22.04.00 – 28.04.00

This weeks rant starts off where last weeks ends.  I recently
saw on the mailing list that someone was having a problem with a
certain program in LiteStep.  He confirmed that it was a problem
with LiteStep as it worked with an older ls build, but not with a newer
one.  The response, it’s the programs fault.  This sounds a lot like MS
to me.  What kind of attitude is this?  I am seriously doubting the
path that LS is recently taking with its removal of backward
compatibility of older mods, and this “It’s not our fault” attitude.
Think long and hard dev’s about who is using this program and what
impact your future decisions make on the userbase.

- demigod

…………………………………………….
-= Shell Specific =-
…………………………………………….

—————————
Top News Stories
—————————

- Another ‘Upgrading LiteStep’ At FPN ~ rootrider (9:33am 28.04)

“Hey, I just finished the second Upgrading Litestep tutorial
here at FPN. I would definitely appreciate it if a few of you
would go over them with a fine-toothed comb and let me know
about any incorrect information (very important), typos, etc.
Yes, I want you to correct my typos… :)

“The intended audience for these tutorials is the person who’s
just beginning to use Litestep but already knows enough about
his/her computer to actually operate it :). Thanks everyone!”

url – http://floach.pimpin.net
e-mail – rootrider@netzero.com
(source: LS Mailing List ~ Litestep Tutorials @ FPN)

+—————+

- DarkStep.com Mirror And Dev Journal Back Online (12:18pm 28.04)

Because of the recent death of the box that was serving
the DarkStep sites, mirrors have finally gone into effect.  Bob
is running the darkstep.com mirror at:

http://www.mswebdesign.com/DarkStep

and Fahim has reactivated his Dev Journal which is located at:

http://cyberian.tripod.com/

(source: Fahim/Bob via e-mail)

—————————
Modules
—————————

- Rainminder 0.6 ~ Rainy (10:04am 24.04)

“Rainminder is a Litestep plugin which can be used to display
messages at desired times. It’s useful to remind you about
important dates or perhaps just to inform that your favorite
TV-show is beginning.”

New in this version:

- Fixed respawning QuickAlarm-bug.
- Now uses initModuleEx for compability with the newer builds.
- Bang(), Execute(), PlaySound(), PrintFile() and Fortune()
supports now environment variables.
- !ActivateRainminder-Bang can now have arguments.
- Changed BangActivate() to take one optional parameter.
- Added BangText() to show the text from a
!ActivateRainminder-Bang.
- Added VariableText() to show text with environment variables.
- \n inside a text is interpreted as newline
- Added DigiColonWidth for the clock to set the width of the
colon between hours & mins
- Fixed a memory-leak when quitting (or recycling)
- FirstRun() now evaluates to true only when Litestep is
started and not when it is recycled. You can use Recycle()
for recycle-time messages.

url – http://gamma.nic.fi/~rainy/
e-mail – rainy@iki.fi
(source: http://gamma.nic.fi/~rainy/)

+—————+

- LSBox 1.0 ~ Black Hawk (4:30pm 25.04)

“From what I can tell, lsbox creates a menu from a .rc config
file that can be used to perform different commands, etc. As I
understand it, the idea is to replace shortcuts as a menu”

New in this version:

- The first one is the much requested “LsBoxAlwaysOnTop”
- The second is the also requested “LsBoxSticky”
- And the last on is the unique “LsBoxUnique”

%%UPDATE%% (9:10am 28.04)

- fixed the problems with the cfg-destroy/create function

url – http://www.blkhawk.de/
e-mail – blkhawk@blkhawk.de
(source: LS Mailing List ~ new LsBox release)

+—————+

- LSSnake 1.3 ~ MrJukes (9:12am 26.04)

“LSSnake is your basic snake-caterpillar-millipede-whatever you
call it game. The idea is control your snake, without hitting
the wall or other objects, but you keep getting longer.”

New in this version:

- !LSSnakeHide
- !LSSnakeShow
- !LSSnakeToggle
- !LSSnakeFocus

%%UPDATE%% (9:20am 28.04)

- Added rocks

url – http://floach.pimpin.net
e-mail – mrjukes@purdue.edu
(source: http://floach.pimpin.net)

+—————+

- JavaMM 0.1 ~ Headius (9:47am 28.04)

“JavaMM.dll is a module manager for java modules. With it, you
can write java classes and have them load into Litestep like
any other module.”

e-mail – headius@headius.com
url – http://modulo.litestep.org
(source: http://modulo.litestep.org)

—————————
Themes
—————————

- G Series 3.0 ~ eric418 (9:57am 25.04)

“This is G Series 3.0. This is the most complicated design I’ve
ever created.  But it’s very stable and easy to install.
Instruction on installation in detail is included. It’s one of
the most functional themes out there and it only takes very
little desktop space. I used a new design for the audio
folder groups. I don’t think anyone used this method before.
Try it!

“800×600, 1024×768 and 1152×864 version is all included in this
pack. Swap between them by LiteSpawn. Try and test this and
tell me any bugs you  found.

“Also, I just made a WB skin for it!

“Features: almost included everything

“P.S. If you have anything wanna tell me, pls leave a msg in
my msg board in my site. The reason is I always got many emails
with the same topic. I don’t needa reply to them again and
again.”

url – http://4w1r8.i.am
e-mail – 4w1r8@i.am
(source: eric418 via e-mail)

+—————+

- PLASTIK shell v1.6 ~ Brendel (11:34am 27.04)

“Ver 1.6 fixed more bugs… added lsxcommand, docks will now
explain their functions through litespeak, when clicking on the
dockmenus (this is just a test, I will enhance it in the
future). Vwm updated. I changed some gfx in the bottom bar. The
popups now look extremely cool, I put a lot of time in it. 3
Wallpapers, a windowsblinds skin, waves, an Winamp AVS preset
and the Webview are included, but the 2 bpl files for the
openGL cube must be downloaded from: www.go.to/brendel. Thanks
to all the people who helped finding bugs and giving ideas on
IRC etc. Feel free to contact me for a good idea.. and..
er…eat more LSD!”

e-mail – DAHQ@mailandnews.com
ss – http://www.litestep.net/themes/ss/i.shot.the.sherriff.jpg
url – http://go.to/brendel
(source: http://www.litestep.net)

—————————
Web Sites
—————————

- Outpost35 Changes To LCARS Central (10:01am 25.04)

Got an e-mail from J Wolfe about a LCARS review site.  If your
not familiar with what LCARS is, it is the OS that is used
in Star Trek.  From the e-mail:

“Please be patient with me as I’m building a team of reviewer
to review LCARS related development projects (of which I am
please that LiteStep is included in that group)!…:

“If you know of anyone interested, let me know..:)”

url – http://www.lcarscentral.net
e-mail – wolfboy359@earthlink.net
(source: J Wolfe via e-mail)

—————————
Misc
—————————

- Color Code Scripts ~ eric 418 (9:35am 28.04)

“I feel so troublesome when creating themes and skinz that I
want to finds the color codes or convert between hex and
decimal. So I created 2 scrips that give me a hand. One of
them will generate a table for 256 color codes in Hex. The
other script that will generate a table that convert decimal
to hex. They really speed up my work. I can just choose the
color I want for my LS theme with the script directly and
convert the hex color code to decimal with the other table for
my WindowBlind theme. Both tables are just generated by a
script with a few lines. You can just refer codes by my tables
or you can download them for your own use. Hope these will give
you a hand while you are creating themez.

“You can download or use those tables from the URL below:

http://4w1r8.virtualave.net/creation/cgi/418hex.htm

http://4w1r8.virtualave.net/creation/javascript/256index.htm

url – http://4w1r8.i.am
email – 4w1r8@i.am
(source: eric418 via e-mail)

—————————
Glossary Of Terms
—————————

- E-Variables
E-Variables allow you to set certain words aside to be used as
paths for later use in the Step.rc.  They are surrounded by
dollar signs ($) so that they can be read by the shell.  The
reason to use these is so that long paths like to Program File
directories, or paths that are used often, can be quickly
entered and edited.  An example of an E-Variable would be:
ModPath C:\DarkStep\modules\.  Then you could call to it later
in the step.rc like this: LoadModule $ModPath$desktop.dll.

………………………………

—-
Tips
—-

- Newbie Tip
Some themes come packaged with core files.  My suggestion is
to either back up or do not overwrite the core files that you
are currently running.  The packaged files may be older than
the ones you are currently running.  And as always, read the
read me that comes with the theme.

- Advanced Tip
It may not be widely known but Maduin added in a little bit of
code to the sysvwm packaged with the core files that allows
bang commands to be executed on vwm switch.  This was put in to
allow TimeWarpX’s X3 theme to work.  This small option open up
a whole root of ideas on the themeing front.

…………………………………………….
-= Beyond the Shell =-
…………………………………………….

—————————
Tweaking Beyond the Shell
—————————

- Changing the Now Starting Windows 9x On Start Up

Although this is something very small, people will still notice
it. It’s also a nice personalization to add to your system. As
always I suggest that you backup the io.sys file that we will
be editing. Your io.sys file can be found in your main root
directory.  For this hack I used uedit32 which can be found at:

http://www.ultraedit.com

Step 1 – Start your hex editor and open the copy of io.sys
that you have made.
Step 2 – Goto Search, Replace, and type in Now Starting
Windows 9x ( where x is either 5 or 8) in the Find
What box and put in what you would like it to say in
the Replace With box.
Step 3 – Goto File and choose Save
Step 4 – Reboot into the ms-dos shell and goto the directory
where you have the edited io.sys
Step 5 – Type Copy io.sys c:\io.sys (where c is your windows
drive letter)
Step 6 – Type y when prompted to overwrite the current io.sys
Step 7 – Reboot your system and watch our for you new Now
Starting line.

—————————
Interesting
—————————

- V2OS

This is an operating system written entirely in assembler.  Its
small, fast, and its open source.  Some simple gui’s have been
written for it but they are more of a dosshell gui compared
to a Windows GUI look.  The demo fits on a floppy that you
can boot into.  If your into alt os’s, give this one a shot.

………………………………

————-
Latest Builds
————-
- LiteStep
o Stable – b24.6 build 041700

o Daily – b24.6 build
Modified [LSAPI, Desktop2 / NeXTer / 04-17-00]
o LSAPI:
o Merged new code for merging images in LoadLSImage().
Thank’s to Gustav Munkby (grd) for the new code.
o Removed some old junk.
o Added the struct Message for passing messages from
the WndProc to the actual message handlers.
o Desktop2:
o Began a slight revision, to make this piece of code
adhere to a “standard style” that can be used in the
future.

Modified [Desktop2 / NeXTer / 04-17-00]
o The code is now almost crystal clear, if we can apply
this structure to the other modules, much will have
been achieved.

Fixed [LSAPI / NeXTer / 04-17-00]
o ParseBangCommand() didn’t parse the information
correctly if NULL was being passed as the argument
for the bang command.
o Also fixed a memory leak in the same function, for
good measure.

- DarkStep
o Beta – 0.969
+ Added new functions to read and write values from the
registry
+ Added installation options that query the user about
setting DarkStep as the shell the first time it is run
+ Completely revamped the core functionality so that
everything is configurable via a GUI
+ Added the ability to Import and Export DarkStep
settings stored in the registry
+ Added a GUI module manager that allows you to
load/unload/recycle modules
- Removed the !recycle !bang as well as the ability as
there is no necessity for core recycling any longer
………………………………

————-
Mailing Lists
————-

- LiteStep
To subscribe, e-mail: litestep-subscribe@litestep.ru.ac.za
To unsubscribe, e-mail: litestep-unsubscribe@litestep.ru.ac.za
Additional commands, e-mail: litestep-help@litestep.ru.ac.za

- Stuff
To subscribe, e-mail: stuff-subscribe@litestep.ru.ac.za
To unsubscribe, e-mail: stuff-unsubscribe@litestep.ru.ac.za
Additional commands, e-mail: stuff-help@litestep.ru.ac.za

- DarkStep
To subscribe, e-mail: darkstep-subscribe@egroups.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: darkstep-unsubscribe@egroups.com

………………………………

——
Errata
——

The url for the ttf font editor Softy was incorrect.  The correct
url is http://users.iclway.co.uk/l.emmett/ . Thanks to EtherMage
for finding this.