SimpleCalendar

Third-party customization applications can be used to completely alter the aesthetics of an operating system. For instance, Rainmeter is a platform which supports different types of plugins to enable various desktop gadgets, or GUI makeovers. A suitable example is SimpleCalendar to keep track of time directly on the desktop.

Once installed, the item can easily be enabled through Rainmeter’s skin manager, even if there are other skins already in use. As soon as it appears on the desktop, it can be dragged to any position on the screen. What’s more, default options make it possible to ignore mouse interactions, so it just stays in the background.

Time is not display, nor can a clock be enabled. Only an entire month is shown, with the current day highlighted for easy identification. Navigation controls make it possible to go back and forth in time, without changing any display details or settings. Days are shown in a regular style, with Sunday as the first day of the week.

Editing the skin’s preferences can be done through regular means by simply going through the dedicated INI file. Here it’s possible to change color of the used font, whether to keep a transparent background like the default feature, and what font to use, but a little research needs to be done here to provide the right name.