Work continues...

Text fields for each of the modules... these are defined and stored in internal structures (including field names, type, etc), so I was able to use the same page/code for all the modules, saving a ton of work. Content on the right depends on the field type selected on the list at the left. Checked fields appear on the modules, unchecked do not.

Since I’m finally working on skinning, I’m taking the opportunity to add a few more skinning options to the existing modules. So now’s the time to speak up if there’s anything you’d like to see added - or forever hold your peace. You have been warned, lol.

Once I go back to focusing on functionality over looks, it’s very unlikely I’ll revisit this anytime soon.

Shared page for the modules with meters (bar, histogram, gauge and multi-image).

After this it's the pages for module specific settings and the WorkShelf/Nexus Ultimate/Nexus Theme Builder is done - and on to NextSTART.


In the mean time, some AI generated images for the Theme Builder announcement... which do you like best?

I liked this image. But perhaps you could create a function to select a theme from several images?

Missed one image:

I prefer the first one (Handwriting bridges INI and Theme Builder.png).

I like that one too - it has everything to do with the subject at hand - but also the construction one above.

Perhaps I'll the first in the Winstep Xtreme announcement page and the other in the Nexus announcement page.

In the mean time, Module skinning for all modules is basically done too, still tying some loose ends... This last part has been going much faster than expected in many ways thanks to AI assistance.

With that all of WorkShelf/Nexus Ultimate/Nexus skinning is done.

Currently tackling the menu skinning options in the Theme Builder.

What seemed like a relatively straightforward process - titlebar, menu body/buttons, endcap - is actually anything but.

The first hurdle is that this is truly ANCIENT code, some of it going all the way back to NextSTART 1.0 and 1998. Initially, menus did not use bitmaps, only solid colors and gradients, and you only had vertical menus.

As the application evolved, more and more skinning possibilities were added on top of what was already there. Each addition had to preserve compatibility with existing themes.

NextSTART menus are also surprisingly complex. You can have separate themes for main menus and sub-menus, each supporting active and inactive appearances with their own bitmaps and settings - but SOME settings remain shared between those states.

A menu may or may not have a titlebar or endcap. It may or may not have titlebar buttons (most themes these days do not). The titlebar can run horizontally across the menu or vertically along its side. And, as the cherry on top, the menu itself can be vertical or horizontal, with horizontal menus opening vertical sub-menus (and the user can actually rotate a menu from vertical to horizontal, whether the menu theme was made with that in mind or not).

Some settings and bitmaps are specific to each orientation, while many others are shared. Since there was never much demand for certain combinations, those variations never evolved into fully independent configurations. Parts of the implementation are consequently a bit half-baked and buggy - but fixing those bugs now could have unintended consequences for legacy themes that actually rely on them to display correctly.

The Theme Builder still has to accommodate all these variations and present them in a way that makes sense to the user/skinner. You can't just dump every setting onto a page and leave the user to discover how everything works through trial and error. Well, you can, but you shouldn't.

Related settings need to stay together. Incompatible options need to be disabled. Settings need explanations, and so do the relationships between them: what is shared, what is independent, which bitmap is used where, and what happens when it is missing.

All in all, this has turned into a nightmare of a project, an order of magnitude larger and more complex than I initially imagined.

I sincerely hope it will have been worth it. It does sadden me, though, that feedback is, as usual, basically non-existent. And by feedback I don't mean praise - I mean constructive criticism and ideas. What makes sense? What is confusing? What would make creating a theme easier? That is the kind of input that would help, especially while all of this is still being built.

I'm not begging for feedback, though. I'm warning that now is the time to give it. Once the Theme Builder is finished, my focus will return to functionality, and it will be too late to influence how this is organized.

This is to give you guys an idea of the complexity of the Theme Builder and the work that has gone into it... Each node in that tree view is a separate form containing skinning settings, bitmaps, explanations, etc.

Anyway, the Theme Builder is now basically complete and fully functional. Every entry in the tree has its own settings page. All that remains before I can release a beta is to smooth out the rough edges, check for bugs, etc.

Does the topic constructor cover all the topics available in the Gallery? What will happen when new topics appear? Will the user be able to add them independently, or will the topic constructor be updated by the program developer? Until the program is available to users, it is difficult to identify errors and shortcomings.

I understand how you can become disheartened when there is little reaction to your efforts, however the issue is that there are not many people who actively develop themes now and hence know what is required (and whether something is good or not).

Hopefully once the theme builder is available there may be a renewed interest in creating / modifying themes, at least by a percentage of users.

As I've stated in the past I prefer a very basic theme with the majority of desktop real estate available for application usage and frequently used application icons - even though I make extensive use of Workshelf, I still seem to have a lot of icons cluttering up my desktop!

Nevertheless now that I have a workable setup, I tend to leave it alone - there are other things that take up my time. However I will trial the builder once its available as I still haven't returned to resolving the workshelf right-click menu offset issues that we had a brief dialogue about during some earlier testing. Its not a big issue, and as I couldn't find the right setting (or at least couldn't get it to work properly) I just went with it as it was.

One thing I am curious about (apologies if you have already mentioned this) is whether the theme builder will work in a WYSIWYG manner. e.g. load in a theme, make a change and immediately (ish) see if the effect works as you thought / expect? This would be useful for a trial and error / learning approach.

This was the situation with the setting files unfortunately, no description of what each file / setting did - so it did become a bit of a trial and error situation.

Provided that the new theme builder shows all of the settings with a reasonable description then this would be a big improvement, and if it correlates these into sensible groupings / action areas then it becomes even more significant.

As new modules and/or skinning settings are added, the Theme Builder needs to be updated by the developer.

As I mentioned above, this is not simply a collection of all the available skinning settings dumped into pages, each new feature requires organization, explanation, logical layout and a new entry in the Tree View. New code must be added to deal with the new settings, etc...

In fact, I'm probably going to use the same versioning scheme for the Winstep Theme Builder (vYY.MM, or <year>.<month>) as for the main applications. This way we can always match the Theme Builder version to a specific release (and/or know when it was last updated).

This is difficult Jorge - until you have the component to test you can't determine if it works as you would expect, and this will take time to understand (especially if you have little, to no, experience of theme building).

I have viewed your screenshots of the workshelf aspects with interest, and just recently your screen shot showing some of the sections of the Nextstart Menu and Startbar controls - but the devil is in the detail, which you can't see until each of the options is available to you.