Requiem

A minimal gothic Windows 11 desktop theme in ember red and halo silver: a spaced weekday clock, a floating tinted dock, a matching Windows Terminal scheme and a PowerShell prompt. Every color is sampled from the included wallpaper.

Screenshots

Floating dock and tray (Windhawk Taskbar Styler, DockLike + Requiem overrides)

Windows Terminal with the "Blackwell Requiem" scheme, faint wallpaper and the Requiem prompt (terminal/palette-demo.ps1 prints the swatches)

Components

Part	Tool	Source
Weekday / date / time	Rainmeter 4.5+	rainmeter/Requiem/Requiem.ini, layout rainmeter/Layouts/Requiem/Rainmeter.ini
Floating dock and tray	Windhawk + mod Windows 11 Taskbar Styler, theme DockLike with Requiem overrides	windhawk/taskbar-styler-requiem.yaml
Windows Terminal	color scheme + tab theme "Blackwell Requiem", acrylic, faint wallpaper	terminal/blackwell-requiem.json, terminal/palette-demo.ps1
PowerShell prompt	Windows PowerShell 5.1, no extra modules	powershell/requiem-prompt.ps1
Tab / profile icon	halo + ember cross, generated	icons/requiem.png, icons/make-icon.ps1
Wallpaper	1376×768	wallpaper/requiem-desktop.jpg

Palette

Role	Hex
Void	#000000
Surface	#100000 / #200000
Ember dark / mid / hot	#801115 / #8E1C21 / #C03E45
Halo silver	#7F7E7C / #A0A09E
Windows accent color	#8E1C21

Install

Requirements: Windows 11, Rainmeter, Windhawk.

winget install --id Rainmeter.Rainmeter --exact
winget install --id RamenSoftware.Windhawk --exact

1. Rainmeter clock – pick one:

   • Package (easiest): download Requiem_<version>.rmskin from Releases and double-click it. Keep Apply included layout checked; it loads the clock at the default position and unloads other active skins (Rainmeter backs up replaced files to Skins\@Backup).
   • Script (also hides desktop icons and adds autostart):

     .\apply.ps1                        # deploy skin, set layout, autostart, hide desktop icons
     .\apply.ps1 -X 10% -Y 20%          # move the clock (percent of the screen, or pixels)
     .\apply.ps1 -KeepOtherSkins        # leave your other Rainmeter skins loaded
     .\apply.ps1 -NoAutostart -SkipExplorer
     .\apply.ps1 -WhatIf                # show every change without making it

     apply.ps1 finds Rainmeter via the registry, reads the skin folder from Rainmeter.ini, and backs that file up to Rainmeter.ini.requiem-<timestamp>.bak before changing it.

   The winget install of Rainmeter adds no autostart entry. apply.ps1 creates a shortcut in your Startup folder; with the package, add one yourself (shell:startup) or the clock is gone after a reboot.

   The clock scales with the screen height and follows the Windows scaling level, and weekday/month names follow your Windows date format (FormatLocale=Local).

2. Dock – in Windhawk install Windows 11 Taskbar Styler, open Settings > Text mode, paste windhawk/taskbar-styler-requiem.yaml, save. Turn on Windows Transparency effects for the acrylic look.

3. Terminal – merge terminal/blackwell-requiem.json into Windows Terminal's settings.json (instructions inside the file).

4. Prompt – add to $PROFILE:

   . '<path-to-repo>\powershell\requiem-prompt.ps1'

   Cross is ember when the session is elevated, silver otherwise; the arrow turns light red after a failed command.

5. Accent color – Settings > Personalization > Colors > Custom colors: #8E1C21.

Revert

Undo what apply.ps1 changed:

# 1. Desktop icons
.\toggle-desktop-icons.ps1 -Show

# 2. Rainmeter: stop it (it rewrites Rainmeter.ini on exit), then restore the oldest
#    backup apply.ps1 wrote - that is the state before the first apply
Get-Process Rainmeter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process
$ini   = Join-Path $env:APPDATA 'Rainmeter\Rainmeter.ini'
$line  = Get-Content $ini -Encoding Unicode | Where-Object { $_ -match '^SkinPath=' } | Select-Object -First 1
$skins = if ($line) { ($line -replace '^SkinPath=', '').TrimEnd('\') } else { Join-Path ([Environment]::GetFolderPath('MyDocuments')) 'Rainmeter\Skins' }
$bak   = Get-ChildItem "$ini.requiem-*.bak" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Sort-Object Name | Select-Object -First 1
if ($bak) { Copy-Item $bak.FullName $ini -Force; "restored $($bak.Name)" }

# 3. Remove the skin folder
Remove-Item (Join-Path $skins 'Requiem') -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

# 4. Remove the autostart shortcut - only if you had no Rainmeter autostart before
#    (apply.ps1 never replaces an existing Rainmeter.lnk)
Remove-Item (Join-Path ([Environment]::GetFolderPath('Startup')) 'Rainmeter.lnk') -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Delete the Rainmeter.ini.requiem-*.bak files yourself once Rainmeter looks right again. Installed via the .rmskin package instead: Rainmeter moved the files it replaced to Skins\@Backup; unload Requiem and load your previous layout in Rainmeter's Manage window.

Manual steps:

• Dock: Windhawk > Windows 11 Taskbar Styler > Disable (or paste your previous styler settings back).
• Terminal: in Windows Terminal's settings.json remove the Blackwell Requiem scheme and theme, and reset theme and profiles.defaults.colorScheme.
• Prompt: delete the requiem-prompt.ps1 line from $PROFILE.
• Accent color: Settings > Personalization > Colors, pick your previous color or Automatic.

Build the package

.\build.ps1   # -> dist\Requiem_<version>.rmskin (version from [Metadata] in Requiem.ini)

An .rmskin is a zip archive with a 16-byte footer: the zip length as unsigned 64-bit little-endian, then 00 52 4D 53 4B 49 4E 00 ("RMSKIN"). Text files inside are UTF-16 LE.

Notes

• Windhawk mods can break after Windows feature updates; disable or update the mod if the taskbar misbehaves.
• The wallpaper is 1376×768 and is upscaled on high-resolution and ultrawide monitors.

License

Code and configuration: MIT. The wallpaper (wallpaper/) and icon artwork are © Blackwell Code and not covered by the MIT license.