because showing subdock perpendicular (or horizontal) would make it overlap with the second dock under its parent

The man of a thousand docks...

... plus one. lol

whats the point of having ability to have multiple docks if one isnt going to use it

You might have noticed that the Shelf supports a 'icon grid' (those lines making a grid around the icons in the Shelf). When the theme specifies the colors of this grid properly, it looks really good (IMO) - the intention is for the grid to have a nice and *subtle* 3D look to it.

Unfortunately one of the things that ALWAYS pissed me off is how nearly every skinner doesn't bother specifying those colors properly (perhaps because they've turned off the grid themselves) and so they use the same color for the two colors the effect requires. Instead of a nice and subtle 3D grid you then get thick and very UGLY solid black or solid white lines around the icons.

It looks so awful like that it would have been a thousand times better not to have the grid enabled in the first place (probably the reason those skinners disabled the grid themselves).

Some old themes also did not support the grid as the settings required to specify the two colors did not yet exist back then - in that case the theme simply does not display a grid.

So today I decided to fix this sad state of affairs once and for all. This not only allows a grid to be shown on themes that do not support it, as it fixes the MESS the skinners made by overriding their settings for the grid whenever it detects that the two colors are the same.

It actually wasn't easy to implement this, as the grid needs to match the theme automatically, and does this based on several different factors. But I'm pretty pleased with the results so far.

Excellent concept, well done. Totally agree that the grid should be done by skinners, and even though I myself never have and never shall use it I do, since you raised the issue, add it to all my themes. Though not always in 'suble matching colours', sometimes contrasting ones work better.

Now, wouldn't it be nice Jorge if you could do something like that with NextSTART title bars and title bar gadgets?

And talking about detachable, I think it would perhaps be a good idea to create a new 'Detach' sound event?

Yeah, but it's the skinners responsibility to take care of that .... If they are already different, no auto-correction takes place.

Alas, not the same thing at all. Most themes don't even have menu title bars, as you know.

This is actually something that always bugged me in relation to detachable sub-menus. If you're a new user and you detach a sub-menu with no close button in the title bar by accident (or even no title bar at all, as you can still detach the sub-menu by dragging the top edge), you probably won't know how to close it (right click the title bar or the top menu edge). It will remain open until you restart NextSTART.

I've even entertained the idea of showing a 'ghost' close button over the menu's top right corner on mouseover for detached menus with no close buttons, like (I think) Windows Sidebar Gadgets did. Either way, this would be for detached sub-menus only.

And done.

Added new sound event to NextSTART too, so it also plays when you detach a NextSTART sub-menu.

Ok, I just started to implement the 'Search' (more like 'Filter') function on Shelves, Drawers and Grid Stacks.

Ok, I just started to implement the 'Search' (more like 'Filter') function on Shelves, Drawers and Grid Stacks.

You type something and the content shown is filtered by whatever you have just typed - works well. Backspace deletes the last character you typed, ESC clears the filter buffer.

Now, although typing blindly does work, it's not optimal, especially if you press the wrong key. So I need a way to display whatever is currently on the filter buffer so the user can at least see what he is typing.

Since there is no space on the Shelf itself, a solution would perhaps be to make it appear as a label tooltip (like the labels you get when you mouse over an item in the dock) outside of the Shelf/Drawer/Grid Stack. Probably something that becomes visible when you type and then slowly fades away.

Initially your GS displays the icon's correctly, as shown in another video they go to different places. Then on refresh, 'I dont know if its because they are named the same'!, you go and icon them the same, again no biggie the destination still works.

Ok, I just started to implement the 'Search' (more like 'Filter') function on Shelves, Drawers and Grid Stacks.

You type something and the content shown is filtered by whatever you have just typed - works well. Backspace deletes the last character you typed, ESC clears the filter buffer.

Now, although typing blindly does work, it's not optimal, especially if you press the wrong key. So I need a way to display whatever is currently on the filter buffer so the user can at least see what he is typing.

Since there is no space on the Shelf itself, a solution would perhaps be to make it appear as a label tooltip (like the labels you get when you mouse over an item in the dock) outside of the Shelf/Drawer/Grid Stack. Probably something that becomes visible when you type and then slowly fades away.

And here it is in action:


Using the tooltip was one way to do it, but I didn't think it was evident enough, an actual Search bar would be better. So I searched the web for some inspiration and came up with the above.

It fades in above the Shelf whenever you type something.

The green actually glows, so you can't miss it when it's active. If you click outside the Shelf, the Search Bar fades out, and fades back in when you click on the Shelf again (i.e.; the Search Bar is only visible when the Shelf it belongs to has the focus).

If what you type already produces no results, it beeps at you. As you type, the contents of the tab are automatically updated to reflect the filter. Switch to another tab and the filter is reset and the Search Bar fades out (it also 'self-destructs' if the 'owner' Shelf is no longer on the screen, e.g.; it has been disabled or something).

Also going to implement some smooth change position routines so it moves with the owner Shelf, or for when you switch from one Shelf with an active filter to another Shelf also with an active filter.

NOW: for technical reasons, making this work with Regular tabs is problematic. I can get it to work, of course, but it's a lot of trouble. So, the question is: should the Search Bar only be available on non-Regular tabs? Or that would be confusing/a bad thing?