28.08.99 – 03.09.99
Well, this was quite a week. All the mess over the release
of b24.5 seems to have impacted the ls community a bit more this time
than usual. Although I’d like to really rip into some people I’m not.
I think it went on long enough and now its time to move on. We lost
a terrific programmer and person, Fahim to this. In my opinion, we
should take this as a warning and consider what we say before posting
it to the mailing list or on IRC. A lot of mud was thrown around and
some people got hit pretty hard. I’d really REALLY like to say more
but that s it, enough is enough, time to move on.
On to other subjects, some good has been coming out of this.
Some people are taking it upon themselves to actually do something
instead of just talking about it. SpiritWnd, Necro, Dice, and a few
others are taking the helm and putting together some good idea’s and
sites. Others, like Zer0x, are merrily going along and doing there own
thing without letting the mess bother them. I think we should all
take a note from them and start to make things happen instead of just
yapping about it on the list or irc. Hopefully a huge blow out like
we just had isn’t needed to make things happen like this, but we may
as well make something good out of something bad.
- demigod
—————————
TOP NEWS STORIES
—————————
- LiteStep b24.5 Finally Released (11:20pm 31.08)
Well, it finally happened. After a bunch of problems with the
installer and some unstable builds, b24.5 has officially been
released. You can go straight to litestep.com and download
this long anticipated release.
%%UPDATE%%
A Different Litestep Beta 24.5 installer has emerged at
www.litestep.org – this time produced by the LiteStep
Development Team.
url – www.litestep.com
(source: chunkymunky.com)
- Tin Omen’s Theme HowTo Posted (11:50pm 28.08)
“…I’ve posted my completed HOWTO at
http://tinomen.chunkymunky.com/how2themels.html. You no longer
have to wade through a mind-numbing pile of detail to look at
the fairly simple process in use, as I’ve implemented an
overview outline that links into the detailed descriptions.”
url – tinomen.chunkymunky.com
(source: LS Mailing List ~ Themes Standard Proposal)
- Mailing List Search (6:15pm 31.08)
“Well talking with Warewolf on irc yesterday he told me about
a search engine for the mailing list and i checked it out,
found it pretty darn spiffy…”
url – www.litestep.com
(source: chunkymunky.com)
—————————
MODULES
—————————
- V_Bang 1.4 ~ blkhawk (8:12pm 29.08)
“I have made a new V_Bar dev version available on my
web space……
It’s only an exe at the moment, because the dll – you should
guess it – crashes LS on Recycle……… ;)
“But for those who can live with something in the start menu
the dev should be sufficient… It’s rock-solid and has all
intended features working……If you want to make a skin – go
on, the skin format isn’t to be changed anymore……..”
url – blkhawk.cjb.net
email – blkhawk49@geocities.com
(source: LS Mailing List ~ V_Bar Development)
- LSXCommand 1.7.6 ~ Visigoth (8:24pm 29.08)
Documented Changes:
- Kudos section has a few new entries – check them out!
- CommandBorderSize documentation added
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed !CommandMove bug
- Fixed Working Directory problems
New Features:
- When !CommandMove/!CommandClockMove is called without
parameters, it moves to the current cursor position. I would
recommend using CommandHideOnUnfocus with this. Also, if you
!CommandMove has the parameter “home”, it moves back to the
original position found in step.rc
- Added following RC Commands:
- Command + Bottom | Top | Left | Right + BorderSize
(i.e.. CommandTopBorderSize, CommandLeftBorderSize…)
Notes:
- Be *sure* to read the CommandBorderSize documentation if
you are interested in using CommandBottom/Top/Left/
RightBorderSize
url – http://home.att.net/~gandhimail
email – gandhimail@worldnet.att.net
(source: modulo.cbj.net)
- jDesk 0.51 ~ jugg (1:52am 31.08)
“jugg has released jDesk 0.50. This version requires a dev
build from 8-25 or later. Here are the changes:
+ Added the ability to assign functionality to _both_ mouse UP
and mouse DOWN events.
+ Added the ability to swap First and Second mouse buttons
+ Added ability to disable the Third (middle) mouse button.
- Removed obsolete commands
* Changed the way programs/commands are executed. It now
conforms to the LiteStep standards.
* Improved performance of the !jDeskSetWorkArea and
!jDeskResetWorkArea actions.
! Fixed bug when changing resolutions the DeskTop window did
not resize to the new screen size.
! Fixed bug that messed up the WorkArea when putting quotation
marks around the !jDeskSetWorkArea parameters.
! Fixed bug when not using the “jDeskWorkArea” command, and
then using the combination of “!jDeskWorkArea” and
“!jDeskResetWorkArea” action commands, it would set the
WorkArea to the hardcoded settings.
%%UPDATE%%
! Fixed jDeskSwapMButtons not working
url – http://aster.omega2.com/jugg/software/jdesk/index.html
email – jugg@dylern.com
(source: #ls_help ~ jugg)
- Chimes.dll 1.0 ~ Pavel Vitis (3:06pm 01.09)
“Pavel Vitis has released a new module called Chimes.dll v1.0.
This module will play a specified wave file every fifteen
minutes. You can also specify different waves for on the hour,
half-hour, and quarter-past and quarter-to the hour. These
“Chimes” can be activated, enabled, and disabled through bang
commands.”
url – chunkymunky.com/hosted/modulo
email – pavel.vitis@seznam.cz
(source: chunkymunky.com/hosted/modulo)
- Systray 1.02 ~ Maduin (4:17pm 02.09)
“Maduin has released Systray 1.02. The only change is “minor
internal modifications.” According to Maduin, this “causes
systray.dll to broadcast the LM_SYSTRAY message when
desktop.dll is not loaded.”
url – maduin.dasoft.org
email – maduin@dasoft.org
(source: chunkymunky.com/hosted/modulo)
—————————
THEMES
—————————
- Power nIx 4.2 Web Installer ~ Zer0x (6:12pm 31.08)
“After reading some posts from a while ago and getting email
from a few newbies about how Power nIx is so difficult to
install and get working, I decided to make an installer (It’s
my first time at it too so sorry if it doesn’t work). The
installer is only about 500k which isn’t bad since my theme
is actually very large when unzipped (9mb i think) and is
fairly large when zipped up too (~2mb). The installer will
download the necessary files from my site and it’ll install
it onto the computer. You can choose whether to have a typical
setup, which is basically the core litestep and my theme files
and one wallpaper…or you can choose a custom install in
which you can choose the core files for litestep and Power nIx
and you can choose whether to d/l other wallpapers of mine or
texts files for the modules too.”
%%UPDATE%%
“The theme has a new set of popups because it’s a little
troublesome with the transparencies in my old popups and it
keeps disappearing when moving to a new menu. Also, what’s new
in the Installer: Instead of asking the user where the files
are, the installer will automatically search the hard drive
for them…”
url – http://knytearmor.simplenet.com
email – zer0x@mail.com
(source: LS Mailing List ~ Update on Power nIx Web Installer)
- YogiStep R1 ~ Yogib3ar (1:42am 01.09)
“Well folks i finally released a public theme, this theme isn’t
the coolest or have the best features. but i like it and it
suits my taste. its minimal :) and provides great functionality
for “me”"
url – www.skinz.org
ss – http://skintacular.com/sections/litestep/yogistep_r1_.jpg
email – billydog@nycap.rr.com
(source: #ls_help ~ Yogib3ar)
—————————
WEB SITES
—————————
- Modulo and LSPortal moving ~ jorje (12:43am 31.08)
“Modulo and LS Portal have moved servers onto Chunkymunky. I’d
like to thank cyber for his great hosting throughout the
summer. The cbj.net addresses will be probably be down soon,
so update your bookmarks to
http://www.chunkymunky.com/hosted/modulo and
http://www.chunkymunky.com/hosted/lsportal. Actually, these
addresses will be temporary, as you should soon be able to get
to the sites at chunkymunky.com/modulo and
chunkymunky.com/lsportal. If all that is too much for you to
handle you can always access the current pages at
modulo.home.dhs.org, modulo.tsx.org, and lsportal.cjb.net
(cjb NOT cbj).
url – http://www.chunkymunky.com/hosted/modulo
http://www.chunkymunky.com/hosted/lsportal
email – eliwitus@hotmail.com
(source: LS Mailing List ~ Modulo and LS Portal Have Moved)
—————————
PROGRAMS
—————————
- fontset 5a b1 ~ murphy (3:26pm 01.09)
“it is a dostool i’m developing since 1995. this tool is a TSR
that adds 3 more lines to the dos-screen. you can use the
lines for additional informations. they will not overwritten
while using plane dos. complete documentation is included in
the zip-file. it also feature a complete int 2fh programmer
interface!”
url – http://dev0.de/development_c_fontset.html
email – murphy@dev0.de
(source: dev0.de)
- Date & Time 1.0 with installer ~ jugg (4:31pm 01.09)
“I finally got around to packaging Date & Time into an
installer. So that is out along with the source code. It is
still the same binary version 1.0. I released it under the
same license as everything else doing with LiteStep.”
url – http://aster.omega2.com/jugg/
email – jugg@earthling.net
(source: #ls_help ~ jugg)
………………………………
—-
Tips
—-
- If you find yourself referencing the text docs that come with mods,
make a new help popup menu and point it at a help dir in your ls
dir. Using !Popupfolder or !PopupDynamic all you have to do is
recycle after droping a new text file into that dir and your good
to go.
- Want to update your core dll’s but dont want to reboot? No prob!
Open an irc client or a file manager, kill litestep, copy over the
new dlls and run litestep. In an irc client use the command /run or
/exec. Now your updated without rebooting.
………………………………
————-
Latest Builds
————-
- Official – b24.5 build 010999
Changes
- Fixed an issue in wharf.c where folders did not closed when
the Wharf was dragged around. The folders now close. (jugg)
- Added modified sysvwm src for !Bangs from staler (snowchyld)
- Preview – b24.5 build 300899
Changes
- all features of cvs-build 1999/08/30.
- with bitmap-importfilter in lsapi.dll
- key support for TAB, PAUSE and APPS key
- popup-icons can be placed with POPUPTEXTOFFSET from edge
- fixed cursormovement in popup. the submenus don’t open
automatically when moved with cursors. with mouse the will,
but you need to press the left mousebutton, when using key
before.
- return/enter opens now the subfolders correctly
- !HELP command for calling help for !bangcommands (very
unstable and resource leeking) (ex: !HELP POPUP)
………………………………
————-
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@cbj.net
To unsubscribe, e-mail: stuff-unsubscribe@cbj.net
Additional commands, e-mail: stuff-help@cbj.net
………………………………
———–
News Groups
———–
- Server news.emci.com
litestep.installation.help
litestep.steprc.help
litestep.modulesini.help
litestep.graphics.help
litestep.themes.design
litestep.themesrc.help
litestep.core.suggestions
litestep.general.coding
litestep.general.questions
………………………………
——
Errata
——
- Last week i posted about a new site LiteSpeed in the Top News
Stories section. The correct url for the LiteSpeed site is
http://members.xoom.com/LSLiteSpeed. Thanks to Yogi for pointing
this one out.