Time for the next version of Rainmeter!

The latest version of Rainmeter will see many improvements, both for users of the application and for those creating and editing skins. Stay tuned every Sunday for the latest beta version. As always, Rainmeter 2.5 fully supports skins written for earlier versions, and users can simply upgrade their existing installations. There is no need to uninstall or change any existing setup to use the new beta version.

March 17, 2013 - Revision 1827
Release Candidate One

• Changed illustro: The RSS/Atom reader skin has been removed from the default illustro skins and layout on a new installation of Rainmeter. This is due to the pending end of the "Google Reader" service from Google on July 1st. Existing Rainmeter installations will not be effected.

March 10, 2013 - Revision 1819

• Changed InputText: Improved formula and section variables support in measure options and inline CommandN option. X, Y, W, H and FontSize are supported. DynamicVariables is not required on the measure.
• Changed SkinInstaller: Remove all [Rainmeter] section options from layouts installed by a .rmskin. Skin authors may not automatically overwrite the user's settings for these options.
• Changed SkinInstaller: Add FileView to protected official plugins, FileView.dll may not be distributed with a .rmskin.

March 5, 2013 - Revision 1808
Special mid-week release to address a "bug".

• Fixed FileView: Fixed an issue with threading that caused icons to display as the Windows default / unknown image in some cases.
• Changed FileView: WildcardSearch now works properly with Recursive=2.

March 3, 2013 - Revision 1806

• Added Ping: Added FinishAction to plugin. Action to execute as soon as a successful value is returned, or when the number of milliseconds set in the Timeout option is reached.
• Changed InputText: Updated to current Rainmeter API. Options in plugin can now use dynamic variables.
• Fixed InputText: Fixed issues with handle leaks caused by threading.
• Fixed InputText: Fixed an issue that prevented input using a language IME in the field.
• Added FileView: Added Recursive=2 option. Allows recursive indexing of files in a folder tree. Folders are ignored with this option. Plugin commands FollowPath and PreviousFolder are disabled, and ShowFile, ShowFolder, and ShowDotDot options have no effect.
• Changed FileView: Drives are now sorted.
• Changed FileView: Drives are now counted as folders for Type=FolderCount.
• Changed FileView: Folders now return dates and times.
• Added Plugin API: Added new RMG_SKINNAME and RMG_SKINWINDOWHANDLE options to RmGet() to plugin SDK.

February 10, 2013 - Revision 1792

• Fixed FileView: Corrected an issue where an invalid path could crash Rainmeter.
• Fixed WebParser: Corrected a string length issue that could crash Rainmeter.

February 3, 2013 - Revision 1786

• Fixed ClipString: Corrected #CRLF# and some extra padding issues with ClipString=2.
• Fixed FileView: The current index number was not being reset on Update command.
• Fixed Calc: An issue with negative signs being incorrectly parsed was corrected.

January 27, 2013 - Revision 1781

• Changed ClipString: Added new ClipString=2 setting and new ClipStringW / ClipStringH options. This will allow for more dynamic clipping and wrapping of a string while sizing the containing meter to accommodate the entire contents. Details are at Change Announcements.
• Changed WebParser: Changed the behavior of the ProxyServer option to better handle how WebParser interacts with Internet Explorer for proxy management. Details at WebParser plugin.
• Fixed FileView: The default icon index was off by 1 when no IconPath was specified.
• Fixed Installer: Improved VC++ 2012 redistributable checking.

January 21, 2013 - Revision 1767

• Added Added new Mouse Variables. These are "macro" variables used in the context of a mouse click action to provide the current X and Y position of the mouse cursor relative to the meter or skin in pixels or a percentage. See Mouse Variables for details.
• Added FileView: Added new FinishAction option to the plugin.

January 15, 2013 - Revision 1761

• Fixed OnChangeAction: Fixed an issue with increased CPU usage with this new functionality.

January 13, 2013 - Revision 1758

See the Change Announcements forum topic for details on these changes.

• Added FileView: Added new FileView plugin.
• Added Added new OnUpdateAction command to Skins, Meters and Measures.
• Added Added new OnChangeAction command to Measures.

January 6, 2013 - Revision 1748

• NowPlaying: Improved cover handling with some players.
• NowPlaying: Fixed crash with CAD interface in some cases.
• Calc: Fixed handling of negative numbers without brackets "5+-1" is now valid and equal to "5+(-1)".
• Localization: Fixed dialog layout with "right-to-left" languages.
• Line meter: Fixed crash when LineCount not equal to count of "N" in MeasureNameN.
• Upgraded project to Visual Studio 2012 (Update 1). New VC++ runtime libraries will be installed on normal installation.

December 16, 2012 - Revision 1720

• Internal changes to context menus and program dialogs to improve the Localization foundation.

December 9, 2012 - Revision 1715

• Context Menus: Fixed some bugs with the context menus caused in last week's beta.

December 2, 2012 - Revision 1713

• Bangs: Added "*" as a wildcard parameter to !UpdateMeasure and !UpdateMeter to immediately update all measures/meters.
• Mouse: Fixed that left/right scroll actions were not executed if there are no up/down scroll actions.
• Mouse: Fixed that MouseActionCursor was not reset when the skin was refreshed in some cases.
• Mouse: Fixed that MouseActionCursor did not work with the new scroll actions.

November 25, 2012 - Revision 1706

• Mouse Actions: Mouse scrolling on skins and meters now works without having to click to "focus" the skin window.
• Manage: Now allows negative X/Y coordinates.
• WebParser: Changed the Debug=2 option to write WebParserDump.txt to the current skin folder. This is due to Windows 8 not allowing applications to write to the root directory of the system drive.

November 18, 2012 - Revision 1696

• Added new Mouse Actions to support the scroll wheel. Full details in Change Announcements.
• Added new OnFocusAction / OnUnFocusAction options to the [Rainmeter] section of the skin, to execute actions when a skin gains or loses focus (by clicking it) in Windows.
• Added support for two extra mouse buttons in Mouse Actions.
• Added settings for Editor and Show notification area icon to Settings tab of the Manage window.
• Fixed an issue with a memory leak in Skin Packager.