Hi everyone, I just bought the Winstep Xtreme and I loved everything so far except for one thing that I found really annoying. It's the lack of option to dock the language bar in the NextSTART taskbar.

Well, we need the language bar to type foreign language in Windows.
There're three options to place the language bar: 'Floating on desktop', 'docked in the taskbar' or 'hidden'.



'Floating on desktop' is not that good as it covers the screen all the time... even when I watch videos in fullscreen.



'Hidden' is annoying too as it's too hard to keep track of the three variables: 'Input method', 'the language/english quick switch', 'double/single byte'



Because the nature of windows always adjusts these variables according to the current text field, it's hard to know what happens if it's hidden when the input method doesn't work (even I can use keyboard shortcuts instead)



Call me crazy but I don't know if there's a way to disable this 'auto switch' thing...

'Docked in the taskbar' is almost the best option here all the time. However, it can only be docked in the original taskbar, even if it's hidden.

You can call me crazy too if this function already exists... but I am not able to find it!

Unfortunately it is not possible to dock the Language bar to the Winstep's taskbar (and thanks for the work you must have had to explain things properly in your post).

This said, I realize how important this is - you're not the first one to complain - so I promise I will look at it and see if I can come up with a way to fix this issue.

Unfortunately it won't make it into the next release due out in a few days, but, if I come up with a solution, it might make it into the next.

Thanks for the kind reply. In the past two days, I've found a good spot to put the floating language bar which works out pretty well. I'll do just that for now

I have some very good news for you (and anyone using the language bar). Or at least I think they are good news, not so sure after paying close attention to those pictures of the language bar you posted above.

When I started looking into this my first approach was to somehow capture the contents of the language bar into the Winstep application (like it's done with the system tray icons) but I quickly realized that would not work. The language bar is not about buttons and icons.

So I turned into emulating at least the basic behavior of the language bar, and I actually got further than I thought I could: I can now list all installed languages and associated keyboard layouts, switch between them on demand, and know which keyboard layout is currently active. The fundamental building blocks of a language bar.

My idea is to turn this into a dynamic Internal Command: dynamic because the icon of the internal command shows the currently active language/keyboard layout (e.g. FRA-PT for French with a Portuguese keyboard or FRA-FR for French with a French keyboard) and refreshes automatically whenever that changes.

Clicking on the internal command icon pops up a menu displaying all the available language/keyboard combinations, which you can then use to switch to a different language.

Turning the language bar into an internal command is actually a good idea, since it means you can put it basically anywhere: on the NextSTART taskbar as a Quick Launch icon, in NextSTART menus, in docks and in the Shelf. You can even have multiple copies of it in different places, if you are so inclined.

Now, the only thing that troubles me is: is this enough?

By closely looking at the pictures you provided and from what I read in the mean time, this type of functionality is just scratching the surface. Each application can have a different keyboard layout associated to it, and the real language bar changes dynamically to reflect this, etc... I don't work with complex languages such as Chinese or Japanese, so it's hard for me to visualize how everything ties up together.

Anyway, at least for now we will have a bare bones, built-in, language bar. Better than nothing, I hope.

Okay, today I decided to download the updates and it seems that I have been missing out a lot of cool features. The input method now works exactly I want it to be. I'm really pleased because of your hard work. Keep up the good work and I'll continue to support Winstep

Thanks. Each new release usually adds a ton of useful new functionality, so it is important to keep your software up-to-date as you just discovered - otherwise you will be missing out.

Glad the language bar is working fine for you, but it still lacks that single/multi byte feature I see in the pictures you posted above. Running an English version of Windows here, I have no idea how important that is though.

Now that we can see the input method, everything becomes much easier. People will only need to know the keyboard shortcuts.

Assuming the user is using default settings....

Holding/Pressing 'shift' will allow the use of English, I think most people knows that.

Shift+Space switches between double/single byte which allows the use of some formal Chinese punctuation marks (which are in double byte), comma and full stop for the most part. Aside from formal writing, I don't think people usually need those. The real problem is, they might not know how to change it back by using 'Shift+Space' if they accidentally switch.

-------------------------------

All in all, I think it won't be a big problem under normal circumstances for most users. I might be bias though as an advanced user. But hey, people who did play full screen multiplayer games usually have experienced those kinds of problems anyway if they don't know/use English, so I assume most of them have known the keyboard shortcuts.

Thanks for the feedback!