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Dock Questions

General topics related to Rainmeter.
sake
Posts: 2
Joined: December 27th, 2009, 9:59 pm

Dock Questions

Post by sake »

I'm new to using Rainmeter and I've been tinkering for the past two days.

So I have a question on docks. I'm currently using Rocketdock and I see some screenshots where others have a fancier looking dock. What I mean is, their dock is more custom looking and it looks as if it fits with the theme.

Are there any docks that allow this amount of customization?
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Alex2539
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 642
Joined: July 19th, 2009, 5:59 am
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada

Re: Dock Questions

Post by Alex2539 »

RocketDock does. All you need is to find or create a matching theme for RocketDock.

Alternatively, you can create dock-like skins in Rainmeter or look for some on sites like customize.org or deviantart.com
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sake
Posts: 2
Joined: December 27th, 2009, 9:59 pm

Re: Dock Questions

Post by sake »

Ah.
I'm not sure if it's possible, but what about the dock's background?
I see some docks with squared off angles and a different colored background. How's that possible?

I'll look into those dock skins.

Sorry for all the questions~
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Kaelri
Developer
Posts: 1721
Joined: July 25th, 2009, 4:47 am

Re: Dock Questions

Post by Kaelri »

Well I don't know anything about creating or modifying Rocketdock skins, but it doesn't look too hard at first glance. If you poke around in C:\Program Files\RocketDock\Skins, you'll see that each one has four files: a background image, a separator image, and two .INI files, like this:

Code: Select all

[Background]
Image        = Milk2.png
LeftMargin   = 8
TopMargin    = 8
RightMargin  = 8
BottomMargin = 8
Outside-LeftMargin   = 8
Outside-TopMargin    = 8
Outside-RightMargin  = 8
Outside-BottomMargin = 8

Code: Select all

[Separator]
Image =		Separator.png
TopMargin =		3
BottomMargin =	3
Frankly, it seems even easier than most Rainmeter skins to modify. So all you need is some image editing software like Photoshop, GIMP or Paint.net.
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jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Dock Questions

Post by jsmorley »

There are things you can do from a cosmetic standpoint in Rainmeter using buttons or images with mouseovers that you could never do with a dock like RocketDock or ObjectDock, but there are things from a functionality standpoint (like drag and drop configuring) that would be as difficult as Chinese algebra in Rainmeter and built in to those dock apps. The better you get with Rainmeter the more likely you are to move toward building your own "docks" or "launchers", but RocketDock or Object may be a good alternative til then.
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karmat
Posts: 329
Joined: July 7th, 2009, 11:10 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Dock Questions

Post by karmat »

There's also ObjectDock by Stardock, there's a free and premium version. That's what I use because I like using individual tabbed docks that slide away from view. But now skinners are coming out with the same idea using Rainmeter.