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 Post subject: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:54 am 
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Well, to start with, compatibility with ObjectDock tabbed dock skins.

As you know, the dock itself is already compatible with skins for 3rd party docks (ObjectDock, RocketDock, RK Launcher, etc...). What I am now adding is compatibility with ObjectDock *tabbed dock* skins for Shelves, Grid Stacks and Drawers. Already got it half working here, so pictures to follow soon.

One caveat to this: to apply ObjectDock tabbed dock skins from the Themes tab of Preferences to *all* Shelves, Grid Stacks and Drawers at once, you must change the top left combo box from 'Winstep Themes' to 'Shelf Themes' - only then will the 3rd party themes be shown (same thing already happens with docks, you must change the combo box from 'Winstep Themes' to 'Dock Themes').

This is because native Winstep Themes have bitmaps to skin all the components of the Winstep application, while 3rd party themes only have bitmaps to skin docks and/or tabbed docks.

Something else I will try to do is restore Yahoo's backup weather feed. The Yahoo feed is VERY rarely used (if at all), as it is a last resort in case all other feeds fail - but having more is always better than having less.

In January Yahoo changed their feed to require OAuth authentication, which of course broke all weather applets using their previous version of the feed. I already applied for a license key from them which was granted, so now it's 'just' a question of getting the authentication to work.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:23 pm 
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So, still working on adding compatibility with OD tabbed dock skins. Not as easy as it might seem given how different the two applications are.

Anyway, managed to get it working pretty sweetly, you can already use those OD tabbed dock skins for Shelves, Drawers and Grid Stacks. These skins can be placed in any orientation and even scaled up without issues (but, of course, they differ from the original OD tabbed dock skins in that they are 'Winstep style' in terms of fonts, have mini-tabs, icon grids, etc...). Another plus is that the original tabbed dock skins in OD did not support icon labels - under Winstep they do, of course.

Tied to this was detaching the current Winstep 'global theme' (the theme you see when 'Winstep Themes' is selected in the Themes tab of Preferences) from Shelves, which I'm also working on now. This made sense when there was support for only one Shelf in the application, but now that you can have multiple shelves, Grid Stacks and Drawers, each able to have its own independent theme, something needed to be done.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:35 pm 
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Just uploaded a public beta of Winstep Xtreme and Nexus Ultimate v19.4 (to get it you must enable 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' in the Advanced tab of Preferences).

Full list of changes and fixes can be seen by clicking the version number in the top right corner of the About tab in Preferences and then clicking the Change Log button.

This beta, among other things, fixes the temporary folder Grid Stacks opening as a 1x1 icon Grid Stack, and adds support for ObjectDock tabbed dock skins. Would really appreciate feedback on the latter as I only tested this with a handful of ObjectDock themes.

Needless to say, the ObjectDock skin must first be imported into the application via the Import button in the Themes tab.

To apply ObjectDock tabbed dock skins from the Themes tab of Preferences to *all* Shelves, Grid Stacks and Drawers at once, you must change the top left combo box from 'Winstep Themes' to 'Shelf Themes' - only then will the 3rd party themes be shown (same thing already happens with docks, you must change the combo box from 'Winstep Themes' to 'Dock Themes').

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:34 am 
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wow Jorge! Above and beyond but a good decision. Good work sir. I don't use OD (Winstep Extreme for me)


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:41 am 
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You don't need to use OD - this simply means you can download and use existing OD themes with Winstep Xtreme/Nexus Ultimate.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 3:35 pm 
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"Third party" theme support is quite some news, Jorge. Awesome, thanks!
The selection of native themes always was rather limited and I was forced to make my own themes for Winstep until now.
But with support for basically any launcher theme that has even been made, this shouldn't be necessary anymore. :)


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:13 pm 
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Don't forget to let me know if you see some 'oddities' in imported OD tabbed docked themes, please.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:13 pm 
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Do you expect we'll see a ton of new themes with the new third party theme support? Is anyone already planning on creating new themes?

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:31 pm 
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DillonKip wrote:
Do you expect we'll see a ton of new themes with the new third party theme support? Is anyone already planning on creating new themes?

I don't quite see the logic in connecting 3rd party theme support with new themes - it's a non-sequitur. Also, 3rd party dock themes have been supported for a long time already, only support for old Object Dock 'Tabbed Dock' themes is new, for use with Grid Stacks, IIRC. Any such 3rd party (OD) themes wouldn't be new, more likely ancient. As for new themes, wait and see... :)

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:47 pm 
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Jorge, I think there may be another problem with NeXus, similar to the one where we had sub-docks getting stranded in limbo. Since 19.2/preceding beta/s I noticed that sometimes icons in a dock would get duplicated or/and moved or deleted. At first I thought it might have been due to an unsteady hand and so ignored it, but it keeps happening with just the slightest of movements. (I should probably point out that I use double-click to launch apps.)

I had a whole sub-dock copied even, right next to itself, icons duplicated, do. the app icon containing a sub-dock onto its sub-dock, etc. So far, no deletions tough. Theme independent. Really weird...

'Lock icons...' seems to stop it though.


:Edit: Of course, as with everything now, bear in mind it could be related to Win 10 running in Hyper-V perhaps? There are a few things that have changed with Win 10 since I set up Hyper-V, but nothing major and you really couldn't tell the difference between it and Win 10 running without HV.

BTW, HV is brill - so far no problems running any queer OS I've thrown at it. Alas, all the same it may have to go as I'm considering running everything under a more advanced Hypervisor... :/Edit:

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nexter - so, what's next?

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:44 am 
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nexter wrote:
Jorge, I think there may be another problem with NeXus, similar to the one where we had sub-docks getting stranded in limbo. Since 19.2/preceding beta/s I noticed that sometimes icons in a dock would get duplicated or/and moved or deleted. At first I thought it might have been due to an unsteady hand and so ignored it, but it keeps happening with just the slightest of movements. (I should probably point out that I use double-click to launch apps.)

I had a whole sub-dock copied even, right next to itself, icons duplicated, do. the app icon containing a sub-dock onto its sub-dock, etc. So far, no deletions tough. Theme independent. Really weird...

'Lock icons...' seems to stop it though.


Sorry, Ric, forgot to reply to this one.

First, remember that you have a 'Check Integrity' button in the Troubleshooting Options dialog of the Advanced tab in WorkShelf Preferences.

Second, it just looks like you are accidentally moving the mouse pointer too much between the two clicks of the double click. Drag & drop only triggers if you click on an icon and then move the mouse pointer past a certain threshold of pixels without releasing the button.

###


Anyway, in other news: things have been moving at a slow(er) pace here, as I think it's now obvious. Normal, as people (e.g.; me, lol) need some time to recharge their batteries after long periods of frantic and furious development. :)

Anyway, looks like Yahoo as a backup weather feed is out for good, or at least for now. Even though I got a license key from them, they now require OAuth 1 authentication and from what I have been reading implementing such a thing yourself is a real can of worms. There are some OAuth libraries around, but they're commercial and I don't want to add another 3rd party dependency to Winstep applications.

Currently adding the (optional, since it can be turned off) ability dock/undock shelves and docks to screen edges via drag & drop (e.g.; a 'snap to edge' function). This way if you want to undock a dock or Shelf you just need to 'pull' on it, instead of having to resort to Preferences or the right click context menus. Likewise, move a floating dock or Shelf close enough to the screen edge and it automatically attaches itself to it.

This might seem like a simple thing to implement but it really isn't: first there is the question of giving the user the proper visual (and audio) feedback so he can recognize when the dock/undock action happens, second, you must be able to distinguish between moving a floating dock/shelf to a secondary monitor while crossing the boundary edge and an attempt to dock it to that monitor's edge.

Not sure if I should allow re-orientation, though (e.g.; dock an horizontal shelf to a vertical screen edge, which would automatically change that Shelf's orientation).

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Sat May 04, 2019 7:44 am 
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Adding ability to select multiple elements at once in a Shelf. :)

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 5:42 am 
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New user to Winstep, less than a year. Gotta say, super awesome product! Everything I was ever looking for: docks, shelves, startbar-like menus...

Just wanted to say I appreciate the ObjectDock skin integration. That program hasn't been updated in ages, and is pretty buggy on my Windows 10 machine. Nice to be able to use my skins!


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 9:42 am 
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Thanks for the thumbs up! :)

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v19.2?
PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2019 7:13 am 
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winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
Jorge, I think there may be another problem with NeXus, similar to the one where we had sub-docks getting stranded in limbo. Since 19.2/preceding beta/s I noticed that sometimes icons in a dock would get duplicated or/and moved or deleted. At first I thought it might have been due to an unsteady hand and so ignored it, but it keeps happening with just the slightest of movements. (I should probably point out that I use double-click to launch apps.)

I had a whole sub-dock copied even, right next to itself, icons duplicated, do. the app icon containing a sub-dock onto its sub-dock, etc. So far, no deletions tough. Theme independent. Really weird...

'Lock icons...' seems to stop it though.


Sorry, Ric, forgot to reply to this one.

First, remember that you have a 'Check Integrity' button in the Troubleshooting Options dialog of the Advanced tab in WorkShelf Preferences.

Second, it just looks like you are accidentally moving the mouse pointer too much between the two clicks of the double click. Drag & drop only triggers if you click on an icon and then move the mouse pointer past a certain threshold of pixels without releasing the button.

Sorry, been away sick Jorge, still recuperating. Thx for reply. Fear you may be right. It's probably not helped by my lovely little laptop rat slowly giving up the ghost now, after a good dozen years or so. Replacement being looked into. Wish they'd still do the same model - it's perfect.
winstep wrote:
###


Anyway, in other news: things have been moving at a slow(er) pace here, as I think it's now obvious. Normal, as people (e.g.; me, lol) need some time to recharge their batteries after long periods of frantic and furious development. :)

Anyway, looks like Yahoo as a backup weather feed is out for good, or at least for now. Even though I got a license key from them, they now require OAuth 1 authentication and from what I have been reading implementing such a thing yourself is a real can of worms. There are some OAuth libraries around, but they're commercial and I don't want to add another 3rd party dependency to Winstep applications.

Currently adding the (optional, since it can be turned off) ability dock/undock shelves and docks to screen edges via drag & drop (e.g.; a 'snap to edge' function). This way if you want to undock a dock or Shelf you just need to 'pull' on it, instead of having to resort to Preferences or the right click context menus. Likewise, move a floating dock or Shelf close enough to the screen edge and it automatically attaches itself to it.

This might seem like a simple thing to implement but it really isn't: first there is the question of giving the user the proper visual (and audio) feedback so he can recognize when the dock/undock action happens, second, you must be able to distinguish between moving a floating dock/shelf to a secondary monitor while crossing the boundary edge and an attempt to dock it to that monitor's edge.

Not sure if I should allow re-orientation, though (e.g.; dock an horizontal shelf to a vertical screen edge, which would automatically change that Shelf's orientation).

Re-orientation via drag-n-drop would be cool, but given you'd be unlikely to use this frequently I don't think it would be worth the effort, esp. given that confusion would need to be avoided between shifting orientation and just passing through to next monitor, e.g. In use, it's probably far quicker to use the context menu for that.

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