Skinning the "ALL CPU Meter" on Win7
FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY
Sunday, July 25, 2010 by theAVMAN | Discussion: Skinning
Ok I know we all love our gadgets but if you have a multi-core proccessor and 64 bit OS your choices are pretty slim.So this is by all means not a tell all end all on this subject but....
Tired of the same couple of choices we have had sense basically Vista I got to playing around today and stumbled on a simple way to give us some quick choices.That having been said I am sure there are those out there that have gone further into this than I and I will probaly dig deeper but for now here we go....
First you could change every graaphic in the gadget with this same proccess but for this example I will only do the background.So to start with lets open our CPU gadget and get it on the screen it should look something like this ....
Now there are probably several ways to get the next bit of information but the way I did it was I took a screen shot (the one above) and derw a box over it...
To explain why we did this lets open the folder the graphics are housed in ...
C:\Users\Harley\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\All_CPU_Meter_V1.3.gadget
of course you would replace Harley with your user name
it should look something like this...
Now that we have the folder open close your gadget because we are are going to make some name changes that wont be allowed with the gadget running.
Notice I highlighted 2 images 1 is called ...black_back_4_old.png ..I added the ( _old ) note the Deminsions 130x133 match the deminsions of our rectangle we drew .Obviously we could change every graphic in the folder but once you load the gadget and it loads the proper components for your PC (or you configure it that way ..in a couple of gadgets I played with where you can add or subtract information) it is going to be that same size everytime.
Now notice the second image I selected this is the new image I created it now carries the name of the original image ( black_back_4.png ) now just right click the desktop again click gadgets load the CPU meter it will use your new background .
Now you can go on and do as many of the images as you want just remember to close the gadget before trying to change names on any of the images.
Have fun! A/V 
Reply #3 Monday, July 26, 2010 12:15 AM
Version 1.3? Wow man you gotta update. The new version 3.0 includes the temp readings for the cores (need CoreTemp running though).
Reply #5 Monday, July 26, 2010 3:46 PM
Bebi
Thanks for the info!Updaetd!
Now a matching set of gadgets YAY!!
Reply #6 Monday, July 26, 2010 4:02 PM
Wow,they look great!!! I use those same gadgets plus the Top Five Gadget. Your versions look much better.
Reply #9 Monday, July 26, 2010 4:42 PM
You have mail!
If you have any problems let me know if you use msn mess. my addy is [email protected]
Reply #10 Monday, July 26, 2010 8:23 PM
I'm using the Top 5 too...pity I can't figure out how to customize the colors. That author doesn't use the standard gadget.html and gadget.css files. rawr.
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Reply #1 Sunday, July 25, 2010 10:38 PM
Thanks Harley! This is good info!