Markdown Tasks — Rainmeter widgets

Two lightweight Rainmeter widgets that render the open checkboxes from a Markdown file straight onto your desktop, and let you click a task to check it off. Built for an Obsidian workflow (it understands the Tasks plugin due-date syntax), but it works with any plain Markdown file that uses - [ ] checkboxes.

• Tasks widget — reads the ### Tasks section.
• Chores widget — reads the ### Chores section (amber title, otherwise identical).

Both read the same Markdown file; they just filter to different headings.

Task apps live behind a lock screen and an icon — out of sight, out of mind. This puts the list on the desktop, behind your windows, where you can't avoid it, and updates within seconds whenever you edit the underlying Markdown in your editor of choice.

• Reads your Markdown file every 10 seconds.
• Shows only unchecked items (- [ ], also +/* bullets and 1. lists) under the configured heading, including anything under its sub-headings. Items inside code blocks are ignored. Check one off (in your editor, or by clicking the row) and it disappears from the widget.
• Links are shown as their label: [[Note|Alias]] → Alias, [text](url) → text.
• Strips Obsidian Tasks metadata for a clean view: a 📅 2026-06-13 due date is shown as (due Jun 13); scheduled/start/done/recurring/priority markers are removed.
• Click a row to flip its - [ ] to - [x] directly in the file. Only that one checkbox changes — the rest of your file is left alone.
• The panel auto-sizes to the number of tasks, at any display-scaling (DPI) setting.

Download the .rmskin from the latest release and double-click it. Rainmeter's Skin Installer copies both skins into place and loads the Tasks widget.

Copy the Tasks and Chores folders from Skins/ into your Rainmeter skins folder (usually Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\), then refresh Rainmeter and load each .ini.

1. Point it at your file. In each skin's .ini, set TaskFile to the full Windows path of your Markdown file (back-slashes, no quotes):

   TaskFile=E:\Notes\Weekly.md

   The skins ship with TaskFile=CONFIGURE; until you change it the widget shows "Set TaskFile in the .ini".

2. Add the headings to that file:

   ### Tasks
   - [ ] Email the accountant
   - [ ] Refund order 1182 📅 2026-06-13
   
   ### Chores
   - [ ] Hoover the lounge
   - [ ] Change the bedlinen

3. Position it. Drag each widget where you want it, then right-click → Settings → Position → On desktop, and tick Save position.

All tunables live in the [Variables] block at the top of each .ini:

Slots is the number of row meters defined in the .ini (15). To show more than 15 rows you also have to add [MeterTaskN] blocks and point MeterBG at the last one.

To make a widget for a different heading, copy one of the folders and change Section and the title text.

• Clicking checks off; it doesn't un-check. The widget only shows - [ ] items, so to bring a task back, un-tick it in your editor.
• Recurring chores have no date logic — the intended workflow is to reset the checkboxes at a weekly review.
• More than MaxTasks open items in a section: the extras aren't shown (they're still in the file).
• Clicking flips the checkbox only. Unlike ticking it in Obsidian, it does not add a ✅ completion date, and a 🔁 recurring task will not spawn its next occurrence.
• Emoji are shown in monochrome. Emoji in a task's description render (tested on Rainmeter 4.5.26), but as flat glyphs in the text colour, not in colour. That is a limit of Rainmeter's text meter.
• TaskFile must be an ASCII path. Rainmeter's Lua cannot open a path containing non-Latin characters (e.g. a Cyrillic folder or user name); the widget then shows "TaskFile path must be ASCII". Workaround: make an ASCII-named junction to the folder (mklink /J C:\Notes "C:\Users\Иван\Documents\Notes") and point TaskFile at that. The file's contents can be in any language.
• Keep the encoding when editing. The .lua and .ini files are UTF-16 LE (with BOM), which is what Rainmeter needs to display non-Latin text correctly. If your editor saves them as UTF-8, non-Latin text (in the widget, or in an EmptyText you translate) turns into garbage.
• Requires Rainmeter 4.0+ on Windows.

The .rmskin is built and published automatically on each release with rmskin-action by 2bndy5 — thanks!

MIT — see LICENSE.