value should be lower than 1 because the 1 is for the lagrest size that is for 1920x1080 screen and the pictures would become distorted with bigger values. (Just so you know, for 1366x768 the value for Scale is approximately 0.711.) If you want to change the size of all skins, go to the Resources folder (My documents\Rainmeter\Firefly - Objects in Space) and open Variables.inc. You will find there line Scale= (#SCREENAREAWIDTH# / 1920) so put a semicollon on it's begining (so you can later change back) and write a new line Scale=.... with your new value.
If you want to change the Z-position of the skins (you want to put the Firefly infront of the planet player), open the Rainmeter Manager, find there the skin you want to move closer or further and put a new value to the Load order box (lower=further, higher=closer). You can see that Lens flare has Load order 99 to be on the top.

Issues and questions:
If - for some reason - you enter your weather location code or email address and the skin ignores it, please, set the new value to the Variables.inc in the Resources folder. I still don't know why the usual way doesn't work for some people.
Weather.com has changed the url for the feed so the wheather skin might not work. However, the fix is quite simple. Open the weather skin for editing (in notepad or something similar) and there replace line Url=http://xml.weather.com/weather/local/#Location#?cc=*&unit=#Type#&dayf=3 (around line 27) with this one: Url=http://wxdata.weather.com/wxdata/weather/local/#Location#?cc=*&unit=#Type#&dayf=3
The font included doesn't have cyrillic characters so Russian news will not be displayed properly... They will be loaded but you might need to edit the skin and set the font size smaller.
The experimental trashbot should display a percentage of the use on the second circle. To do this, you need a RunCommand plugin that should be installed with this skin. If it is not, you will find the plugin in the Resources folder, so chose the one for your system (32 or 64bit) and put it in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\Plugins.
It was created for Windows 7 so it is possible that some functions might be limited if you have a different windows.
Don't be affraid to ask for help or any questions... However, if you aint lazy, you might want to browse throught the comments under my Discovery theme where some might be already answered:)

Credits
The Firefly was created by Joss Whedon so, as far as I see, it belongs to him... All Browncoats think it belong to them:) However, the Firefly, logo, most of the pictures and quotes belong also to Fox and Universal.
The font used is Quintessential-Regular.
I want to thank :iconyorgash: for his scaling metod... I hope it works:) And I want to thank moshi for his experimental way to findinng the maximum value for the recycle bin... And also thanks to people on official Rainmeter forum.
As usual, it uses programs USB disk ejector and OpenStartMenu made by people - not me - that are included and you don't need to care about them... The programs, not the people.
All non Fox or Universal graphics are my creation. If you want to use them or Rainmeter skins created by me, you are free to do it. However, to maintain good terms, let me know and/or don't forget to list me in the credits:)

Edit 17.5.2014 - v. 1.0.1 - I have created individual and more stable color changer so I have also updated the one in the super settings screen:) (The previous works too but this one is more tuned and shouldn't throw errors.)
© 2014 - 2024 Squirrel-slayer
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Thank you so much! <3