Gadgets 7.6.1 - inspired by AddGadgets.com Sidebar Gadgets

[SilverAzide]

First of all, thank you so much for this release @SilverAzide! I was previously using ModernGagdets by raiguard, but since that project is no longer being maintained and yours is recommended by raiguard, I feel very fortunate that it has been a very easy transition for me.

One feature that I can't seem to find in forum posts or tinkering on my own is what raiguard had called "Sidebars" in ModernGadgets. This feature would designate a specific area or column of space as dedicated to the Rainmeter skin so that it was removed from the workspace and functions such as maximizing a window would treat the dedicated column as unavailable. This meant that (with the occasional refresh of Rainmeter) I could have maximized windows on one of my screens that would respect the system monitoring tools in a suite such as your Gadgets and both would be available at a glance.

Does this functionality already exist in your suite? I know raiguard had it working relatively well by the end of ModernGadgets support lifespan, but it did sound awfully finicky to develop.

If it is available and I just can't find it, please point me in the right direction. If it's not available, it could be added to the pile of ideas for future releases if you're interested

Thanks again for this skin!

Hello! Glad to hear you are enjoying the Gadgets! If you like raiguard's ModernGadgets, you probably already know about the Gadgets Modernizer, which will adjust the skin appearance to be a little more like his suite.

I do recall the sidebars in his suite. Those sidebars are huge pain to deal with and raiguard eventually dropped them when he released v1.8.0 of his suite due to the unfixable problems with the implementation. I liked the original Windows Vista Sidebars, so I was pretty bummed when I discovered that Rainmeter had no similar functionality.

In any case, you're right, this functionality does not exist in my suite and I have no plans to add it due to the same concerns raiguard ran into. However, there are a few utilities out there that might work for you:

FancyZones (Microsoft PowerToys, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzones)
Aerial (https://chrisandriessen.nl/aerial)
WSU (https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=18211, or https://sourceforge.net/projects/workspaceutilities/)
Desktop Coral
etc...

[Yincognito]

First of all, thank you so much for this release @SilverAzide! I was previously using ModernGagdets by raiguard, but since that project is no longer being maintained and yours is recommended by raiguard, I feel very fortunate that it has been a very easy transition for me.

One feature that I can't seem to find in forum posts or tinkering on my own is what raiguard had called "Sidebars" in ModernGadgets. This feature would designate a specific area or column of space as dedicated to the Rainmeter skin so that it was removed from the workspace and functions such as maximizing a window would treat the dedicated column as unavailable. This meant that (with the occasional refresh of Rainmeter) I could have maximized windows on one of my screens that would respect the system monitoring tools in a suite such as your Gadgets and both would be available at a glance.

Does this functionality already exist in your suite? I know raiguard had it working relatively well by the end of ModernGadgets support lifespan, but it did sound awfully finicky to develop.

If it is available and I just can't find it, please point me in the right direction. If it's not available, it could be added to the pile of ideas for future releases if you're interested

Thanks again for this skin!

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing (have no idea how raiguard implemented his version of it), but Rainmeter does have a basic functionality related to this, see DesktopWorkArea and DesktopWorkAreaType on this page:
https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/settings/rainmeter-section/
This would require you to edit your Rainmeter.ini file (or, save a Layout configured like that) and would create a single such "exclusive" area for Rainmeter skins. The catch is, when you change resolution or move the taskbar, this will reset, so restarting Rainmeter is the only way to restore it in that case. For some unknown reason, the developers don't seem to be interested in making this feature persistent regardless of changing resolution or moving the taskbar (despite at least one Rainmeter alternative clearly being able to do that), so unfortunately it isn't 100% feasible - I would have loved to always use it myself too.

[VolcanoCode]

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing (have no idea how raiguard implemented his version of it), but Rainmeter does have a basic functionality related to this, see DesktopWorkArea and DesktopWorkAreaType on this page:
https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/settings/rainmeter-section/
This would require you to edit your Rainmeter.ini file (or, save a Layout configured like that) and would create a single such "exclusive" area for Rainmeter skins. The catch is, when you change resolution or move the taskbar, this will reset, so restarting Rainmeter is the only way to restore it in that case. For some unknown reason, the developers don't seem to be interested in making this feature persistent regardless of changing resolution or moving the taskbar (despite at least one Rainmeter alternative clearly being able to do that), so unfortunately it isn't 100% feasible - I would have loved to always use it myself too.

Hello! Glad to hear you are enjoying the Gadgets! If you like raiguard's ModernGadgets, you probably already know about the Gadgets Modernizer, which will adjust the skin appearance to be a little more like his suite.

I do recall the sidebars in his suite. Those sidebars are huge pain to deal with and raiguard eventually dropped them when he released v1.8.0 of his suite due to the unfixable problems with the implementation. I liked the original Windows Vista Sidebars, so I was pretty bummed when I discovered that Rainmeter had no similar functionality.

In any case, you're right, this functionality does not exist in my suite and I have no plans to add it due to the same concerns raiguard ran into. However, there are a few utilities out there that might work for you:

FancyZones (Microsoft PowerToys, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzones)
Aerial (https://chrisandriessen.nl/aerial)
WSU (https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=18211, or https://sourceforge.net/projects/workspaceutilities/)
Desktop Coral
etc...

Thanks to both of you for these quick answers. I will say @SilverAzide that I'm most keen on tinkering with Rainmeter and sticking with your skin (and yes, I had already found Modernizer and am thrilled with how seamless the transition has felt), so I will take the advice of @Yincognito and see what I can do. I am fairly certain I'd be okay with basic/limited functionality, so I'm hopeful. And I am not at all surprised to hear that you have no plans of adding this type of feature - raiguard's documentation while he was building it sounded like a real headache, so no worries there.

Thanks to all!

[ptmax13]

@SilverAzide Do you have a clue on why this happens?

Screenshot 2024-01-12 211626.png

[SilverAzide]

@SilverAzide Do you have a clue on why this happens?

Yes, I do... Starting with Windows 11 22H2, Microsoft made a change to the way they calculate CPU performance, which is especially noticeable if you have a hybrid CPU. I've posted about this extensively:

measureCPU incorrect
New computer on intel 13th gen W11 (CPU Usage is wrong)
[Bug] Skins show lower than actual CPU Usage in Windows 11 22H2

It is possible to work around this issue for the CPU core usage, but the process usage counters are hopelessly borked and there is no workaround I know of (keep in mind that this is not Rainmeter issue, it is Windows itself that is doing this). The process usage now appears very low; I'm not sure what MS is doing to report larger values in Task Manager.

[ptmax13]

Yes, I do... Starting with Windows 11 22H2, Microsoft made a change to the way they calculate CPU performance, which is especially noticeable if you have a hybrid CPU. I've posted about this extensively:

measureCPU incorrect
New computer on intel 13th gen W11 (CPU Usage is wrong)
[Bug] Skins show lower than actual CPU Usage in Windows 11 22H2

It is possible to work around this issue for the CPU core usage, but the process usage counters are hopelessly borked and there is no workaround I know of (keep in mind that this is not Rainmeter issue, it is Windows itself that is doing this). The process usage now appears very low; I'm not sure what MS is doing to report larger values in Task Manager.

Thanks for letting me know.
So we are basically waiting for the Rainmeter team to come up with a solution, if any exists.

[Yincognito]

keep in mind that this is not Rainmeter issue, it is Windows itself

So we are basically waiting for the Rainmeter team to come up with a solution

[ptmax13]

OK, OK, I get your point...

What I mean is, I get that it's not a Rainmeter bug or miscalculation issue. MS changed the way this works.
But if Task Manager shows the right data then it must be a way around this.
Surely we cannot wait for MS to fix something just because it affects third party tools, right?

[Yincognito]

OK, OK, I get your point...

What I mean is, I get that it's not a Rainmeter bug or miscalculation issue. MS changed the way this works.
But if Task Manager shows the right data then it must be a way around this.
Surely we cannot wait for MS to fix something just because it affects third party tools, right?

Absolutely - nothing is impossible. In this case though, it's quite unlikely, despite our best efforts, since it's not like we're able to retrieve the Task Manager data, and Windows itself is closed source. The fact that SilverAzide's suite, one of the most accurate if not the most accurate in that regard, isn't able to do it is a good indicator of the available possibilities. Normally, I could give a helping hand in such cases since I'm one of the guys that doesn't take no for an answer either, but I don't have a good opinion about Win 11 (to put it mildly) and I don't plan on installing it very soon (if ever).

As for the Rainmeter developers, they do their best too, but in essence Rainmeter is just a tool that retrieves data from other sources (mostly Windows itself) in these cases, it's not a HWiNFO or MSI AB to try and get such data on its own through various low level techniques, hacks or workarounds, so the possibilities are limited in that regard as well.

So, it's not like there's no willingness to "fix" this from the Rainmeter side, it's just that all these tools are based on the Windows ecosystem to provide data, and when the latter doesn't offer many alternatives, there isn't much one can do about it - that's all I'm saying. Many other tools tried to alleviate such discrepancies in the past (the Task Manager readings issue itself, in various forms, is an old issue, by the way) and most of what could be done was guesswork and tricky workarounds, given that MS isn't known to bother answering these things (in fact, it almost always locks these questions out of their great concern for user opinion, of course)...

[ptmax13]

Absolutely - nothing is impossible. In this case though, it's quite unlikely, despite our best efforts, since it's not like we're able to retrieve the Task Manager data, and Windows itself is closed source. The fact that SilverAzide's suite, one of the most accurate if not the most accurate in that regard, isn't able to do it is a good indicator of the available possibilities. Normally, I could give a helping hand in such cases since I'm one of the guys that doesn't take no for an answer either, but I don't have a good opinion about Win 11 (to put it mildly) and I don't plan on installing it very soon (if ever).

As for the Rainmeter developers, they do their best too, but in essence Rainmeter is just a tool that retrieves data from other sources (mostly Windows itself) in these cases, it's not a HWiNFO or MSI AB to try and get such data on its own through various low level techniques, hacks or workarounds, so the possibilities are limited in that regard as well.

So, it's not like there's no willingness to "fix" this from the Rainmeter side, it's just that all these tools are based on the Windows ecosystem to provide data, and when the latter doesn't offer many alternatives, there isn't much one can do about it - that's all I'm saying. Many other tools tried to alleviate such discrepancies in the past (the Task Manager readings issue itself, in various forms, is an old issue, by the way) and most of what could be done was guesswork and tricky workarounds, given that MS isn't known to bother answering these things (in fact, it almost always locks these questions out of their great concern for user opinion, of course)...

Thanks for sharing this information. Much appreciated.
I can't think of a reason that MS did this on purpose, so here's me hoping for them to come around and fix the issue.
I know it's a longshot.