Winstep Software Technologies releases NextSTART v3.4 Public Beta 3 and WorkShelf v1.90 Public Beta 1!
NextSTART version 3.4 adds a multitude of enhancements such as Automatic Updates, Tip of the Day, improved drag & drop capability, Automatic Refresh of Quick Launch section, Iconized Workshelf modules in the Startbar, etc...
WorkShelf version 1.90 adds a new 'Show Themes' shelf type, right click Browse in NextSTART for folders, Opaque on Mouseover desktop modules, control on how many documents are displayed on the Recent Documents shelf, capturing of online Wanda cookies to local files, support for capturing WorkShelf desktop modules in iconized form into the NextSTART Startbar, etc...
You can download NextSTART beta 3 from
http://www.winstep.net/ns3-beta.zip
and WorkShelf beta 1 from
http://www.winstep.net/ws-beta.zip
Note: A previous full NextSTART, WorkShelf or Winstep Full Pak installation is required! Do not un-install anything, just install the betas on top of your current Winstep installation.
Please, do not forget that feedback is extremely important, specially for beta versions. Should you find a bug, please report it on the Winstep Forums or email
support@winstep.net .
NextSTART:
The following is a full list of fixes and additions of Beta 3 over Beta 2:
New Features:
* Added a 'Refresh' option to the Quick Launch section in the Startbar tab of NextSTART Preferences. When enabled, NextSTART scans the Windows Quick Launch folder on startup and automatically adds any missing/recently added Quick items.
* The Menu Item Properties Editor now allows you to create new empty menus, thus enabling you to bypass the Menu-Editor.
* Added Initialization Mutexes so NextSTART and WorkShelf do not initialize at the same time, which could spell trouble under certain conditions.
* NextSTART can now capture WorkShelf desktop modules into the Startbar as icons, so that Theme changes do not affect their size and, therefore, the size of the Startbar.
* Added an option in the WorkShelf Sections of the Startbar Preferences tab to capture WorkShelf desktop modules as icons instead of their advanced skinning format. This prevents wild Startbar size changes when switching themes.
* Added option to specify the size of the WorkShelf Desktop module icons in the Startbar.
* You can now select a theme in the Theme Management tab of NextSTART Preferences and apply it by clicking on the OK or Preview buttons at the bottom of the panel. This takes care of a common mistake - and a big source of confusion - for first time users, who would do just this instead of clicking on the diskette button and would then be terribly surprised because nothing happened. Users are always right!
* Added support for the 'Browse in NextSTART' context menu entry in WorkShelf.
Changes:
* Removed the 'Multi User' option. NextSTART is now always Multi-User aware (i.e. each user has his own NextSTART settings), just like WorkShelf.
* Moved 'Disable all Sounds' and 'Disable all Animations' from the Global Preferences tab to the Sound and Animations tab.
Fixes:
* The New Item Properties Editor was allowing users to create entries pointing to non-existing menus, thus creating the potential to crash NextSTART.
* Dialogs resulting from context menu actions on NextSTART menu items (such as Rename, New, Properties, etc...) no longer appear behind the menus if the menus are set to always on top.
* Seem to have fixed the Access Violation error associated to context menus.
WorkShelf:
The following is a full list of fixes and additions of v1.90 Beta 1 over v1.80:
New Features:
* The default clock and recycler module icons now scale up above 48x48.
* WorkShelf now automatically updates its icons when you change a file association.
* Added Initialization Mutexes so NextSTART and WorkShelf do not initialize at the same time, which could spell trouble under certain conditions.
* Added support for NextSTART's ability to captured WorkShelf desktop modules as icons into the Startbar.
* Added "Attach to NextSTART' and 'Detach From NextSTART" context menu entries for desktop modules to make it easy to add or remove desktop modules from the NextSTART Startbar.
* Improved WorkShelf's ability to deal with Reserved Screen area changes.
* You can now select a theme in the Theme Management tab of WorkShelf Preferences and apply it by clicking on the OK or Preview buttons at the bottom of the panel. This takes care of a common mistake - and a big source of confusion - for first time users, who would do just this instead of clicking on the diskette button and would then be terribly surprised because nothing happened. Users are always right!
* New 'Show Themes' shelf type. This shelf shows all currently available WorkShelf themes and displays each theme's preview screenshot as the icon for easy recognition.
* Added an option to save fortune cookies retrieved from the Internet into a local 'Online Cookies' file. Maximum allowed size for this file is 150 Kb, once it reaches this limit no more cookies are added to it.
* Added a 'Test' button in Wanda Settings to test the online cookie retrieval.
* Pressing the SHIFT key while deleting a file from a Show Folder shelf now permanently deletes the file (does not send to Recycler)
* Browse in NextSTART context menu entry for folder type items. Note that NextSTART must be running for this to work.
* 'Opaque on Mouseover' option for semi-transparent desktop modules. Makes a semi-transparent desktop module fade to opaque when the mouse pointer is over it and fade back to the previous transparency level when the mouse pointer leaves it.
* Added option in Global Preferences panel to control how many Documents are displayed in the Recent Documents shelf (XP only). The default is 15.
* The Recent Documents shelf under XP no longer displays hundreds of files, but the last 15 used documents as it should.
* Added Backup and Restore buttons to the Global Preferences panel of WorkShelf.
* Added 'Show Icon Frame' option to the Shelf Settings Preferences Panel.
* Added Internal Command 'Show Tip of the Day'.
Changes:
* Rewrote routines to draw the clock and recycler in-shelf icons.
* WorkShelf now starts docked to the bottom screen edge and reserves screen space by default.
* The Weather module now automatically retrieves the weather for the first time once you choose a location (i.e. Interval is now set to Every Hour by default).
* The Atomic Clock feature is now enabled by default.
* Removed the 'Glow when retrieving cookies from the Internet' option in Wanda settings which was not being used.
* Renamned 'Show/Hide Buttons' in the Shelf context menu to 'Show/Hide Icon Frames'.
Fixes:
* The Wanda in-shelf module was not being temporarily disabled when collapsing the shelf, which could cause some painting problems during the shelf's collapse animation.
* WorkShelf prevented NextSTART from releasing a module's position in the Startbar when the module was closed.
* Wanda balloon tooltip positioning issues when Wanda was located at the bottom of the screen.
* WorkShelf no longer re-initializes its internal icon cache as often as it used to (i.e.; sometimes unnecessarily).
* Wanda's cookie balloon tip would not appear or appear in the wrong place if Wanda was attached to the NextSTART startbar.
* Changes to the Wanda show cookie interval did not take effect until the previous interval had elapsed.
* Certain XP Icons with Alpha shaddows, when dragged, showed an ugly pink color around the edges.
* WorkShelf now flushes the internal Icon Cache when the icon size is changed.
* Fixed an error in the thumbnail generator that could cause some thumbnails not to be rendered.
* Trying to open WorkShelf Preferences from the systray button could crash WorkShelf if a modal window was currently open.
* Aborting a file delete in a Show Folder shelf type was temporarily unselecting and hidding the file's icon.
* The 'Tip of the Day' dialog could be resized.
* Trying to change a theme through the Desktop Weather Module context menu would apply the selected theme to everything instead of just the Weather module.
System Requirements:
WorkShelf and NextSTART will run under Win95/98/ME and NT4/2000/XP.