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On the previous release (v16.3), the 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' setting, which was previously enabled by default, was reset for all users.
This is because, in retrospect, access to betas should always be an opt-in option, i.e.; the user should deliberately enable that setting if he is interested in trying public betas.
Since users are NEVER notified of beta releases unless they are already running the latest official version of the software, and this latest version resets the 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' setting, it is now possible to use the Winstep Update Manager to offer access to betas as originally intended - i.e.; without any inconvenience to users who are not interested in trying those betas.
How to download and install the Beta of v16.5:
1. Open WorkShelf or Nexus Ultimate Preferences.
2. Go to the Advanced tab.
3. Check if the 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' setting is enabled.
If yes, go to step 7.
4. Enable 'Notify me of beta (test) versions'.
5. Press Ok in Preferences to save the setting.
6. Open Preferences again.
7. In the About tab of Preferences, click the 'Check for Updates' button.
Once that setting is enabled, in the future and provided that the 'Notify me when new updates are available' setting is also enabled, the Winstep Update Manager should automatically pick up new betas within 24 hours of their release.
Highlights in v16.5:
* NextSTART taskbar is now also high-DPI aware.
* New colorization method based on shifting the Hue of the current theme instead of simply tinting it.
* Capture Desktop internal command can now save files in PNG format.
* URLs dragged from any of the browsers to docks, etc, will now properly use the title of the web page for the icon label instead of the actual URL.
* New 'Auto Backup Settings' internal command, which can be used together with the Alarm Manager to perform automatic scheduled backups of settings. Note that under Winstep Xtreme this includes NextSTART settings as well as WorkShelf's (provided NextSTART is running when the automatic backup is performed).
* Pseudo-3D dock themes, such as MacOSX Leopard theme, no longer get distorted under certain icon/reflection size combinations.
* More customization options for the battery module.
* The Winstep Update Manager no longer fails to download updates on East-Asian systems.
* Many stability improvements (see below).
Full list of changes and fixes in this beta of v16.5:
Nexus Ultimate:
New Features:
* Updated Russian language file.
* File format of screenshots taken by the 'Capture Desktop' internal command can now be set as either JPG or PNG.
* Filled histogram colors used for the CPU, Net and RAM Meter icon modules are now a bit transparent so the background of the icon can still be seen.
* URLs dragged from all browsers should now use the web page title for the item's label instead of the actual URL domain address.
* Added new 'Overlap information on battery icon' option to the battery module, enabled by default. Controls whether the AC Power symbol, charge percentage and battery runtime values are drawn on top of the battery icon or next to it. This allows using customized multi-state battery images that wouldn't look good with battery information overlapping the battery image.
* The 'Most Active Programs', 'Power Events Log' and 'Battery Information' dialogs now show a button on the taskbar.
* Since it's global, also added the 'Do not launch multiple sessions of the same application' setting to the More Options dialog in the General tab of Preferences. Also renamed the dialog from 'Advanced Settings' to 'More Options' for consistency with the button that invokes it.
* The Animation Speed slider in a dock Auto-Hide Settings dialog is now disabled if the auto-hide animation is set to No Animation.
* Added new 'Auto Backup Settings' internal command. Intended to be used with the built-in Alarm Manager to make automatic scheduled backups, it makes a backup of the application's settings without prompting the user for a filename. It creates the filename based on the current date and time and stores the backup in the last used backup folder (or C:\Users\Public\Documents\WinStep\Backup\ by default).
* The battery in the Battery Information dialog now displays the style and settings currently selected by the user and glows with the dominant color of the battery image.
* The 'Colorize low and critical battery states' battery module setting now also properly colorizes customized multi-state battery images.
* Added new alternative 'Hue Shift' colorization method which allows color information to be preserved and whites to remain white.
* Changed the Hue shift colorization algorithm to one that is more accurate than Microsoft's solution. This can affect colorization of the Battery Monitor and Wanda fish modules.
* The 'Edge Swipe Settings' buttons in the Behavior tab of the Shelf and Dock Properties panels are now grayed out if the user is using edge bumps instead of edge swipes to activate the dock/Shelf.
* A theme validation is now performed when Restoring settings from a previous backup, so the user doesn't end up with a blank theme if the theme used at the time of the backup no longer exists.
Fixes:
* Fixed malformed request to GeoIP location server that caused GeoIP location to stop working after 2016/03/17.
* The 'Lookup IP address' internal command would fail if the GeoIP information was not already in the cache.
* The 'Show full right click context menu options?' setting in the More Options dialog of the General tab in Preferences was not sticking.
* The dock could crop the number of visible tray icons in grouped mode when changing the iconsize of the dock.
* Pseudo-3D dock backgrounds like the Leopard theme no longer appear heavilly distorted at certain icon/icon reflection sizes.
* The 'Capture Desktop Settings' dialog, when invoked from a right click context menu, was not saving the settings to the proper location.
* The Shelf could auto-hide while a item delete confirmation dialog was still on screen if the user moved the mouse pointer over the Shelf.
* If the auto-hide delay was too short, the Shelf could auto-hide while it was still performing unrelated animations such as shifting icons after deleting an item, etc...
* Synchronization of the system clock with the Internet Time Servers failed if the regional settings for the SYSTEM account (used by the Winstep Helper Service) used a difference decimal point character than the user account under which the application run (e.g.; "123,4" instead of "123.4" or vice-versa).
* Some routines were still using bilinear instead of bicubic transformations for rescaling bitmaps, which caused the bitmaps to look blurrier than they should.
* Nexus Ultimate would crash if a dock was set to auto-hide when selecting a new theme in the Dock Properties dialog and the user clicked outside the Dock Properties window (which would cause the dock to hide) and then on the themes list.
* Certain dock backgrounds could cause visual glitches when mousing over near the position of a dock that was hidden into a screen edge.
* A dock set to hide/collapse automatically after launching an application (or a sub-dock set to close automatically after launching an application) would fail to do so if the item being launched required admin privileges (i.e.; UAC prompt).
* Always on top docks set to auto-hide for maximized applications will now only do so if they are not reserving screen space (maximized applications would not be overlapped by the dock in this case) and will only auto-hide for full screen applications.
* The preview of the Destop Module Battery Monitor on the Modules tab of Preferences would show a disabled battery if the battery module was not currently in use.
* Fixed some Shelf tab width issues that could occur if the tab font size was too large to fit.
* Drag & Drop of URLs was not working with certain browsers (e.g.; Waterfox) that did not supply the ANSI UniformResourceLocator format. ANSI and Unicode formats are now correctly accepted.
* Changing units of the weather module from C to F or vice-versa only became effective after the cached weather information became stale and the weather information was refreshed.
* The 'Colorize animated fish style' and 'Hue' values for the Wanda module were not being saved under the free version of Nexus and Nexus Ultimate.
* Sub-dock indicators were overlapping other icons and causing visual glitches if the icon spacing was less than 8 pixels.
* The 'Popup delay' slider in the Activation Settings dialog of the Dock Properties Behavior tab appeared enabled even if 'Bring dock forward on mouseover' was not selected.
* With very short auto-hide delays, or under certain circunstances when a dock was set to auto-hide for maximized applications, a dock could auto-hide in the middle of a resize/move animation, which would cause it to glitch.
* Clicking an icon to open an in-Shelf sub-dock could cause a persistent blank white box to appear if in-shelf sub-docks were set to open on mouse over and the sub-dock had started playing the open animation just prior to the click.
* The Winstep Update Manager always failed to download updates with a 'file size mimatch' error on East Asian systems.
* A sub-dock opening animation would briefly flash the full glass blur region at the begining if the 'Aero Glass Blur' effect was enabled.
* A dock would keep bouncing up and down if 'Auto hide for maximized applications' was enabled and the user tried to drag a shortcut from a maximized window into the dock.
* The 'Colorize low and critical battery states' battery module setting was not 'sticking' between restarts of the application.
* The 'Aero Glass' (non-Windows 10) balloon tooltip style was blurring the tooltip window background on Windows 10 systems.
* Under certain circumstances, if a theme's original font style did not exist on the system, text width could be calculated as zero and cause visual glitches.
* Winstep applications should now display the high-resolution icon in Explorer on high-DPI/large icon systems.
* Docks should now be a bit less 'jittery' when inserting items into them via drag & drop.
WorkShelf:
New Features:
* Updated Russian language file.
* File format of screenshots taken by the 'Capture Desktop' internal command can now be set as either JPG or PNG.
* Filled histogram colors used for the CPU, Net and RAM Meter icon modules are now a bit transparent so the background of the icon can still be seen.
* URLs dragged from all browsers should now use the web page title for the item's label instead of the actual URL domain address.
* Added new 'Overlap information on battery icon' option to the battery module, enabled by default. Controls whether the AC Power symbol, charge percentage and battery runtime values are drawn on top of the battery icon or next to it. This allows using customized multi-state battery images that wouldn't look good with battery information overlapping the battery image.
* The 'Most Active Programs', 'Power Events Log' and 'Battery Information' dialogs now show a button on the taskbar.
* Since it's global, also added the 'Do not launch multiple sessions of the same application' setting to the More Options dialog in the General tab of Preferences. Also renamed the dialog from 'Advanced Settings' to 'More Options' for consistency with the button that invokes it.
* The Animation Speed slider in a dock Auto-Hide Settings dialog is now disabled if the auto-hide animation is set to No Animation.
* Added new 'Auto Backup Settings' internal command. Intended to be used with the built-in Alarm Manager to make automatic scheduled backups, it makes a backup of the application's settings without prompting the user for a filename. It creates the filename based on the current date and time and stores the backup in the last used backup folder (or C:\Users\Public\Documents\WinStep\Backup\ by default). It also notifies NextSTART (if it's currently running) to make an automatic backup at the same time.
* The battery in the Battery Information dialog now displays the style and settings currently selected by the user and glows with the dominant color of the battery image.
* The 'Colorize low and critical battery states' battery module setting now also properly colorizes customized multi-state battery images.
* Added new alternative 'Hue Shift' colorization method which allows color information to be preserved and whites to remain white.
* Iconic (not skinned) desktop modules are no longer colorized.
* Changed the Hue shift colorization algorithm to one that is more accurate than Microsoft's solution. This can affect colorization of the Battery Monitor and Wanda fish modules.
* The 'Edge Swipe Settings' buttons in the Behavior tab of the Shelf and Dock Properties panels are now grayed out if the user is using edge bumps instead of edge swipes to activate the dock/Shelf.
* A theme validation is now performed when Restoring settings from a previous backup, so the user doesn't end up with a blank theme if the theme used at the time of the backup no longer exists.
Fixes:
* Fixed malformed request to GeoIP location server that caused GeoIP location to stop working after 2016/03/17.
* The 'Lookup IP address' internal command would fail if the GeoIP information was not already in the cache.
* The dock could crop the number of visible tray icons in grouped mode when changing the icon size of the dock.
* Pseudo-3D dock backgrounds like the Leopard theme no longer appear heavilly distorted at certain icon/icon reflection sizes.
* The 'Capture Desktop Settings' dialog, when invoked from a right click context menu, was not saving the settings to the proper location.
* The Shelf could auto-hide while a item delete confirmation dialog was still on screen if the user moved the mouse pointer over the Shelf.
* If the auto-hide delay was too short, the Shelf could auto-hide while it was still performing unrelated animations such as shifting icons after deleting an item, etc...
* Synchronization of the system clock with the Internet Time Servers failed if the regional settings for the SYSTEM account (used by the Winstep Helper Service) used a difference decimal point character than the user account under which the application run (e.g.; "123,4" instead of "123.4" or vice-versa).
* Some routines were still using bilinear instead of bicubic transformations for rescaling bitmaps, which caused the bitmaps to look blurrier than they should.
* WorkShelf would crash if a dock was set to auto-hide when selecting a new theme in the Dock Properties dialog and the user clicked outside the Dock Properties window (which would cause the dock to hide) and then on the themes list.
* Certain dock backgrounds could cause visual glitches when mousing over near the position of a dock that was hidden into a screen edge.
* A dock set to hide/collapse automatically after launching an application (or a sub-dock set to close automatically after launching an application) would fail to do so if the item being launched required admin privileges (i.e.; UAC prompt).
* Always on top docks set to auto-hide for maximized applications will now only do so if they are not reserving screen space (maximized applications would not be overlapped by the dock in this case) and will only auto-hide for full screen applications.
* The preview of the Destop Module Battery Monitor on the Modules tab of Preferences would show a disabled battery if the battery module was not currently in use.
* Fixed some Shelf tab width issues that could occur if the tab font size was too large to fit.
* Drag & Drop of URLs was not working with certain browsers (e.g.; Waterfox) that did not supply the ANSI UniformResourceLocator format. ANSI and Unicode formats are now correctly accepted.
* Changing units of the weather module from C to F or vice-versa only became effective after the cached weather information became stale and the weather information was refreshed.
* Sub-dock indicators were overlapping other icons and causing visual glitches if the icon spacing was less than 8 pixels.
* The 'Popup delay' slider in the Activation Settings dialog of the Dock Properties Behavior tab appeared enabled even if 'Bring dock forward on mouseover' was not selected.
* With very short auto-hide delays, or under certain circunstances when a dock was set to auto-hide for maximized applications, a dock could auto-hide in the middle of a resize/move animation, which would cause it to glitch.
* Clicking an icon to open an in-Shelf sub-dock could cause a persistent blank white box to appear if in-shelf sub-docks were set to open on mouse over and the sub-dock had started playing the open animation just prior to the click.
* Changing an icon for a module via drag & drop or by righ-clicking the module was not updating the icon in the Desktop version of the module.
* The Winstep Update Manager always failed to download updates with a 'file size mimatch' error on East Asian systems.
* A sub-dock opening animation would briefly flash the full glass blur region at the begining if the 'Aero Glass Blur' effect was enabled.
* The dock would keep bouncing up and down if 'Auto hide for maximized applications' was enabled and the user tried to drag a shortcut from a maximized window into the dock.
* The 'Colorize low and critical battery states' battery module setting was not 'sticking' between restarts of the application.
* The 'Aero Glass' (non-Windows 10) balloon tooltip style was blurring the tooltip window background on Windows 10 systems.
* Under certain circumstances, if a theme's original font style did not exist on the system, text width could be calculated as zero and cause visual glitches.
* Winstep applications should now display the high-resolution icon in Explorer on high-DPI/large icon systems.
* Docks should now be a bit less 'jittery' when inserting items into them via drag & drop.
NextSTART:
New Features:
* Updated Russian language file.
* File format of screenshots taken by the 'Capture Desktop' internal command can now be set as either JPG or PNG.
* Deleted/Removed Windows Quick Launch shortcuts are now automatically removed from the NextSTART Quicklaunch hotspots/taskbar too.
* Added 'Delete Quick Launch Shortcut' option to the right click context menu of Quick Launch hotspots pointing to Windows Quick Launch items.
* URLs dragged from all browsers should now use the web page title for the item's label instead of the actual URL domain address.
* Added new 'Auto Backup Settings' internal command. Intended to be used with WorkShelf's built-in Alarm Manager to make automatic scheduled backups, it makes a backup of the application's settings without prompting the user for a filename. It creates the filename based on the current date and time and stores the backup in the last used backup folder (or C:\Users\Public\Documents\WinStep\Backup\ by default). When used in NextSTART it also notifies WorkShelf (if it's currently running) to make an automatic backup at the same time.
* Added new alternative 'Hue Shift' colorization method which allows color information to be preserved and whites to remain white.
* Grouped task icons on the NextSTART taskbar now always display the number of running instances on the icon itself instead of on the icon label.
* The NextSTART taskbar is now scaled up properly on high DPI systems. Automatic DPI scaling can be disabled in the Taskbar tab of NextSTART Preferences.
* Fine tuned some visual aspects related to the NextSTART taskbar and the new high DPI settings.
* Improved the rendering quality used for scaling up NextSTART taskbar related bitmaps.
Fixes:
* The list of available NextSTART menus in the Item Properties Editor was displaying temporary system menus as well as the user defined menus.
* It was not possible to change the drive letter assigned to a CD Control internal command in the Item Properties Editor.
* NextSTART was still using the old 'Close CD-ROM x: Door' and 'Open CD-ROM x: Door' internal commands instead of the new 'CD Control x:' in the default Disk sub-menu.
* NextSTART would crash as soon as you inserted media on a CD-ROM drive or inserted a thumb drive if the Quick Launch section in the taskbar was disabled.
* Drag & Drop of URLs was not working with certain browsers (e.g.; Waterfox) that did not supply the ANSI UniformResourceLocator format. ANSI and Unicode formats are now correctly accepted.
* To prevent interfering with other edge bump activations, the taskbar no longer shows live window previews if the mouse pointer is above a task button but also at the very edge of the screen the taskbar is attached to.
* The Winstep Update Manager always failed to download updates with a 'file size mimatch' error on East Asian systems.
* Under certain circumstances, if a theme's original font style did not exist on the system, text width could be calculated as zero and cause visual glitches.
* Fixed lots of visual glitches with old themes.
* An invisible menu could get 'stuck' in memory and cause NextSTART to constantly steal focus from other applications.
* Under certain circunstances it would be impossible to resize the NextSTART taskbar back to one row of icons after resizing it up from a single row.
* Winstep applications should now display the high-resolution icon in Explorer on high-DPI/large icon systems.
_________________
Jorge Coelho
Winstep Xtreme - Xtreme Power!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 8:09 am 
