Hello. So glad I found this product, but have a silly question.

None of the skins I have tried are able to skin the title bar (as in the bar at the top of the screen on any given application). Am I missing something? Does WinStep allow the Windows title bar to be skinned? Basically anything in Windows Explorer is unskinned, and all that has changed for me since installing WinStep is the StartBar (system tray / start menu / taskbar). Note I don't have the dock bar or WorkShelf active.

How do I get WinStep to fully skin Windows Explorer and other applications like WindowBlinds used to let me?

Thanks in advance,
Murray.

hi murray,

i don't think it can be done in Winstep.
yes, it would be nice but for me it's not that big a deal.

I just use the default Windows in Silver.
I also have WindowsBlind but i don't use it since i got Winstep.\

maybe in a future version?

vince

Yep, Vince is right, Winstep only skins itself. On the other hand, even like that it does change the look of your desktop quite dramatically.

Thank you both for the helpful replies... makes sense. I now understand that the only "reason" Winstep skins the start button & menu / taskbar & system tray is because they are the only components of the shell that it "replaces".

And it's not really that much of a big deal really... I'm loving the new look of my taskbar, although the icons in the system tray now don't render great at all since the install

madmanmoon, yep, I'm using the Silver also... always have when unable to skin.

I like the Workshelp application, but I'm not using that at the moment since I already have Directory Opus setup for those links of links.

However I'm strongly considering replacing ObjectDock with this new docking program (if I can work out how to run it without the WorkShelf program.

You can say WorkShelf 'merges' a handfull of applications into a single executable file: WorkShelf.exe is responsible for the Shelf (tabbed dock), docks (NeXuS) and the Desktop Modules (or widgets, whatever you want to call them).

Although running from a single executable, nothing stops you from disabling specific parts of it - for instance, if you want to disable the Shelf, just right click on the left mini-tab of the Shelf -> Dock and Shelf Management -> Close Shelf. You can re-enable it later, if you want, via Preferences or the Dock and Shelf Management sub-menu found in any dock's context menu.

If you want to disable the Desktop Modules, just right click on any desktop module and open the Desktop Modules sub-menu. From there you can disable individual desktop modules or all of them at once.

Same thing for docks - you can have as many docks as you want, or none at all.

Something similar happens with NextSTART. If you don't like the way NextSTART replaces the Windows taskbar, you can disable it altogether (while still being able to access NextSTART menus and hotspots) by chosing Toggle NS Task Management from the Settings sub-menu of the main NextSTART menu.

If, on the other hand, you like NextSTART task management but prefer the Start Button to show the actual Windows Start Menu instead of the NextSTART menu, just right click on the Start Button and select 'Associate to Windows Start Menu'.

Winstep Xtreme applications are so flexible and customizable that the world is your oyster.

one of the feature i like in Winstep is that i can auto-hide the Windows System Tray and click on the little icon on the bottom right for the tray to reappears for a few seconds and hide again.

very cool!