If you would like to unsubscribe from XSWeekly at any time, simply send an e-mail to xsweekly-unsubscribe@wuzzle.org and you will be removed. You can e-mail me at demigod@xsweekly.com with any questions, suggestions, etc. XSWEEKLY Shell Related News 28.10.00 - 03.11.00 ------------------------------------------------- Teknidermy... what can I say out this online magazine. To start, I really do like the idea that they have put together. No, really, I do but the implementation of it is not only sloppy but so unprofessional that it gives the skinning community a black eye imo. The site is messy, the interviews are so biased they are laughable, and the level of professionalism is somewhere below newbie. Comon! You have a great idea. Why are you throwing away potential new subscribers by being so unprofessional? This is supposed to be a site for skinners but the layout is not only bland, but its messy and unorganized. The interviews are very, very biased which is a big no no, and the format of each interview is different. I think you get my point here. As I originally said, I really do like the idea of an online magazine for the skinning community but put some pride into your work. Show them that this is more than just another site. Put up the eye candy, throw in some flash, anything! On a lighter note, I was having some issues with the way that atomz.com was crawling my archive. My server does not allow for dir listings so their bot wasn't properly indexing each dir. I e-mailed their support and within an hour a tech had written me back stating that not only was the problem fixable, but they had fixed it already for me!! Now that's what I call support! A special thanks goes out to Fran from the Atomz support team for fixing my problem. ---------- [ Mail Bag ] ---------- This weeks mailbag question is: What other shells/alt os's should I preview here? e-mail - mailbag@xsweekly.com url - http://www.xsweekly.com/mail.html ----------- [ Spotlight ] ----------- - help.litestep.com This is a great site that needs to be mentioned again. KSR has compiled a list of 200+ module with all their commands on this site. If you need help with a module, goto this site first. url - http://help.litestep.com ................................................. -= Shell Specific =- ................................................. ------------------ [ Top News Stories ] ------------------ - LS-Novice e-group ~ Rex H. McTyeire (12:28 29.10 ls) Looks like someone took the incitive to set up a newbie mailing list for LiteStep. From the e-groups page: "For the discussion of the application of the LiteStep shell to new user and other than technically brilliant. Pros, cons, and ideas exchanged freely amongst those who do not speak fluent technoid, but still want maximum flexibility in desktop customization and a more tailored functionality of the desktop interface than is presented by our buddy Bill in the standard winpackage. Death to blue skies, clouds, and the start button." url - http://www.egroups.com/group/LS-Novice e-mail - rexbo@rdsnet.ro (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - New LiteStep Tutorial Pages ~ rootrider (13:09 29.10 ls) rootrider has posted a new tutorial on fpn and made up a nice tutorial index page. There are tutorials for both beginners and advanced users. url - http://floach.pimpin.net/litestep-tutorials.shtml e-mail - rootrider@wsu.edu (source: http://floach.pimpin.net) +-------<*>-------+ - LiteStep on TechTV (14:38 29.10 ls) LiteStep is being featured in the ScreenSavers Answers & Tips section. Although it is basically just a rehash of the TV spot and there are still some quirky errors in their explanation, any publicity is good publicity. url - http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,3656,2341490,00.html (source: LS Mailing List ~ LiteStep on TECHTV!!!!!) --------- [ Modules ] --------- - Geekamp 1.9a ~ azathoth (12:11 29.10 ls) Geekamp is a front end module for winamp that allows you to control just about every aspect of winamp via bang commands. One note, this was originally coded by geekmaster but azathoth has taken over and recoded the entire thing. New in this version: - Turns out in the last build i forgot to include !Amp_ToggleBrowser, it's now working again. - Added Bang Commands: o !Amp_FileInfo o !Amp_PowerOn o !Amp_PowerOff o !Amp_Rewd10s o !Amp_Rewd20s o !Amp_Ffwd10s o !Amp_Ffwd20s o !Amp_Restart o !Amp_MovePosition %%UPDATE%% (14:43 31.10) - !Amp_FileInfo was causing serious problems when winamp was set to "Scroll Name In WIndows Taskbar". This build has removed !amp_fileinfo as a bang. - Fixed some minor bugs. url - http://www.ls2k.org e-mail - azathoth@intricatechaos.com (source: azathoth via irc) +-------<*>-------+ - ckHotspots 1.0 ~ Chaku (12:15 29.10 ls) Hotspots.dll allows you to run programs or bang commands when a certain spot on the screen is moused over. New in this version: - ckHotspotsTimeOut # define how frequent the module will check the mouse, the smaller the more frequent, (default: 100) - *ckHotspot x y width height [action to perform when mouse enters] [action to perform when mouse leaves] x, y, width and height can be negative o x, y specifies the left top hotspot box o width and height specifies the width and height for the hotspot box. If you specify either one of them to be 0 the box width or height will span to the whole screen. o The next two action can be bang commands or a path to a program. o *Important: none of your configurations from your Hotspots module will work because this has nothing to do with the hotspots module url - http://cklin.cjb.net e-mail - chaokuo@iname.com (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - ckVWM 1.2 ~ Chaku (12:20 29.10 ls) ckVWM is an updated sysvwm that was originally written by killarny. This is a more advanced vwm then the one that comes stock with LiteStep. New in this version: Bang commands: - !VWMRESTOREALLWINDOWS Changed to !VWMRESTOREALLWINDOWS "window title or class name" "method" where method could be blank(default to overlap), overlap, or cascade - !VWMRESTOREWINDOW and !VWMRESTOREALLWINDOWS Changed the window title or class name matching scheme to use the match() function. The syntax for matching a specific word such as MIRC would be: *MIRC*. The matching is not case sensitive. Added: - !VWMMove x y Change the position of the VWM to x, y (x and y can be negative) If nothing is supplied, the VWM will move back it's old position specified in step.rc Step.rc configs: - Added configs to disable the vertical or horizontal autoswitch VWMDisableVerticalAutoSwitch VWMDisableHorizontalAutoSwitch - Changed the RestoreWidth, and RestoreHeight so that if you don't specify them or one of them is negative, then when restoring windows using !VWMRESTOREWINDOW or !VWMRESTOREALLWINDOWS the windows' original width and height will not be changed. - Added config *VWMStartWindowsOnDesktop "Window title or class name" "Desktop Number" so that windows that match will always start on the desktop number you specify (doesn't work with PureLS at this time) - Added config VWMSnapWindowOnDrag so that window will retain its relative coordinate to the desktop when dragging the miniwindows Misc: In this release, i added a two modified popup modules, popup r9.3 and popup2, that will work with ckvwm. They will allow you to have popup tasks for hidden windows on different desktops when you have the config VWMHideTaskOnSwitch. The step.rc config for these added popup feature is: PopupckVWMPath "path" where path equals to the path to your ckvwm.dll, the one you load module with. When you don't use ckvwm, you can simply comment out the PopupckVWMPath, and everything will be the same as before. The syntax to see windows on other desktop is the same as !PopupTasks, just replace !PopupTasks with !PopupTasks1, !PopupTasks2, !PopupTasks3.....depending on your vwm configuration. !PopupTasksAll Allows you to tasks from all desktops. *Note: if a warning dialog popups up from your shell saying that the module ckvwm is already loaded, simply change the order you load ckvwm and popup in step.rc Load ckvwm before popup. Bug Fix: - Fix the problem that !VWMTOGGLEHIDETASKONSWITCH will make windows disappear - Fix !MoveApp bang so that it will work with VWMWrapScreen - Fix !MoveApp bang so that for example you click on a shortcut which calls this bang, the program will look for the topmost visible window to move. - Fix the bug that when clicking on task, the wrong desktop will be shown. - Fix the config VWMDeskWallpaper# so that it can use e-vars, and save the time to allocate unnecessary memory spaces url - http://cklin.cjb.net e-mail - chaokuo@iname.com (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - Popup r9.3c ~ Headius (13:12 29.10 ls) The popup rx.x series is a set of popups that adds extended functions above the core popus. New in this version: - Fixed problem with it working with current LS Builds. url - http://floach.pimpin.net e-mail - headius@headius.com (source: http://floach.pimpin.net) +-------<*>-------+ - lsSETI 0.2 ~ Ugh!! (14:34 29.10 ls) "I've just written a small Litestep module which lets you monitor the progress of your SETI@Home program. Module displays a small text window with percentage progress. Simple, but effective." Source code is included in this zip. url - http://www.cutajar.net/owen/lsSETI/ e-mail - ugh@pobox.com (source: LS Mailing List ~ lsSETI) +-------<*>-------+ - grdamp 1.3 ~ grd (10:32 30.10 ls) "This is not a normal winamp-frontend-litestep-module. It's a module that wraps the basic functionality of winamp but WITHOUT using winamp itself. This is achieved by interfacing the winamp input and output plugin architecture." New in this version: - Made the module compatible with older builds of litestep (24.5), purels and darkstep. - Supports a lot of new winamp-style-window-messages, that for instance will enable lsslider to work with grdamp, which is a great addition. - Added !grdampsavestack, (guess what it does) url - http://floach.pimpin.net/grd/ e-mail - grd@swipnet.se (source: LS Mailing List ~ grdamp für alle) +-------<*>-------+ - LsBox 1.99b ~ Black Hawk (10:39 30.10 ls) LsBox is a skinable easy to customize and {resource-friendly} alternative to the "normal" shortcutgroups for a number of applications like freefloating menus, messageboxes, and configuration dialogs. New in this version: - {Boxes} added a Winamplike "Snap to edge" feature - {Boxes} Boxes won't "jump" on DesktopAreaChange anymore - {Boxes} Boxes aren't visible in Tasks anymore - {Boxes} Changed the way the background Bitmap is painted - {Boxes} Changed the way the DragRect is set - RTM This fixes the Magic Pink(tm) flash problem - {Shortcuts} Changed the way (bang)commands are called. Should be now faster & fool-proof, too. - {Shortcuts} Added complex RGN handling (still flickers a bit) - Shortcuts can now be placed *Outside* the main Box. - {Modules} implemented Wharf+ specs - {Modules} WharfModule are now actually unloaded properly - {BoxFiles} fixed a bug in the Keyname compare function - {Text(cuts)} fixed the FontName setting to actually work - was Times New Roman only %%UPDATE%% (9:19 31.10) - {Boxes} fixed a bug that caused an infinite loop after !LsBoxDestroy - {Modules} New Module Format {Prototype} I have already tested some of the more tolerant modules with this, but most won't work *right*..... you can try it if you want. - {WharfModules} Moved all WharfModule loading routines in this SubModule %%UPDATE%% - Fixed the disappearing box problem by ignoring the ParentWnd supplied on InitModuleEx (??????) - Will work with the new LsSlider release (load as *module) - Will work with my Sysvwm patch (load as wharfmodule) url - http://www.blkhawk.de e-mail - blkhawk@blkhawk.de (source: LS Mailing List ~ *** *NEW* LsBox rel1.98 ***) +-------<*>-------+ - geekTray 1.0 ~ geekMASTER (9:24 03.11 ls) "This is a little module that will put a single icon in your systray that responds to mouse clicks." url - http://www.mindjunction.com e-mail - lheddings@geocities.com (source: http://www.litestep.net) ----------- [ Web Sites ] ----------- - Black Hawk Moves To Pimpin.net Noticed this on the LS Mailing list. It seems that BlackHawk has picked up and moved stakes over to the pimpin.net server. He has updated his redirects so you can continue to got the same url and still hit his page. url - http://floach.pimpin.net/blkhawk e-mail - blkhawk@blkhawk.de (source: LS Mailing List ~ *** *NEW* LsBox rel1.98 ***) ---------- [ Programs ] ---------- - ShellON 2.18 ~ Mike Rhodes (12:45 29.10 na) ShellON is a very full featured shell swapping and managing utility. New in this version: - Added 'Exists' column on Shell List - Added Displays default profile on Choose Profile screen. - Added Displays default shell on Shell selection screen. - Added Displays 'Cannot find file' if an image in a boot screen set cannot be found. - Added Detailed uninstall instructions in help file. - Improved ShellON's handling when Splash Screen is not shown. - Merged Splash FormCreate and FormShow to speed up ShellON. - Fixed loading of Wallpaper Options where icon transparency was removed. - Fixed label in config that said 'minutes' instead of 'seconds'! - Removed X and Y co-ordinates of Wallpaper settings, because they didn't do anything. url - http://shellon.cjb.net e-mail - ezines.mike@virgin.net (source: Mike Rhodes via e-mail) +-------<*>-------+ - TweakgUI 5 ~ Vish (11:24 30.10 geo) This is a small program that gives you a GUI interface for changing setting in geOShell instead of having to root around in your registry. New in this version: - Added ability to switch between Explorer & geOShell. Its not much of a shell switcher since it will affect all users, but its better than doing it manually. - Added Plugin config for Fleximenu's, geODateTime (limited), geOTray, geOLabels. - Added Icon Config for changing various Core geOShell icons. - Added Hotkey support. Not very intuitive or as nice as it should be but made it more so that it doesn't nuke / mess up your Registry. - Added ability to make your geOBars Translucent in Win2k. The translucency is lost after a Recycle but is nice to have till geOShell natively supports it. Don't know if it works on Win ME. The translucency is fixed for all geOBars to be 75%. - Added a refresh button, which will reload all settings from the registry.(Useful if you've added a new plugin / geOBar / HotKey). It has to be done manually since TweakgUI isn't meant to be running all the time. - Added a HotKey for TweakgUI. Its < Win + T > & can be changed / removed. - Removed the gripper settings for the Default geOBars & moved them to the Bar config section. - Forgot to mention that the previous release had the option of Backing up your Entire geOShell config as a .reg file. Has anyone used it ??. Should I make it possible to backup your individual geOBars / HotKeys Settings / Menu Config etc. ??? url - http://vish.htmlplanet.com/geoshell e-mail - Vishk@Rediffmail.com (source: http://vish.htmlplanet.com/geoshell) --------------- [ Latest Builds ] --------------- - LiteStep o 24.6 build 100600 o http://builds.litestep.net/builds/ls-0246-dev-20001006.zip - DarkStep o 0.971 o http://www.darkstep.com/files/DarkStep971.zip - geOShell o 4.6.5a o http://news.geoshell.com/Plugins/Download/geoshellr465a.zip - PureLS o 052900 o http://209.46.69.134/purels/binaries/00-05-29r.zip ................................................. -= Alt OS Specific =- ................................................. ----------- [ Web Sites ] ----------- - SEAL Beta Help Site ~ Julien Etelain (12:00 30.10 sel) Someone finally stepped up and started to write some help docs (in html format) for SEAL. The page that is currently up is beta and he needs some help in writing it. Send him an e-mail if you see any mistakes or wish to lend a hand. url - http://pmad.forez.com/seal/beta-help/ e-mail - julien@pmad.mail22.com (source: http://pub8.ezboard.com/bsealsystem) --------------- [ Latest Builds ] --------------- - SEAL o 1D (042900) o http://www.home.sk/public/seal/sealexe.zip - V2_OS o 0.70 o ftp://vp.dyn.dhs.org/0.70/v2_os.img .................................... All contents Copyright (c) 1999-2000 XSWeekly. All rights reserved.