Having worked on a new theme as well as on a new 'Startmenu' replacement for my theme development setup, it struck me that it would be useful if we could have the vertical titlebar on one top level menu only while sub-menus and other menus retain a normal, horizontal titlebar.

Any possibility/likelyhood of this being implemented Jorge? I would be sorely tempted to use the vertical titlebar for Startmenus as standard.

I have also been working on a simplified, more streamlined StartMenu replacement, although still on similar lines to the default one. It also reasonably closely follows the old original Windows Startmenu. The current default one, IMO, is far too long at top level and confusing, at any rate for newbies. It just tries too hard to show off everything that NS menus can do. I feel it would be better to give new users something that many if not most could feel comfortable with from relating to the old Windows Startmenu.

It's a similar situation with the whole Winstep default config for me - it tries just a bit too hard to be clever and show off everything Winstep apps can do and inmany cases destroying the intended look and feel of themes, rather than providing a realistic, clean and simple working environment style that ordinary users might feel comfortable with, and one that leaves themes intact and shows them as they're meant to be seen and used.

I shall not 'bitch and moan' about this further, but instead have already been working on and off on a separate setup that will feature a complete configuration along the principles mentioned above. When finished, I'll post inc. screen grab/s, to give a better idea of what I envisage.

Let the web site do all the showing off of what Winstep can do, all the flashy stuff and all, but give new users a usable, comfortable, simple default config - that's how I see it anyway.

Any comments by anyone more than welcome.

Actually that has been possible for AGES... a NextSTART theme can have a sub-theme for menus, in that the main theme is used only for the first (top-level) menu and the sub-theme for all secondary menus.

For an example look no further than the included by default Windows_7_Xtreme theme.



As you noticed, in v18.10 I simplified the default NextSTART menu.

The irony is that the previous configuration was based on the Win9x Windows Start Menu (it simply hadn't been changed in years).



I already know you want to be a theme-nazi and prevent users from changing certain theme settings just for the sake of the theme's 'purity' as the creator (you) envisioned it. Alas, the user is king and that will not change.

That would be the same as going back to Thibaud's HVD days were content was inter-mixed with look (the skin did not only change how things looked, it also changed the actual content and organization of the HVD dock, etc).

Nope, not the same at all Jorge. HVD and the skinner dictated content - freezing out certain options of theme configuration would be quite different in nature.

Too much choice is never a good thing.

This is not about too much choice - it's about who ultimately retains control, the user or the skinner.

You think the skinner should be allowed to impose his vision on the user and I don't. If the user wants to make a mess, let him. It's his computer, not yours.

Yes, it's his computer, but it's *my* theme - if I go to all the trouble of creating a theme, I should have at least *some* control over how it appears. The user still has more than enough choice, and I'd even say far too much choice already.

That's not really much of an incentive for skinners, is it.

In the old days of course these questions didn't really arise - with Workshelf still young and NeXus still in nappies, there was very little scope for the user to mess up themes.

If you don't want users manipulating your theme, then keep it to yourself. That's ok.
Unless I'm missing something, nobody (maybe Jorge) is profiting from Winstep themes, so not sure I understand the push back.

If you aren't already familiar, take a look at Rainmeter's approach to skinning. It's open, encourages customization and giving credit where it's due. From an individual user perspective, the community encourages using the program and skinning it as you see fit for your personal use, whether you choose to share your work or not. Many do share, though, to highlight their work and drive creativity across the community. There's nothing wrong with that.

I don't profit from any theme, at least not directly - not even those themes I actually paid good money for (e.g. Office, Evolve, DarkTech, etc, and they're not cheap) and then made available to everyone for free.

The only profit I might have is totally indirect, i.e.; someone buying the Winstep application because they like a theme. But even then they are paying for the application, not the theme.

You're missing a hell of a lot - the entire point, in fact. No, nobody is profiting from themes directly, except the programme of course in that those obsessed with eye-candy are encouraged to register by having a great variety of themes (which, at present, we don't of course, partly no doubt due to the lack of a ThemeBuilder or manual for 9 or 10 years). Skinnable apps like Winstep (as if there are any half-feasible others left!) depend on a regular supply of new themes to flourish. However, it is a complete disincentive to create themes in the first place if users are then completely free to, bluntly, f*** about and change it beyond any recognition so that it becomes utterly ugly, and destroy its intended design functionality. This completely destroys the point of themes/skins and of creating them in the first place. In that case, we might as well just forget about skinning as such and stick with the generally bloody ugly and sometimes relatively unergonomic default themes we have at present. Fine by me, skinning is fast dieing out anyway, in case you haven't noticed.

As for 'keeping themes to yourself', well, I think a lot of people might do just that. And I'm certainly tempted , too, and not to do any new themes then. Wouldn't bother me in the slightest, I can very happily live with just one theme here. My only reason for developing themes for Winstep is that I'd like to contribute to a - hopefully - growing number of themes so as to further the appeal of the app. After all, I've been with the programme since the beginning and would like to see it continue to prosper.

There is of course another aspect to the whole skinning thing and 'nobody profiting from themes'. When all is said and done, we live in a capitalist society, and any kind of work should have its just financial reward. And no, I don't mean that developers should pay skinners, rather, that themes/skins should be purchased by users at whatever rate the market will bear, and be properly licensed. In a way, we skinners are some of the most stupid people on the planet by freely and willingly giving away our labours for nothing. Whether someone skins 'just for fun' or whatever is besides the point - the moment another person/corporate body starts using the products of somebody else's work it most decidedly should be paid for and fairly. (Another reason why I think the whole free software thing is idiotic, but that's another matter altogether.)

Comparing Rainmeter (which I also happen to use) and Winstep is like comparing apples and oranges - they're both fruits (and the former both are apps), but that's as far as it goes. And Rainmeter's skinning is lightyears apart from that of Winstep - a completely different beast. But no matter. In terms of skins being free, it's still the same situation (albeit Rainmeter itself being free software) - it's completely ignoring the fact that we live in a capitalist system. Whatever die-hard hippy imbecile came up with the idea of 'free' software and 'free' themes/skins should have been strangled at birth so his brains couldn't get fried in the first place, if there were any to begin with.

Sure, if like me you were with personal computers from the very beginning, then yes, nobody bought or sold software. You swapped programmes you'd written with others who had something else you needed or used bulletin boards. But, it was a wholly different situation then. Generally, it was a fair exchange, rather than giving things away for free. That's why many of the early users either only ever used pirated software or else even became pirates themselves when, eventually, commercial software came along. Paying for commercial software just seemed all wrong to us back then, being used to the swapping principle. But by then, operating systems and programmes were becoming so complex that it just wasn't feasible anymore for everybody to just roll their own and swap.

Some of course were the misguided souls who started the 'free software' thing. In a capitalist system, that is sheer idiocy. And so is 'free' skinning (and with no control over your product either).

You wasted your money there Jorge, at least IMO and by my tastes - "you woz robbed mate!"

No, at present I doubt you profit from themes even in the remotest indirect way, given the dearth of new ones over the last 9 or so years. But when there are lots of new themes coming along steadily, you do indirectly as this provides many users with an incentive to buy.

As for punters paying for the app and not the theme, well, exactly, there's the crux of the matter. As I pointed out elsewhere here, we live in a capitalist system, and it is therefore fundamentally wrong for anybody to give away their labour without fair and just recompense. As I said already a few eons ago, punters should have to purchase themes/skins separately. But we skinners seem to be fundamentally very stupid, giving away the fruits of our labours willingly and freely.

But of course, given that the whole skinning scene has almost entirely imploded, I'm not sure how feasible it would really be to sell themes/skins. (WC tried it with so-called premium skins for WB, but I doubt even they had much luck there even back then.) I can't see it work now, except perhaps in exceptional circumstances.

But it certainly isn't any kind of incentive for skinners to produce skins if they then have zero control even over how they are seen when first installed.

You know where I (obviously) stand regarding this, but let me add the following: there is no 'free lunch', somebody ALWAYS has to pay, be that in money or in work.

But by the same token, nothing is ever offered for 'free' either, even the person putting his software or themes out there for free gains something: if not money, it's the recognition and admiration of others, the pleasure of doing a creation and sharing it with other people, etc...

So, there is nothing inherently wrong with 'free'.

It ONLY begins to become wrong when the effort needed to create/maintain that something being offered for 'free' becomes completely disproportional to the rewards.

This is where the vast majority of creators of free applications inevitably stumble: as their creations become more and more popular, the demands on their time increase proportionally. At some point those demands begin to interfere with the creator's ability to make a normal living, or even begins to actually cost HIM money. At this point he has a hard decision to make: either abandon the project, pass it to others (very few do this, and even when they do the project normally dies) or make the rewards proportional again by turning it commercial (at this point many of his die hard fans and admirers become his worst enemies).

Failure to make the switch results in termination of the project, with all its consequences: we have the recent example of RocketDock, its final demise after many years in limbo took down with it its own gallery and thus the amazing work of thousands of users. All this because Punk Software were not willing to go to the next step - and thus all that amazing work, all those millions of men hours invested in those themes, icons, etc, is now gone forever. Wasted.

Anyway, free can also be used to make money FROM OTHER RELATED THINGS. For instance, some 'free' applications are adware and their creators make money from adverts in the applications themselves (or they entice users to buy another product). Others, like the free version of Nexus, are used like 'marketing tools'.

What is ABSOLUTELY WRONG is the expectation some users have that everything should be free and that it's ok to pirate anything, when they themselves would NEVER be willing to invest their time (and money) on creating something for others to use (assuming they even had the skills and ability to do so).

Indeed, I do know, Jorge. You're right, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Except of course, when there is a free lunch. Or at least a free starter or dessert, or coffee or brandy. Free themes/skins fall into this category, of course.

No, no, no, and no. Recognition, admiration etc., the dubious 'pleasure' of sharing or of creation, that's all a load of meaningless tosh while we are living in a capitalist, consumerist, monetarist system. Personally, I couldn't give a shiny sh**e about any of that. It's still giving your labour for free. Zero real, tangible gain.

In a capitalist world, it is fundamentally and inherently wrong and even downright immoral. In many such instances, it deprives others of fairly paid work (though there's rarely a 'fairly paid' anywhere, of course).

OK, let's still talk themes for a moment. You well know how much time it takes to create a new theme from scratch. First, there's the planning and - if you do it properly - preliminary design etc. etc., then there's the actual producing all the bitmaps (I never use anything that I don't create from scratch myself - OS themes excepted of course) and finally putting it all together, to be followed by testing, possible corrections, even possible 'back to the drawing board' and start over on at least some part or other, and then more testing. That is a hell of a lot of time, and if you added it all up it can easily amount to a few weeks of solid work, even for a fast worker like myself. (ISTR you mentioned Renato [?] typically taking a couple of weeks elsewhere?) And I'd call that entirely and even obscenely disproportionate to any such dubious 'rewards' as you mentioned. (Unless you're using it to market your design and GFX skills and/or artistic ability if that's your bag.)

Absolutely. They become more hated than poor old Bill G. ever was by their die hards.
Their fundamental error lay in not recognising that they live in a capitalist world from the beginning.

Sure, but then in reality they are not really 'free'. They're like 'BOGOFs' - 'Buy one get one free' - at supermarkets, basically a lie, to put it no stronger than that. As we already agreed, there are no free lunches.

LOL! True. It is just as wrong as giving one's work away for free. But, that is again a symptomatic transgression of a capitalist system. When large corporations, small companies and sometimes even small businesses can and do get away with whatever they can, then some or even many at the consumer end of the spectrum will feel entitled to try and get away with whatever they can.

Capitalism isn't fit for purpose, it isn't working (except for the very rich and the super rich), but that's what we have and we have to deal with it and try and make the best of it while it lasts.

That's my point. Themes/skinning can drive purchases, which is your intent as the developer. All the eye candy in the world can't make up for functionality which, by the way, is actually the only reason I use Winstep.


Thanks for clarifying your point. Your response stands on its own merits. Some clarification...

In an online library of original skins, I don't think that would even be an issue.

I noticed and jumped off that train long ago.

Isn't wanting Winstep to prosper a reason for opening skins up to customization? One would think that a gateway to more business; maybe not a lot, but more.

And just so we're clear, I'm not advocating for free, open-source everything. Nor am I advocating for disrespecting and/or abusing people's intellectual property. I'm advocating for potential approaches that may help the long term viability of certain programs I use and enjoy, including Winstep.

I agree. Eye-candy can and does help sales, albeit less so today perhaps than it used to in the heyday of the skinning scene. And yes, functionality's the thing, and my main reason for having adopted the programme from the beginning. Of course, the original motivation for the programme in those days was to be able to have some of the look and feel, as well as some of the functionality (i.e., shelf and dock) of the NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP OS, of which I was a long time user both on NeXT hardware and Intel. But then, quite soon when we still only had NextSTART, skinning/eye-candy came to assume at least equal importance if not more so, which I always regretted to some extent. But, this was the height of the skinning/eye-candy scene and from a developer's point of view it made thorough commercial sense.

Maybe not, but then, we skinners were daft enough to supply skins free and without restrictions from the very beginning. And of course, the majority of skinners being thorough (sh)amateurs with adolescent urges to show off etc. and couldn't really give a toss what happened to their work and subscribed to any old crap ideas that were thrown at them. Bunch of hurrah-Henries trying to over-compensate for low self esteem. ::grin::

LOL! Good for you. Personally, I don't really care for it, and I'd be happy enough to live with Winstep's functionality in a simple NeXTSTEP look. Pure functionality in a no-nonsense yet visually appealing OS style. In fact, that's exactly what I normally have in my personal setup. (Although, I must admit that I absolutely hate the Windows 10 appearance, but I'll live with it.) The reason why I went into skinning I've already stated, and given that I have backgrounds in design, fine art, digital art and some programming, it was something that came easily.

No, having skins with certain restrictions would not make much if any difference. They'd still be contributing to the increased visual appeal of the app by increasing the number of skin choices available, and users always have the choice of using another skin.

Basically, I would go so far as to say that if people want to mess with a skin, they should create their own and that changing a skin's appearance in any way, shape, or form completely defeats the original idea of skinning. Which was/is, to provide a defined appearance that users could choose from. Now I have not tried any more recent skinnable apps, but those that I looked at or used say up to about a dozen years ago or so certainly didn't give users the option to change a theme around according to their whim, and Windowblinds still doesn't. The user picks a skin and likes it or lumps it. Plenty more fish in the sea. That's choice enough for anybody, surely. Too many choices are are never a good thing, in anything. Neither, for that matter, is the "the user is always king" principle.

Say that, as a developer, I develop an app that is meant to do certain things in a certain way. Top priority of course is that the app does what I intend it to do and does so effectively and as efficiently as possible. Next, I have to design it in the first place to be as ergonomic and easy to use as possible. All that accomplished, a user wants to do things differently that would completely change the ergonomics, style and even efficiency of the app. Do I then say, 'the user is king' and bend over backwards to accommodate him? Hell no, of course not. I may even tell him to go forth and multiply.

In the same way, as a skinner, personally I design my skins to be as ergonomic 'out of the box' as possible, while maintaining a well-defined visual style. Do I then want a user to come along and f*** it all up? Well, hell no, of course not. Let the user use it as is or go forth and pick another skin.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. And I certainly can agree with your sentiments there. And Winstep, in the absence of any alternative, is something I would find very hard to live without, especially NextSTART menus and the shelf, and possibly the Taskbar given its very great flexibility. If I do start using it regularly in my personal setup (as opposed to theme developing setups), which I almost certainly will once it's possible for me to configure it completely, it'll replace having a dock on the desktop, serve up certain menus, and probably accommodate some metering modules. I'd really miss all that functionality.