README

⚡ StormTicker — Asynchronous Desktop News Matrix & Weather Suite

A high-performance, asynchronous news ticker matrix and weather suite for Rainmeter.
Featuring hardware-accelerated DirectWrite text streaming, dual display form factors (Panoramic Ribbon & Desktop Box), live Open-Meteo meteorological telemetry with 3-day forecast rotation, zero-editor visual feed management, full trilingual localization (English default, Portuguese, Spanish), and interactive headline scrubbing.

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⚡ Upgrade to StormTicker Pro (10 Channels)

Want to run up to 10 completely independent channels simultaneously with full desktop matrix coverage, multi-city 3D weather art, and a 100% ad-free experience?

👉 Unlock StormTicker Pro on DeviantArt

Feature	StormTicker (Standard)	StormTicker Pro
Concurrent News Lines	3 Channels	10 Channels
Stream Experience	Includes Promo Row	100% Clean / Ad-Free
Form Factors	Panoramic & Box	Panoramic & Box
Visual Themes	3 Themes	6 Hand-Crafted Themes
Weather Engine	Open-Meteo Live + 3-Day Forecast	3D WeatherArt + 3 Locations + Moon Lunation + AQI
Direct Portal Navigation	✅ Included	✅ Included
DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration	✅ 60 FPS	✅ 60 FPS
Smart Hover Freeze & Mouse Scrubbing	✅ Included	✅ Included
Individual Speed Tuning per Row	✅ 0.5x to 1.5x (3 Rows)	✅ 0.5x to 1.5x (All 10 Rows)
Custom Refresh Intervals (15m to 6h)	✅ Full Selector	✅ Full Selector
Settings GUI Configuration	Tabs 1–3 Unlocked	All 10 Tabs Unlocked
Lifetime Updates & Priority Support	Community	VIP / Pro Support

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📖 Overview

StormTicker is an original, ground-up desktop information suite engineered for traders, developers, and news enthusiasts who want continuous, real-time market and news feeds without cluttering their workspace.

Running silky-smooth, asynchronous news lines powered by Lua and DirectWrite, StormTicker streams real-time RSS/Atom headlines at a high frame rate (50–60 FPS) with a sub-1% CPU footprint.

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🌟 Key Features

🚀 Asynchronous DirectWrite Matrix

• True Multi-Stream Concurrency: 3 independent news channels operating on separate speed factors (0.5x to 1.5x), producing a non-repetitive visual rhythm across your desktop.
• Hardware-Accelerated Container Clipping: Every channel is confined within dedicated DirectWrite shape containers for tear-free rendering.
• Direct Portal & Article Dispatch: Clicking on any channel badge opens the publication's root homepage; clicking on any headline opens that exact article in your browser.
• Seamless Infinite Loop: Proprietary Lua wrap-around logic seamlessly recycles headlines when the end of a batch is reached without stutter or visual jumps.
• Dynamic Auto-Height: The widget dynamically resizes its height to fit only active rows, cleanly stacking lines with zero wasted space.

📺 Dual Display Form Factors

• Panoramic Ribbon (Panoramic\*.ini): Full-width, single-line ticker designed for top-screen docking. Features continuous multi-channel streaming, split-flap airport transition for weather telemetry, and interactive cursor click-to-open article dispatch (OpenPanLink) with auto-resume timeout protection.
• Modular Desktop Box (Box\*.ini): Compact, self-contained desktop widget displaying 3 synchronized headline rows alongside an integrated meteorological HUD strip.

🌦️ Integrated Meteorological HUD (Open-Meteo)

• Live Weather Telemetry: Real-time temperature, condition status, and wind speed/direction.
• 3-Day Forecast Rotation: Cyclical rotation showcasing upcoming forecasts (Tomorrow, Day+2, Day+3) with high-quality Meteocons vector icons.
• Zero API Keys Required: Seamlessly connects to Open-Meteo out-of-the-box. Coordinates and units can be customized directly in Settings.

🎨 3 Hand-Crafted Visual Themes

Switch themes instantly with a single click or through the context menu:

• ⚡ Wall Street: Classic carbon black background with signature electric green badges and crisp typography.
• 🌆 Cyberpunk: Neon cyan badges and vivid magenta accents for modern dark terminal setups.
• 🥈 Stealth: Minimalist titanium monochrome with muted grayscale accents.

🌐 Trilingual Localization Engine (i18n)

• Native Runtime Localization: Full support for English (default), Portuguese (pt-BR), and Spanish (es-ES) across all UI elements, weather conditions, dialogs, and settings tabs.
• SafeUpper Latin Normalization: Custom Lua capitalization engine preserving accented characters (CÉU LIMPO, PANCADAS, CONDIÇÃO) without Windows-1252 corruption.
• First-Run Onboarding Wizard: Automatically opens the Settings Manager upon first installation, welcoming users in English.
• Right-Click Context Menu: Direct access to ⚙️ Settings / Configuration from anywhere on the skin background.

🎛️ Visual Feed & Settings Manager

• Tabbed Settings GUI (Settings.ini): Graphical control center with dedicated tabs for Channels 1–3, Weather Settings, Font selection, and Update Intervals.
• Native Edit Dialogs: Click any Tag or URL box to edit feeds directly in a standard Windows input box — zero text editor editing required.

🧠 Smart Hover & Interactivity

• Selective Row Freeze: Hovering over any channel pauses only that specific row, while other channels continue scrolling uninterrupted.
• Interactive Mouse Scroll Scrubbing: Roll the mouse wheel over any hovered channel to scrub forward or backward through headlines at your own pace.
• Extrapolated Multi-Line Tooltips: Expanded 620px viewport with intelligent text wrapping prevents headline truncation.

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📦 Installation & Quick Start

1. Ensure Rainmeter 4.5+ (or higher) is installed on Windows 10 or 11.
2. Download the official StormTicker_1.2.3.rmskin package from the Releases page.
3. Double-click the .rmskin file and follow the standard Rainmeter installation prompt.
4. On first load, the First-Run Setup Wizard will launch automatically to welcome you and open the Settings Manager.
5. In the Rainmeter Manage window, select your preferred layout and theme:
   • Desktop Box Card: StormTicker > Box > Box StormTicker.ini (or Cyberpunk, Stealth)
   • Panoramic Ribbon: StormTicker > Panoramic > Panoramic StormTicker.ini (or Cyberpunk, Stealth)
6. Right-click anywhere on the skin and select ⚙️ Settings / Configuration (or click the header gear button) to configure your RSS feeds, weather coordinates, and preferred language.

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🗺️ Release History

🌟 Version 1.2.3

• Feed Edit Live Propagation: Editing a channel URL or tag now waits for the dialog to close and refreshes all loaded skins — the new feed appears within seconds instead of requiring a manual refresh.
• Metric/Imperial Toggle Fix: The unit switcher refreshed skins via an invalid config path (forward slashes) — the refresh silently never fired. Units now propagate live.
• Scroll Speed Clarification: The speed selector label now states "(Box mode only)" in all three languages — per-channel speeds drive individual Box rows, while Panoramic streams at a shared uniform rate.

🌟 Version 1.2.2

• Theme Renamed to Wall Street: The default theme is now "Wall Street" (skins Box Wall Street / Panoramic Wall Street, @Resources/Themes/Wall Street.inc), matching StormTicker Pro naming.
• In-Skin Header Tooltips: Hovering the mode-toggle and the SOURCES button now shows a themed tooltip inside the title bar (replacing native Windows tooltips) in English, Portuguese, and Spanish — matching the StormTicker Pro behavior.
• Headline Tooltip Alignment Fix: Headline tooltips explicitly reset text alignment to left, preventing centering bleed after a header tooltip was shown.

🌟 Version 1.2.1

• Live Weather Coordinates: Latitude/longitude now propagate instantly to active skins — entering new coordinates updates the weather within seconds (previously required a full reload).
• Reverse Geocoding Fix: Added missing RegExp on the MeasureGeocoding WebParser parent — city names now resolve correctly after coordinate input.
• Unit Toggle Crash Fix: Replaced an undefined WriteIniKey helper that silently crashed the metric/imperial switch in Settings.
• Invalid Input Feedback: Malformed coordinate input now shows a localized hint instead of failing silently.

🌟 Version 1.2.0

• English Default & First-Run Wizard: English set as default out-of-the-box language, with an automated onboarding wizard opening Settings on first boot.
• 100% Internationalized Settings: Replaced all hardcoded Portuguese strings across Settings with dynamic #Lang_*# localization variables in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
• Interactive Panoramic Click-to-Open: Clicking on headlines in Panoramic mode now resolves the underlying article and opens it directly in the default browser (OpenPanLink).
• SafeUpper Latin Engine: Enhanced uppercase transformation ensuring accented characters in Portuguese and Spanish headlines render cleanly without encoding defects.
• Persistent Settings Navigation: Active tab state is preserved across reloads and feed edit operations.
• Right-Click Settings Integration: Direct access to ⚙️ Settings / Configuration from the context menu of all Box and Panoramic themes.

🌟 Version 1.1.0

• Dual Form Factor Architecture: Introduction of Panoramic Ribbon and Desktop Box layouts.
• Extended Weather Engine: 3-day forecast rotation powered by Open-Meteo.
• Trilingual Localization: English, Portuguese, and Spanish language catalogs.
• Modernized Settings GUI: Tabbed interface with visual feed controls.

🌟 Version 1.0.0

• Initial release featuring 3-channel asynchronous DirectWrite news streaming.

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📄 License & Attribution

Copyright (c) 2026 Geovane Souza (@Geovanesou). All Rights Reserved.
Distributed under the Proprietary Software License for personal desktop customization.