Rainmeter

Highly versatile app that can help customize your Windows OS, add various design improvements to on-screen widgets, help manage user-designed add-ons, and manage your system like a pro

Rainmeter is a versatile application that enables users to customize their PCs, add extra functionality to their desktops for enhanced control, closely monitor some important aspects of their machine’s processes, or visually interact differently with some existing features of their systems.

Opening the tool for the first time, defaults, and available options

After a quick and uneventful installation process, when opening Rainmeter for the first time, the program will display a set of basic system information and memory management statistics (CPU usage, RAM usage, SWAP usage, storage levels, etc.).

Rainmeter comes with a set of basic, starter skins. These are a nice starting point and can illustrate what this app can do and how you can customize the design and the content of the information.

The program is highly customizable in terms of both design and the type of information it displays.

What is a ‘skin’ and how can you add them?

In this case, the ‘skin’ refers to an add-on (a digital asset, like a framework, with distinctive UI) that you can add and manage from within Rainmeter’s dedicated dashboard. As such, this application acts as an add-on management panel that allows you to closely define how certain extra additions interact with your system and between each other.

In order to browse through your options, you could go to an online discovery page where multiple sources of user-created and -customized skins have been added (e.g., Reddit, Discord, DeviantArt, etc.)

After downloading an add-on of your choice (with a RMSKIN file format), you must double-click it, and it will automatically be opened with Rainmeter. The installation must be confirmed. If added to your dashboard, all skins can be partially or totally disabled; as such, certain parts of their display or functioning mechanisms could be hidden, for example. But most times, it depends on the actual skin and what it does.

Summary

To conclude, this app is great because it allows you to display information, enclose certain background activity processes in on-screen containers, add widgets, bridge other apps’ activity, and so much more.

Each skin is different and offers other functionality or UI. As such, for passionate tech-savvy individuals, they can change a skin’s functionality by adjusting code parameters.