Wow, now that you're working on this, you are just speeding right along.
The new UI looks fantastic.

I've been liking the WS UI for awhile now and when I have to go into the NS UI I get an odd disoriented flashback feeling

The menu editor is inspired. Looks very easy to set up.

ps I'm glad you're speeding along, because after this, you will be working on the new Winstep Theme Designer..... right?

This is all look very nice. Thanks Jorge

Right on.

And Stacks. And the Windows systray in docks, the Shelf and menus. Later one is going to be cool: a Systray menu.

Woo hoo!! You go boy!

Final version of the Menu Editor:



As you can see, I got rid of the 'Menu Root' node, which is no longer necessary, and also added item move Up and Down buttons.

I did have a problem that has me a bit stuck, however (EDIT: but that describing it here just led me to the solution): in the old system, the same single menu could be referenced by other menus (i.e.; more than one menu could have a reference to that menu). Any changes to the contents of that single menu would then logically be reflected in all menus that pointed to it.

This did have a major problem, however, in that it allowed circular references, i.e.; the NextSTART menu could have a sub-menu pointing to itself.

The new Menu Editor is an hybrid between the old system and the new (it has to be to remain backwards compatible): although integrated into a hierarchical structure, menus are still individual entities (for instance, the 'New Menu' or 'Disk' sub-menus in the image above can still be attached to a hotspot).

The problem with the new system is that menus are now also identified by their position within the hierarchical structure, i.e.; a 'Disk' sub-menu in the main NextSTART menu can (and should) have different contents from the 'Disk' sub-menu inside the, say, 'Info' sub-menu.

The repercussions of this is that a same single menu can no longer be referenced by more than one menu (on the other hand, this also prevents circular references).

In practice this means that when the new NextSTART version runs, it has to convert multiple references to the same menu within the menu structure into multiple separate copies of that same menu.

To explain this better using the 'Disk' menu case described above, instead of a single Disk menu that was referenced by the 'NextSTART' and 'Info' menus, you would end up with TWO menus that have identical content, 'Disk' and 'Disk (2)'. The only drawback to this is that changing the contents of the 'Disk' menu would no longer mirror the changes in the 'Disk (2)' menu.

The new Menu Editor would also make sure that no two menus have the same Menu ID (i.e. suppose you give the first Disk menu an ID name of 'Disk', if you try to give another menu the same ID, it will automatically get a (2) added to the end, just like Windows does for multiple copies of shortcuts with the same name).

For some reason, I can't see the pic?

The Winstep web site is currently down. The people from Basiclink are looking into it, hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Jorge:

I am a little confused (or just dumb) regarding the role of the Menu Editor.
What can it be used for other than its role in HotSpots? Maybe I've been missing out on all its uses!

Let me ask this differently:

Are all menus basically HotSpots?

When I look at all my HotSpots in the Editor, all sub-menus of the START menu are listed as HotSpots!

No, menus are not hotspots, although they are usually associated with a hotspot.

An hotspot is, essentially, an 'activation method'. A hotspot can be used not only to display a menu, but also to run a program, open a folder, run an internal command, etc...

On NextSTART you can create as many custom menus as you want. Each menu can also be associated to another so it opens as a 'sub-menu' of the first one.

The Menu Editor provides an easy way to edit your existing menus and sub-menus, and create new ones.

For instance, you could create several hotspot buttons on your desktop, each associated to a different menu. You could have an hotspot button that launches a menu having to do with Graphical applications, another having to do with Media Players and so on....

Menus can also be modified directly via drag & drop, but a Menu Editor provides a more straighforward way of editing and creating menus, as well as providing a 'global' view of the whole menu tree structure.

I guess that is what I was alluding to (LOL). Because of this, would it not make sense to have a button for the Menu Editor on the HotSpots tab?
Or, does it automatically appear when running through the HotSpot creation process (I can't remember whether I saw that with the new GUI).

Anyway, Merry, merry...

In the new GUI you will indeed get a Menu Editor button in the menu selection Hotspots Wizard page (the one that appears when you associate a menu to the hotspot, allowing you to select which menu to display).

Merry Christmas to you too!

Really looking forward to the new GUI. Looks fabulous. Any idea when?
I assume all settings will be automatically carried over?

Early January.

Everything will be 100% backwards compatible, as usual, and no features will be lost (except, perhaps, a couple that nobody uses anyway, hehe).

Sounds good!

The new GUI for NextSTART looks fantastic.
I use a toolbar called True Launch Bar and it does several things that I really like. When I start NextSTART there seems to be no way to use it and True Launch Bar. Could there be a facility added to allow them to play happily together.
Thanks

great look
thankyou