Which is exactly what I ended up doing because, even though those 'freezing' moments were now very few and far between, they still existed and were highly annoying when they happened.

Since I am now asynchronously polling the batteries/UPSs directly and no longer need to resort to GetSystemPowerStatus to help with the freezes, the possibility to select a battery/UPS to monitor (much like you can select which network card to monitor for the Net module) is now open.

I realize not many users would have a use for this, of course (how many of you actually have an UPSs backing up your Desktop systems, much less more than one?) but it *can* be useful under certain situations (for instance, the Surface Pro 4 actually has two batteries, one for the detachable screen, another for the keyboard base).

Of course, this would make a lot more sense if you were able to have different versions of the same module monitoring different things (for instance, a session of the Weather module showing the weather in your location and another showing the weather at a different location, a clock module showing the local time and another showing the time in a different time zone, etc...). We'll get there (it just got a lot easier with all the changes I have been making to the way modules are managed internally).

Something else I might add, which would be a bit more useful, has mainly to do with those cases where a single UPS is backing up more than one computer. Since the UPS can only be monitored by a single computer (and Windows automatically shuts down only that computer in the case of a power outage), it would be useful to be able to run a program or a batch file when the battery is low, which would in turn shutdown the other computers via the network.

In Windows XP this could be easily achieved because the operating system allowed you to run a custom program when the battery power level was low. However, from Windows Vista on-wards, this useful option has been limited to either Sleep or Shut Down.

Heck, I could even extend this and allow multiple instances of Nexus/WorkShelf running on different computers to communicate with each other via the network, thus preventing the need to have to run a 3rd party program to shutdown all those computers in case of a power outage.

And just added this too. Took advantage of the new Clock Alarm features to implement this part, so the user can choose to either Do Nothing, display a warning (optionally with sound), run a program or run an internal command when the battery charge reaches the low and critical thresholds.

11. Average CPU usage is now monitored and an alert displayed if Nexus/WorkShelf consistently uses over 90% of one core for over 5 minutes.

I want to know how many users (if any?) are affected by this issue (and eventually what might be causing it so I can fix it) and this seems to be the only way to get there. Worked great to get user feedback when a very specific combination of factors caused Nexus to use up to 2 GB of RAM!

12. Weather information is now cached for an hour to prevent hammering the weather servers unnecessarily.

13. If one of the weather feeds being used provides sunrise and sunset times, the weather module is now able to determine more accurately whether to display a Sun or Moon icon.

14. Icons of currently running applications on the left side of the dock now also display the number of instances when the 'Combine dock icons with running applications' and 'Group similar windows into a single icon' settings are both enabled.

You know, and this kind of opens the door for something a bit more complex: besides battery related stuff such as shutting down different computers plugged in to the same UPS when the battery reaches a certain threshold, this could be extended to allow the user to run internal commands/applications on remote computers also running Nexus/Winstep Xtreme.

Anyone would be interested in this?

15. The above regarding blurriness when a module is scaled up (automatically or manually) is now only *partially* true.

Nothing can be done about the fixed sized bitmaps of the desktop modules (i.e.; actual module backgrounds) since these have no higher resolution version available, but at least text and icons will now appear as sharp and crisp as possible. Compare the before and after below:



As you can see, text that is not part of the desktop module background bitmap now appears crisp regardless of the scale setting, unlike in the previous version (in the above example the modules are scaled all the way up to 200%). Note how the Weather module moon icon no longer appears blurred either. Just below, there is no difference between the two 'globe' images - this is because that globe image is actually part of the fixed-sized module background bitmap, and, as such, has no higher resolution version available.

Regardless of these limitations, I think it can be said the differences are well worth the trouble I had to go through to pull this off.

16. Added new 'CD Control' internal command.



The CD Control internal command allows you to see at a glance if media is currently inserted on your CD drive, and, if so, what type of media it is (CD, CD-R, DVD, DVD+R, etc...). If no media is inserted, nothing appears at the bottom of the icon.

This is useful if you are like me and sometimes forget a CD in the drive for months.

Also, the balloon infotip shows a description of what the media type acronym means. Ever wondered what DVD-RWRO and DDCD-RW media types were? Well, those acronyms stand for 'Re-Recordable Restricted Overwrite DVD Disc' and 'Re-Writable Double Density Compact Disc', respectively.

Clicking the internal command will also eject the media if the drive's door is currently closed, or close the door if currently open.

If you have more than one CD-ROM/Blu-ray/etc drive, you can select which drive the Internal Command applies to via the Item Properties dialog.

17. New 'Show Effects' panel



Nexus now supports over 20 mouse-over, launch and attention effects, with more being added all the time.

With so many effects - and some with names that I would not exactly call 'desciptive' lol - I felt the need for something that would allow the user (especially the first time user) to visualize them all without having to constantly choose a different effect, click apply, mouse over the dock, etc...

This is just a first draft.

When you open the panel, each different effect is automatically demonstrated one by one (the effect is repeated 3 times for each icon before moving on to the next icon). This automatic 'show case' displays the 'Attention' version of the effect.

The user can also simultaneously mouse-over the icons, in which case the mouse-over version of the effect is shown. Finally, he can click an icon, which shows the 'Launch' version of the effect.

Since this panel is pretty functional in showing all the available effects, I'm thinking that it should also be used as an alternative (alternative to combo box/context menu selection, that is) and more user-friendly way to select an effect. Click the icon associated to a specific effect then the OK button to select that effect for the mouse-over/launch/attention actions.

Not yet sure what the final implementation of this will be, since that panel is currently showing only the 'shared' effects, and there are others specific to docks (No Effect, Magnify, Flat Magnify) and to actions (Jump, Flash). I could add those to that panel too, of course, (and most probably will) but this means the panel would be different depending on whether it is showing the available effects for docks or the Shelf, and for what type of action (for instance, Flash exists as an Attention effect, but not as a Mouse-over effect).

There are other questions: I can either add a single button to the Effects tab of the Dock Properties panel (in which case the user would select 'Mouseover', 'Launch' or 'Attention' from a combo box in the 'Show Effects' panel itself) or I add three buttons (one for Mouse-over, another for Launch and another for Attention) all leading to different versions of the same panel. Not sure which is best yet.

Also, what should I call this panel? 'Effect Picker'? 'Effect Chooser'?

And should I always use the same icon for all the different effects? Makes sense since you are not showing off icons there, but what an effect does to that icon (but then, what is the best icon to show this?) Or perhaps I should show a different icon every time you open that panel? Or show a different icon each time the automated effect show-off routine has cycled through all the available effects (the icons would fade out at the end of the cycle and a new set would fade in in its place, showing a completely different icon - this would have the advantage of showing what the effects look like on different icons)?

Finally, and one of main reasons why I actually implemented this, this panel will allow me to show off effects that won't be available in the free version of Nexus from now on (Nexus free, as I said, already supports over 20 different effects which is more than enough, and I need to create extra incentive for users to upgrade to the paid version - every little thing helps). One thing is for a user of the free version to see the name of a new effect, quite another is to actually see it in action (and thus what he will be missing if he does not upgrade to the paid version).

My suggestion: "Effects Panel".

Nice, thanks.

I can even use that same text for the button/context menu option that invokes the panel (important for localization/language reasons).

However, I'm still struggling choosing between:

a) Allowing the user to select the action the effect applies to from within the panel itself (i.e.; a combo box at the top would allow the user to select between 'Mouse Over Effect', 'Launch Effect' and 'Attention Effect', with the panel contents changing dynamically to reflect the option selected). The Effect Settings for each effect could be selected from this panel too.

This has the advantage of centralizing the effects into a single panel. The 'Mouseover Effect:', 'Launch Effect:' and 'Attention Effect:' sections in the Effects tab of the Dock and Shelf Properties dialogs could be replaced with a single button leading to the Effects panel.

In the right click context menus the 'Effects Panel' entry would thus also only be used once in the Effects sub-menu itself, right above the 'Mouse Over Effect >', 'Launch Effect >' and 'Attention Effect >' sub-menu titles.

The disadvantage is that the user would not be able to see at a glance which effects are selected in the Effects tab for all the three actions, he would have to open the Effects Panel first, then scroll through the three combo box options. Plus I would suddenly have a lot of unused blank space in this tab.

Or I keep things as they are in the Effects tab and simply add a single 'Effects Panel' button somewhere on it (an alternative way to select the effects).

_OR_

b) The same way each of the three actions has its own 'Effect Settings' button, each would also have an 'Effects Panel' button.

In this case the panel would have no combo box and would simply display the effects available for that particular action.

In the context menus, an 'Effects Panel' option would then have to be inside (at the top, as the very first option) of each of the Mouse Over, Launch and Attention effect menus.

Any thoughts?

18. Left clicking the dock control tile now opens the Dock Properties dialog for that dock (or Nexus Preferences in the case of the free version of Nexus).

This is one of those little 'big' things, actually. I'm pretty sure many users asked themselves over the years why left-clicking the Nexus control icon did... absolutely nothing.

There was a reason for this, of course. The reason being that double-clicking the control icon was already being used for hiding/collapsing the dock, so in theory left clicking could not be used for the obvious function of opening the dock properties panel.

Until I recently actually gave this some thought, and came up with a very simple solution, which, in retrospect, should have occurred to me years ago: if the dock detects a single click in the control icon, it waits a little bit (750 ms to be exact) to see if that click is quickly followed by another (which would indicate a double click) and, if none occurs within this waiting period, it opens the Dock Properties dialog instead.

Problem solved and now the control icon does what I fear every single user always felt it should do. No more need to delve into the right click context menu looking for that 'Dock Properties' option.

Already decided, but I had to implement a couple of changes first.

The group of effects from 'Zoom' to 'Smoke' are generated by a single 'Effects Engine' routine I created. The 'Jump' launch effect and the 'Flash' attention effect, however, had been implemented separately some years ago.

So, the first thing I did was unify these two effects with the rest, so they too are generated by the Effects Engine (as a bonus you can tell the Jump effect is now a bit more 'organic' because of this change). Another added bonus is that 'Jump' and 'Flash' became available for all three actions (i.e.; as Mouse-over, Attention and Launch effects).

The Shelf also had a 'Use Mouse-over effect' option for the Launch effect which simply meant that the Shelf should use the current mouse-over effect when launching items. I had to remove this option for consistency sake - not a biggie since the user can still manually select the Shelf Launch effect to be the same as the Mouse-over effect.

So, the Effects Panel now displays all the available effects for one of the three actions (including 'None' - which obviously does nothing to the icon but is there so the user can select that option - plus 'Magnify' and 'Flat Magnify' for the Mouse-over effect of docks).

In terms of the Effects tab in the Properties dialog you can still select effects the old way (i.e.; via the combo box). Or you can click the Effects Panel button of that action, which allows you to visualize (and also select and even configure via an 'Effect Settings' button in the panel) all the different effects available for that action.

In terms of right-click context menus, it's even better: now when you click on the Mouse-over option in the context menu, instead of a long sub-menu displaying all the available effects you get the Effects Panel instead.

Again, not only does this allow you to actually visualize the effects, as it allows you to configure effect settings (and even the 'Combine this effect with the Magnify effect' option) right there, something which previously required you to go to the Dock or Shelf Properties dialog to change.

I get what I wanted too: now I can add new effects which are only available in the paid versions and show them off in the Effects Panel. If the user of Nexus free selects one of these 'Premium' effects, he gets taken to the 'This feature is only available in Nexus Ultimate/Winstep Xtreme' panel describing all the advantages of upgrading to the paid version(s).

I like this a good deal...it's more logical.
A "tool tip" bubble might help here, though.

Not following, sorry. What do you mean?

Pretty much the final version. It's full of nice little touches:

Since I wasn't sure what was the best icon to use for demoing the effects, I allow the user to choose a different icon (which is remembered between restarts). When the user selects a new demo icon, instead of an abrupt change the old icons fade out while the new ones fade in.

Under normal circumstances, the effects are automatically demonstrated one by one, so you can just sit back and see what they all do. Or you can click the Play All button which results in the button caption changing to 'Stop' and all the effects being shown at the same time (that's what you can see above).

Mousing over any of the icons plays the mouseover animation effect, left clicking selects the effect and also plays the launch animation. Right clicking opens the Effect Settings dialog for that effect, if one is available. When the Effect Settings dialog is dismissed, the selected icon immediately plays the animation so you can see right then the result of your changes.

I think this is pretty much feature complete too. The only changes I might still make to this dialog would be purely cosmetic.

19. Eight new cool mouse over, launch and attention effects exclusive to Nexus Ultimate/Winstep Xtreme!