Basic Guide to Samurize

[Minimoose]

What is Samurize?

A program for making desktop utilities, such as showing your CPU Usage, Hard Disk Space left, how much RAM your using. The reason it's good is because its being improved all the time and its very easy to design your own objects, rather than download ones off the internet that arent personalised. Also the program is very easy to pick up, so someone with almost no computer experience could use it with some success.

Tutorial!

OK, I only started using Samurize about a day ago and have only been on it for 2 hours, it’s very easy to pick up but I understand how it may look confusing at first.

Since have only been on this for a few hours I might make a few mistakes, and miss out important things, but I have made a object to show time, date, uptime, CPU usage, used memory, free memory, 3 hard drive’s used and free space, computer basic specifications.

First I will just point out the simple tools which are the basis to most objects. For the tutorial I will just create a simple bar to show CPU usage.

1) Download Samurize from http://www.samurize.com/modules/mydownload...=1&lid=2074.

2) Install then run Samurize Client, you will now have the little Samurize icon in the task bar. Also you can just run the Config Tool which is under the same menu as the Client in the Start Menu., because this is what we will be using.

Quick Overview:

1) Add meter - most object resources are here, start here.

2a) Once an object is selected, new menu's under the 'Add meter' tab are displayed;

2b)'General' is for simple things, such as naming the object in the config, there's not really much point doing this unless you are going for a massive project that needs to be organised. Also there are some display options here that should really be under the display tab but aren’t, such as background colour and frame of certain things.

2c)'Source' is showing where it gets its information from and displays options to change counters and the units used (as far as I know in the objects that i have done)

2d)'Display' is all of the display options, believe it or not. It lets you change was text is displayed on screen and lets you change the appearance of text or an object, i do not think that the text works that well, the best quality i have found so far is white text on a grey background, size 7 text and MS Reference Style.

3)The 'Snap to Grid' option can get really annoying for text, so you can turn it on and off whenever you want, because otherwise you will learn to hate it.

4)Save your work with the File option :p

Ok we shall begin!

So once the config editor is opened we can start creating the object.

Add meter is the main button for adding any type of object, some of the options are simple, like 'Add Memory' (adds the set up for a RAM status object) and 'Add Drive Space' (Adds the set up for Hard Drive usage), some get more complicated, such as what we are doing which is the tool for various Hardware monitor tools, most of which i dont know the use for.

Click on 'add meter' and select the 'Add Perfmon...' option, this will open a screen looking like this:

Make sure the correct computer name is in the Computer name field (also make sure it has // in front of it), you can check by going to:

Control Panel --> System --> Computer Name (a tab)

Select 'Processor' as the 'Performance Object' along with '% Processor Time' and '_Total' (If someone could tell me what the 0 and 1 options do i would appreciate it).

You will end up with something that says; Perfmon:## (## stand for numbers, it selects them randomly). *

Go onto the display menu after selecting the object you want to edit, it's located just below the 'Add meter' button.

Now we change some of the on screen stuff, on the place where it says 'Perfmon: %v' change this to 'CPU Usage: %v%', now you will have a tool that will display your CPU Usage on your desktop, so if you want you can save it in your Samurize Configs folder (Program Files --> Samurize --> Configs) and test it out! (yay)

If all goes well you can right click on your Samurize client taskbar icon, go to 'Select Config File' and select moose.ini (or whatever you saved it as) and it will appear on screen. Really it will look a bit boring so lets add a little bar to show it graphically.

Follow the process of getting to 'Perfmon: ##'* (Asterisk is back to where you need to get to again, up five paragraphs) and then leave it on the 'General' tab. The second option will read 'Draw Type' and will be on text at the moment, change it to 'Progress Bar' and now your on your way to making a relatively simple bar showing Cpu Usage in a less boring way than text.

Don’t worry about me only having the bar in the picture, its because i did the pictures in a different order, it was 2 o'clock in the morning when i thought of doing the tutorial, so i did the pictures then went to bed... :)

The bar does look slightly rubbish (well actually it looks awful) so let’s go back to display and make it look slightly better:

All i have done here is turned off the option for 'Split Spacing' (which is for showing percentages of the bar), changed the 'Alpha Start' colour and the 'Background Colour'. The sliding bars under the colour options are for the translucency of the object.

Design the bar to what you want and we are almost finished, oh yeah one last thing, I’m guessing you have this figured out but to resize the object just move the square thingies which are situated around it :p

Now mine looks like this, yours should look pretty much the same:

Save it and test it out the same way as i told you before!

I end up with this on my desktop (Its on 0% but it is working):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that you have a working object you can decorate it how you want, above the 'Add meter' tab there are more tabs, one which says 'Edit Meters' another that says 'Edit Graphics' and a third one which says 'Project Options'.

I have never used the 'Project Options' tab so I can’t explain in, but I have used the 'Add Graphics' tab, and it’s very simple.

Really your just adding a background to your objects, go onto the tab that says 'Add Graphics' then go onto 'Add Background Object' (where 'Add Meter' used to be). You get a few options that are self explanatory. I added a picture to the background then placed a simple progress bar showing CPU Usage on top.

Now you can have pictures of you telling you things about your computer!

Ok im tired after doing this for an hour and a bit, i will leave you to fiddle with stuff, if you have a any simple problems get in touch with me by PM.

Hoped you liked the guide, comments are welcome especially constructive criticism, but please dont give it a bad rating just because it was too simple for you, i did state it was basic :p

PS: This is my first guide! Im tired so if any mistakes are made can you point them out so i can change them. Also ill give you a link for a picture of my desktop, i did quite a few thingies, i might do another guide to show very very simple scripts (which i have on my desktop), it depends on how much time i have though.

My Desktop: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j207/Jac...Clipboard03.jpg

Moose.

Edited October 6, 2008 by Minimoose

[Quad Master]

Really cool guide there , will try out for sure. :)

[Colin-uk Veteran]

edited the title for you, cool guide :)

[Minimoose]

edited the title for you, cool guide :)

Yay, thank you :)

Thanks Quad, im gunna try out your foobar skinning guide, looks nice :)

Edited September 5, 2007 by Minimoose

[Quad Master]

Thanks to ur guide this is what i got as my end result.

This is just amazing must say , the possibilities are endless.

Also added ur guide to my blog , hope you dont mind.

Go ahead and try the FooAvA.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Quad Master

[Quad Master]

After applying progressbar.

[Quad Master]

Is there any way to use image as a progressbar

[Minimoose]

Is there any way to use image as a progressbar

Hmmmm, not sure, there might be a a way, but its too advanced for me, seeing as i have actually only been on it for a few hours, id ask around on some other forums. There might even be one dedicated to Samurize, i will check and edit this post if i can find one. Yeah, adding to your blog is fine, the more help it gives the better :)

Nice object by the way, looks amazing.

Edit: Well, an easy find is the official Samurize forums, i would ask there for any help, im sure they will be able to give the best tips and advice to you.

http://www.samurize.com/modules/ipboard/

Hmmmmmm i tried out something that i spotted, once you have added the 'Perfmon: ##' object in the config editor, if you look down the list where the 'Progress bar', 'Text' etc... options are listed, there is a 'Image' option, although i cant figure out how to add one. It might have to be a certain file type or have certain dimensions to work, but im not sure, also i do not know whether im typing in the path name correctly, so its like usual, trial and error :)

Edited September 6, 2007 by Minimoose

[Minimoose]

Hmmmm, not sure, there might be a a way, but its too advanced for me, seeing as i have actually only been on it for a few hours, id ask around on some other forums. There might even be one dedicated to Samurize, i will check and edit this post if i can find one. Yeah, adding to your blog is fine, the more help it gives the better :)

Nice object by the way, looks amazing.

Edit: Well, an easy find is the official Samurize forums, i would ask there for any help, im sure they will be able to give the best tips and advice to you.

http://www.samurize.com/modules/ipboard/

Hmmmmmm i tried out something that i spotted, once you have added the 'Perfmon: ##' object in the config editor, if you look down the list where the 'Progress bar', 'Text' etc... options are listed, there is a 'Image' option, although i cant figure out how to add one. It might have to be a certain file type or have certain dimensions to work, but im not sure, also i do not know whether im typing in the path name correctly, so its like usual, trial and error :)

Ok, looks like the image has to be in png format, im gunna just do a quicky test to see if i can get it working.

[Minimoose]

Damn tried it out and it just shows an image, lol :p No progress bar or anything, there must be a way, i will keep on trying until you find the way or i do :) Ill post it here as soon as i find it out, if i do.

Funny i didnt think of this before, couldn't you just make the progress bar see through and put it on top of your picture by using 'add graphic' then 'Image' using it as a background to the progress bar and jsut resize them to the required size, it works of course, except that the picture doesnt show gradually which might be what your looking for...

[spacer]

What the hell is Samurize?

nevermind. I googled it.

[Minimoose]

What the hell is Samurize?

A program for making desktop utilities, such as showing your CPU Usage, Hard Disk Space left, how much RAM your using. The reason its good is because its being improved all the time and its very easy to design your own objects, rather than download ones off the internet that arent personalised. Alos the program is very easy to pick up, so someone with almost no computer experience could use it with some succes, i might do a more in depth tutorial once i have used it a bit more.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Minimoose

[Minimoose]

New object, using the brilliant Glass Tutorial: https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...23&hl=Glass

The object: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j207/Jac...ipboard01-1.jpg

(large resolution due to me not cropping, the actual object is small, thats why i gave the direct link rather made it a thumbnail thingy.)

[Quad Master]

Thanks a lot for the glass tutorial link :)

[Minimoose]

Thanks a lot for the glass tutorial link :)

No problem Quad, it makes the objects look awesome :)

[Leoboy]

All ingenious - is simple!!!!! so simple!!!

[tazzeh]

Playing around this this myself. Amazing how I've never come across it before. Such an awesome tool.

Select 'Processor' as the 'Performance Object' along with '% Processor Time' and '_Total' (If someone could tell me what the 0 and 1 options do i would appreciate it).

That refers to Core 0 and Core 1 on Dual Core CPU's. 0+1 = Total. I have a Core2Duo and have made a meter for each core. Nifty :D

[Minimoose]

Ahhh ok, thanks for that :)

[johngalt]

Been a while since I been around here, but I have to say, thanks for the tut. I have known about Samurize for a long time now and never got around to working on it because I could never figure out how to make the actual objects. Now that I am on Vista and things get more bogged down (and hardware gets hotter) I am looking back into it again, and after trying out bginfo from sysinternals, and realizing that it cannot help me because I use Weather Watcher, which updates my wallpaper every 15 minutes, I was referred to rainmeter - which reminded me of Samurize.

And now, less thana month later, I come here and see a '...for Dummies' type tut for Samurize.

Thanks, m8!

[.Markus]

I'm surprised you guys haven't heard about it beforehand, it's been around since 2001.

Haven't used it since I moved over to Vista, as AveDesk is a better replacement on my system.

[Tews]

Its always nice to see that someone still remembers Samurize ... btw its fully compatible with VISTA!

[Unobscured Vision]

Samurize can do much, much more. It all depends on what you'd like to do.

I've tinkered on and off with a shell replacement project that uses it, but since there's other things that are WAY more appropriate I kinda gave up.

In the meantime there's been a slight interest in making new dialogs using it. I direct your attention to this:

and to my DeviantArt page to see what can be done.

Enjoy Samurize. :)

[AnimaliX]

hi,

i using samurize with basic (integrate) winamp media plugin and everything works perfect.. but i need improve my desktop with display "next" track ...

in help i find only "%wp" - Track Title (using now) but nothing like "Next Track Title" :) pls help

[Michael1406]

I did download Samurize a couple years ago but never got around to using it. I've been inspired to now. :)

[White Cuban]

would helped if you explained what samurize is... cuz i have no clue