Thanks karmat !!!!

Your answer might lie there, Jim. Maybe the 1.3 stable edition might be a better place to start?

What if you just wanted just 1 item to be visable like the clock or weather is that possible?

The latest beta works perfectly, I'm on W7/64, it's totally stable. It's been awhile since I downloaded ABP, but it's a top suite, not sure why it's not working for you. All new apps will appear in the top left corner, you need to move them to where you want them.

Right click on the Rainmeter icon in your system tray, hover over Themes and choose Manage Themes. The 'RainThemes' utilitity will open and you'll see what skins/themes you have installed, just load the one you want.

You can also right click the icon, hover over Configs, scroll down and click on Manage Skins and the 'RainBrowser' utility will open where you can manage and edit your skins. When it first comes up, it willl show in the far left 'Active' column the skins that are open on your desktop, to see all the skins that you have, click on the 'Browse' tab.

Most Important Tip...

- when you download a new skin, remember to REFRESH ALL (or it won't show up)

- when you make changes to a skin, remember to REFRESH SKIN (two different commands)

Here are some excellent easy instructions:

Rainmeter 101 http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=Rainmeter101

Getting Started http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=Rainmeter101_GettingStarted

Using Rainmeter http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=Rainmeter101_Interacting

Adding Skins http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=Rainmeter101_AddingSkins

Anatomy of a Skin http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=Rainmeter101_AnatomyOfASkin

Skin Tutorials http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/?q=SkinTutorials

Thanks karmat. I'm playing with it too. Takes some getting used to, but is functional!

I went ahead and made the skins that had been moderated public. One of the Journeyman skinners had submitted and because they don't go thru moderation it ended up available. So I released the others.

Vark would be a good one to try RND. It's set up for beginners to easily get what they need out of it.

There is a bit of a learning curve to it, but it's worth it! People just need to do abit of reading and tinkering to get the feel of it. But with all the changes to Rainmeter this year, users can now just download a skin without doing much modifying, but where's the fun in that!

Do you folks think that skinning Rainmeter will be the same as Rainlander and Winstep, meaning will skinners make themed skins for it to go with WindowBlind Themes? 

This is all good stuff, hoping to see a lot of skins from some of you clever skinners. though i seem to have already D/L a lot of rainmeter skins

Vark is great because it's so versatile. My last three screenshots in my gallery have it https://www.wincustomize.com/users/2687090/karmat.

Yes, it is, Dave.  You right click anywhere on the skin, which brings up a menu of all the bits in the skin.  Click on the ones that you don't want to uncheck their .ini, and POOF, they're gone.  Click in the same way to turn "on" the .ini file, and they appear!

I will keep a lookout for it. 

This is where I found the "skins" and chose one and clicke load skin. As I said, the skins load in the top left corner, without any background, all on top of each other, a jumbled mess. ( see screeny)

The only "theme" I see is the default one. I see all my "skins", but only the default "theme".  I see all the configs.

I'll try that Mike, thanks!