Planning and Design

Welcome back. So you downloaded Rainmeter and ObjectDock. You spent some time to download some skins. If you are anything like me, after a week of continuous download, your desktop will look something like this

So you downloaded an awesome space background. You found every cool skin on the internet. And you have successfully shoved all 400 skins on screen a once to bombard the senses with more information than you could ever want. ISN'T IT AWESOME!!!

Too much information!

If this is the case, you are suffering from creativity overload. Some popular Rainmeter programmers believe in shoving as much useless information and graphics on screen as possible. I find this incredibly annoying and pointless. To create a polished final product, you have to slow down and plan.

Design Concepts

Taskbar Size and Placement

• The taskbar takes up valuable screen space. The taskbar you make should be the perfect size to fit all the taskbar features while using minimal space.
• Auto hiding the taskbar is a generally bad idea. It often appears when you don’t intend it to, and it is not intuitive to users other than yourself. This is also true for any dock. 

• As a result of my extensive thought experiments, I have concluded, it is an irrefutable fact that the taskbar should always be located on the left side of the screen. The main reason for this is because vertical screen space is not as valuable as horizontal. Look at either side of this column of text. You see all that empty space? Large margins guarantee wasted space on a monitor. In addition, screens are wider than they have been in the past. This further reinforces the efficiency of a side taskbar. Web pages often adjust content to fit horizontally to the users screen to accommodate for smaller screens. For these reasons, a vertical taskbar is superior. The left side of the screen is superior to the right due to the placement of the exit button and scroll bar. Keeping the exit button and scroll bar flush with the side of the screen allows users to quickly exit and scroll. Therefore you will put the taskbar on the left side of the screen. 

Consistency and Theme

• Every element of your desktop should be consistent in its graphics and theme. Your background, Rainmeter skins, docks, and icons should complement each other. The color palette for each should be consistent. Pick a style for your desktop and make each element follow it. Common styles include minimalist, holographic, black and white, geometric, ect...

• Another option is to follow a specific theme. For example, one user used the (awesome) video game Halo 3 as a desktop theme. The background was an in game screenshot. The game clock was the time and the ammo and grenades were application launchers.  Other themes include Iron Man, Tron, Mass Effect, The Dark Knight, and so on. It doesn’t have to follow a known idea, you can use anything.

Recommended Taskbar Features

Running Application dock

• I have found that a single dock that has both running applications and launchers for your frequently used programs is annoying. For this reason, I recommend having a dock that contains only your running applications. This dock should be the central point of your new taskbar.

 Common Application Dock

• The vast majority of most user’s time is spent using a small handful of common applications. It makes sense that you should have a dock of some kind to launch your favorite applications. I use a slider dock like on the Mac, but you can make this any kind of dock you want. 

Volume Control

• The Windows volume control was one of the primary reasons I decided to make my own taskbar. Having to click twice to change the volume was such an insurmountable obstacle I decided to scrap the Windows taskbar altogether. Create or find a volume controller that can change to any volume with one click and also automaticly adjusts when the system volume changes.

Music Player

• Displays the song and artist name of the current track on your specified music application. I use Spotify, but most programs can be changed by skins. There is pause, play, previous song and next song. Also, there is a button that will launch Spotify. This is so convenient and saves so much time, I absolutely love it.

Start Button

• While I almost never use it anymore, you will likely still need this. Keep it in a corner for easy access. ObjectDock has a functioning start button. However, I made my own Rainmeter skin that works as a start button and uses my own desktop logo in place of Windows. I designed my own logo and applied it to my start button. This is a great location to personalize your desktop. 

Time and Date

• This is a given. Make a small one for the taskbar and a big one for the desktop. 

Show Desktop Button

• Adding this to the taskbar was so genius, I have a feeling Microsoft had nothing to do with it. Add this to the corner opposite to the start menu.

Network Buttton

• As a college student, the internet connection is often sketchy. To reconnect or change conections, you should have a button that launches the same small network connection screen that launches from the network button on the original taskbar. This is difficult to do, but I will explain how to do this in my next post.

Connection Speed

• Probably because my connection is so inconsistent, I made this little skin to show what percentage my connection speed is compared to maximum. This has been really helpful, and I strongly recommend adding this feature.

Network Name

• I found it helpful to see what network I am connected to without clicking the network button.

Battery Button

• I have a laptop, so this is vital. The button image displays the battery life percentage and plugged in status. Hovering over it will numerically display an estimation of the battery life in minutes and as a percentage. Clicking it will open up the same battery life menu as the default taskbar. 
• While you should always have a battery bar (if you have a laptop), another idea is to also make your entire taskbar a battery bar. I am planning on implementing this feature to my taskbar soon. The taskbar starts at your default color until it reaches 50 percent. from here, the taskbar begins to change colors depending on the battery life, at 10% the taskbar is red and maybe blinking. This is just one of many creative features you can implement to make your GUI really shine. 

Recommended Desktop Features

With so many skins and ideas out there, you will be tempted to clutter up your desktop with all kinds of useless information. You will not be using your desktop to fly an airplane. Clutter looks unorganized and sloppy. On my desktop I decided to add a big clock, a 5 day forecast, a couple system monitors to get my CPU usage, RAM, and SWAP space. I also have an upload and download monitor, a calendar and a Google search bar. Feel free to add whatever skins you desire.  While the taskbar requires features to function effectively, the desktop has none. The desktop skins and launchers are purely aesthetic.

Conclusion

Do not underestimate the importance of planning. The more time you spend planning, the less revisions you will make. I highly recommend drawing out what you want your skins to look like before you begin implementation. Thanks for reading! Check out my next update for design instructions and the technical aspects associated with making skins.