Hello, I was testing the free version of Nexus, and really liked what I saw, so I bought Winstep Xtreme (just received the license actually).

Here are a few question regarding the product (using it on Windows 8.1) :

1- License : its wording is not very clear to me. Obviously, I get 1 year of upgrades, but what about the product itself ? Is the license valid indefinitely, or do I have to renew every year to be able to use Winstep (regardless of upgrades) ? What happens if, say, I have to reinstall everything in 2 years on a new computer ?

2- Subdocks : is there a way to have different icon sizes between the main dock and its sub-docks ?

3- Task manager : right clicking on the taskbar to call the task manager does nothing. Bug ? (EDIT : it works when doing the same think through a right click on the CPU module)

4- 2 things I did not manage (so far) to find a way to do : use an item to switch to the "metro" UI, and have some way to reproduce the language toolbar (which is an easy way to switch the keyboard type or the OS language ... I use it frequently for games which manage badly my AZERTY keyboard and switch to QWERTY). Any idea on how to do these things with Winstep ?

5- Show desktop : any way to put a "show desktop" shortcut on the far right of the taskbar, at its "usual" place ?

6- Shelf properties ... I probably messed up some setting, but maximised windows go over the shelf, while they do not go over the taskbar. Yet, the same setting is applied in both cases ("prevent maximized windows from overlapping"), and I'm also pretty sure it was working correctly at one point. Any idea of what I messed up (or is it a bug) ? EDIT : to clarify, the problem is present when both the taskbar and the shelf are docked at the bottom of the screen. If I dock the shelf at the top, it works as intended. EDIT2 : it seems to be a theme related problem. It works correctly on some (windows 7 extreme for example) but not on others (aero lowres or atmospherica, for example, which I don't remember if they were provided with the program or if I downloaded and added them).

7- Two minor annoyances : the "show hidden icons" icon of the systray seems to have trouble working correctly after using it or using another systray icon (it usually requires clicking elsewhere on the taskbar before working correctly again). And also, when you put your mouse over your current task (in the tasklist), letting the preview show up, then move the mouse away elsewhere over the tasklist, your current task loses the focus (taken by Winstep probably). Both of these problems seem related to focus management.

Thanks in advance.

Another strange behaviour : I was testing hotspots directly on the desktop (in that case, a button showing the nextstart menu, and another button to shutdown the computer).

Strangely enough, these buttons/hotspots pop up in front of other windows if you let your mouse hover over the quicklaunch bar, for example. Intended behaviour or not ? Probably related to the last point in my 1st post above.

I made this viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4530&start=15 to aid in navigating through the settings of Winstep Xtreme. It starts at Fri May 31, 2013.

If you have any problems understanding it, feel free to let me know.

P.S. You should also go to the beginning of the thread. It might help too. It has some useful links and info like my videos and themes.

Thanks Windy, I read your thread, and watched your videos, but unless I missed something, nothing in there answers my (very specific) questions

And while I'm here, here another one : is there a way, when starting Winstep, to have the desktop modules hidden (not closed, hidden, a bit like it's possible to have some docks starting collapsed or hidden) ?

For reference, I attached a picture of my current desktop when "fully loaded" (I usually hide the 2 docks at the right, as well as the desktop modules, only showing them when needed). I had to resize it a lot to be under the forum limit of 256kB, so it might be not very "clear".

Another thing : despite having disabled everything regarding edge bumping, some docks still manage to show up from time to time, while they're supposed not to and should "stay quiet on the desktop". And also, it's now impossible to swipe down "metro apps" (which is a way to end these apps), as when the mouse reaches the bottom of the screen, Winstep grabs the focus.



Regards.

Okay, I'll address your questions as best I can.

1. You can use Winstep forever without renewing as long as you have your license key. This is advice for everyone. Besides keeping c copy on an external source like a hard drive or disc to make sure you don't lose the license key, make a folder in your e-mail and keep it there.

Since having Winstep Xtreme, I've had two computers (one died and the original hard drive crashed on this PC) making a total of three hard drives. However, if you don't renew, you will not get any new major updates if there are any available. Using what you have now should be fine until a new major update is released and it's up to you if you want to renew or not.

2. Don't know the answer to that one.

3. Hmmmmm, could be a setting but I'm not sure. I use the Windows taskbar because I have a third-party clock program installed in my System Tray and it's not compatible with the Winstep taskbar.

4. I have no idea.

5. Don't know the answer to that.

6. Yes it's possible it's a theme related problem. But to make sure, go back and duplicate the module settings I have in my thread. Go to Fri May 31, 2013 10:52 am and read from there.

7. Can't help you on this one.

It's apparent that most of your problems are taskbar related. As I said before, I don't use the Winstep taskbar, so it makes helping you difficult. Sorry I couldn't help more. Jorge and Skagon will better be able to answer the questions I couldn't.

Thanks for your help, Windy

Ok, I think I'm gonna go nuts here ... :/

The main reason I bought Winstep was to organize all my installed Steam games properly

That was rather easy with the docks, though I had to make a few compromises :p

However I've had focus problems with several games, when clicking in game would bring upfront a dock or the taskbar or the shelf if clicking at the "right" place.

After several hours of testing different games and different Workshelf and Docks configurations, here's the current state :

- I finally managed to keep the docks "quiet" by unchecking the "keep this dock showed when showing desktop (WIN + D)". I wanted to avoid that and keep them on desktop, but apparently, this won't be possible. I had to activate edge bumping to bypass the lost function (and get back my docks when they so disappear), not really a big deal, but still ...

- Along the same lines, I also managed to fix the desktop modules to cause the same problem, by checking their option to let the clicks pass through them ... and so, no more becoming opaque on mouse over and another nice function lost

- But I can't seem to find any solution with Nextstart and the shelf. Whatever I do, if I click on the bottom of the screen (where they're docked) while in game, they get the focus and the game loses it.

To clarify, this does not happen with all games (and I'm talking about fullscreen games, of course), and not all the time. I have an example of a game where the problem is almost systematic : "Batlleplan : American Civil war". To a lesser extent, "Star ruler" does it too.

Apparently, one way to fix this temporarily is to change the theme, then go back to the original theme (I suspect it's more a matter of reloading the configuration than actually changing the theme, but just in case ...). This works for the next launch of the game (which then keeps the focus). At the next launch, the problem is back

Any idea if there's a way to fix this, or should I ditch Nextstart and the Workshelf, in which case I shoudl have just bought Nexus Ultimate and not the whole suite ?

I suspect this is also related to the systray problem I was talking about above. Also, I think sometimes my current window (browser or whatever) loses the focus for no (apparent) reason (EDIT2 : this seems related to edge bumping, even if the dock, for example, does not show up -bottom of z-order- the focus is lost and does not come back to the current window). Imho, there definitely are focus (and maybe z-order) problems to solve here, at least on windows 8.1.

EDIT : a thread that might be related : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9181&p=26157&hilit=fullscreen#p26157

And I'll add that I've seen some cases of the whole UI (docks, modules, taskbar, shelf) staying on top of other windows while they were supposed to be "always on bottom"

EDIT3 : I can confirm it's the taskbar which is the source of focus/z-order problems. If I disable it, but only activate the shelf (and even docks and desktop modules with the settings described above), the problems disappear. So, unless someone has a solution, I'll have to get rid of it, which is sad as I really liked it (and I don't have much use for the shelf, actually)

Is it absolutely necessary for you to use the Winstep taskbar? Since it appears that using it is causing your focus problems, you should consider not using it, at least when playing the games you're having issues with.

I have Notepad++ installed and about a week ago for some reason all of a sudden I began having focus problems while it was open. I still haven't figured why it happened. It lasted for a few days and went away just as suddenly as it came.

I figured out a workaround. I double-clicked on the Windows taskbar and it gave focus back to Winstep so I could bump to call up my docks, Workshelf and modules. Remember, I don't have the Winstep taskbar enabled so I don't know if that will work to gain focus back with it enabled.

Obviously something weird happened since this is the first time that has ever happened after years of using it.

Once in a blue moon I can't bump to call up my docks etc when playing a video with a player on my PC that isn't in fullscreen. It only happens on a handful of videos that are really high quality 1080p that almost fill the whole monitor even though it isn't in fullscreen mode. I've mentioned this before a long time ago. I assume this happens because the monitor is practically covered by the video (only about an 1/16 of an inch left on top, bottom and sides instead of the normal distance) so therefore Winstep understandably thinks the video is in fullscreen.

I'm wondering if your problem is widespread, or something limited to certain games, a Win8 issue, or only happens to a few people because of something that is installed on their PC that is causing a conflict.

Jorge, Skagon, any ideas?

Not really, like I said above, but I thought it was a really nice replacement of the standard taskbar.

So, for now, I did remove it, as well as the shelf for which I can't seem to find any useful ... use

So, basically, I'm just using Nexus while having bought the whole suite, it's just a bit disappointing, but also a mistake on my part : I should have done more tests before deciding Anyway, I'm probably also using a few options which are not in Nexus alone

Well, thanks again Windy Are you the only one (or almost) wandering in these forums or what ?

Regards.

I don't think you made a mistake. WorkShelf has a lot of uses. You should give it more time to delve into it more before you give it the ax. The best feature is that it hides all of the desktop icons. Also, the scroll wheel can be used to cycle through all of the desktop icons. Of course many things can be accessed through the various tabs that are a part of WorkShelf. Maybe using Win8 might make it less of a useful tool, but I'm not sure since I have Win7 and have only dabbled with using Win8.



At this point it seems so!