NextSTART History (c) Copyright 1999-2008 by Jorge M.R.Coelho Winstep Software Technologies E-mail: support@winstep.net WWW: http://www.winstep.net -------------------------- Version 4.5 build 378 - February 20, 2008 - Xtreme 8.2 Official Release New Features: * An un-wanted secondary effect of hidding Desktop icons was that nothing happened when you right clicked on the Desktop. Unless an hotspot has been assigned to a right click on the Desktop, NextSTART now automatically displays the default Windows Desktop context menu. WIN9X: Winstep Xtreme now uses Aero LowRes instead of PixOS as the default theme. * It is now possible to right click on an empty menu to insert an Item. * The 'Show Start Menu' Internal Command now automatically positions the Windows Start Menu below the mouse pointer. * Added New Internal Command: 'Capture Desktop'. Saves a screenshot of your current Desktop into the Windows Desktop as a JPG file. * VISTA: Under Windows Vista the tasklist now displays LIVE task snapshots. * The Exit NextSTART/Winstep Xtreme confirmation dialog now allows the user to set if NextSTART/WorkShelf runs automatically at Windows Startup. * NextSTART is now able to expand environment variables e.g. %SYSTEMROOT%, %HOMEPATH%, etc... +++ * Changed the Winstep Xtreme folder structure for new users: program data that can be changed by the user is now stored on a Winstep folder inside the Public Documents (Common Documents) folder. This includes the Backup, AutoInstall, Export, Licenses, Themes, NeXus, NetMeter, Icons, Weather and Wanda folders as well as their contents. Xtreme theme files are automatically extracted to this new location. VERY IMPORTANT: this change only applies for 'first time' installations of Winstep Xtreme . The folder structure of current Winstep Xtreme installations is left as it is, except for the Backup and Export folders which are moved to Public Documents. * Grouped tasks menus now activate windows on mouse hover. * The Backup and Restore Settings dialog now remembers the last folder used for backup. * VISTA: The NextSTART Version Rollback, Update Manager and .Xtreme themes Manager applets are now fully Vista compatible. * The backup of the initial default configuration is now made into the \Winstep\Backup folder instead of the main application folder in Program Files. * The Backup and Restore dialogs now point to the \Winstep\Backup folder by default. +++ * VISTA: Winstep Xtreme now runs a service as LOCAL USER to perform tasks that require admin privileges (like installing theme fonts and terminating tasks running with elevated privileges). * Winstep Xtreme can now be registered by double clicking on the registration key attachment (Xtreme.wsxkey). * The Exception Handler dialog now gives the user the option to attempt to continue runing the application or exit it. * XP: If NextSTART cannot take the task snapshot of a window for 3 times in a row then it permanently quits trying for that particular window. * VISTA: The task manager is now able to Terminate (close) windows belonging to processes running with elevated privileges. * When showing menus displaying the contents of items in Network drives, the icons are 'lazy rendered' so the menu does not take too long to open. * If getting the icons for menu items before the menu is visible takes longer than 500 ms (half a second) then the remaining icons are also 'lazy rendered'. * The Groupped Tasks menu no longer removes focus from the currently active window, which, when combined with opening on mouseover, allows the window to be minimized with a left click instead of having to resort to the 'Minimize' option on the tasks context menu. * Disabled Middle Click Emulation that was on by default since most mouses have wheel buttons these days. * The 'Show More instead of scrolling' option is now on by default. * When 'Show More instead of scrolling' is enabled, the 'More' sub-menus now open MUCH faster. * On installation Winstep Xtreme now creates a shortcut to the Winstep data folder (in Vista and XP now located in Public Documents) under 'My Documents'. +++ * Reduced the height of the systray clock button by 4 pixels if the systray background is set to transparent, which also fixes the problem with the Brisa theme on VISTA forcing a startbar with a minimum of two task button rows. * Added horizontal and vertical offsets for the Quick Launch icons. Must be beetwin -8 and 8 pixels. * Added horizontal and vertical offsets for the tasklist button captions. +++ * Quick Launch icon offsets now work on icon-only QL sections. +++ * Menu icon sizes now range from 16x16 to 32x32 in 2 pixel steps. * You can now install theme fonts from the Fonts Manager dialog in Theme Prefs. * Provided a work around for a bug in GDI+ that prevented the display of fonts installed while NextSTART was running. * VISTA: the systray now displays the Vista system notification area as well. +++ * Added 'Close CDROM x: Door" internal commands, where x: is the drive letter of any CDROM/DVDROM drive(s) in the system. Fixes: * Fixed problem where copying a shortcut to a special folder menu that only acccepted shortcuts (like a 'Send To' shelf) would result in an invalid shortcut. * Empty User Defined tasklist exceptions (which could cause the tasklist not to show ANY programs) are now disregarded. * VISTA: The UAC prompt no longer appears minimized When running an item that requires elevation. +++ * VISTA: Elevated applications now minimize and restore properly. * Non-existing Quick Launch items were displaying an empty icon. * VISTA: The live task snapshots in Vista were leaking GDI handles. * VISTA: any click on a UAC prompt was interpreted by NextSTART as a top left screen edge bump. * The Hotspots Button font was not being saved with the theme. * VISTA: Elevated applications no longer show up in the tasklist without the associated exe filename. +++ * VISTA: Theme fonts are now installed properly. * Fixed problem with the WinstepXtreme applet showing a generic VB icon. * 'More...' menus were leaking memory when displaying non-file system items. * Dropping a file into a Folder type menu where a file of the same name already existed resulted in the new file being copyed with a new name instead of getting the replace prompt. +++ * Path to the Help files was wrong. * VISTA: if the theme wallpaper was JPG then the wallpaper would not 'stick' between reboots. * Fixed problem that could cause the seconds in the systray button to jump back and forth, which was annoying. * Fixed a problem that could cause the systray button and the systray collapse/expand button to 'jump' on the screen. * VISTA: The 'Show Volume Control' internal command wasn't working. * VISTA: with the Windows 'Show System FIles' setting enabled, NextSTART was merging shortcuts to special system folders with folders of the same name on a menu, which could result in an Access Denied error before displaying the real folder. * When moving a floating systray, the Collapse/Expand systray button is now also temporarily hidden instead of remaining frozen in place while the clock button is dragged. +++ * VISTA: NextSTART was not installing fonts properly. * Groupped tasks menus were bringing windows forward on mouseover instead of only when dragging items over the menu. -------------------------- Version 4.4 build 351 - November 26, 2007 - Xtreme 7.11 Official Release New Features: * Edge bumps now work when performing a drag & drop operations. +++ * The Browse for Folder dialog box now opens with the proper directory already selected. +++ * Fine tuned the tasklist update algorithm to use even less CPU. * NextSTART can now read Winstep theme thumbnails in JPG format. Fixes: * The frame around image previews on context menus was one pixel off. * Clicking on a task button to bring the associated window to the foreground and then immediately moving the mouse pointer away could sometimes cause the task button to remain on the mouseover state. * The Minimize and Maximize All task context menu options were not working properly. +++ * Fixed problem where Quick Launch icons set to show icons only might not fit verticaly on the Startbar. * Fixed problem with multiple flashing windows on the taskbar. -------------------------- Version 4.3 build 345 - September 28, 2007 - Xtreme 7.9 Official Release New Features: * Exception Error dialogs now identify if the exception occured within WorkShelf or NextSTART. * The 'Lock Startbar' option now also affects the ability to resize the Startbar. * The Lock/Unlock Startbar option now also appears on the context menu of a docked startbar. * Improved startup times. * Folder type menus now accept URLs dragged directly from the browser. * Added 'GanttProject' and 'Media Player 2' to the default snapshot exclusion list. * Increased the delay between terminating a task and the task force terminate dialog appearing from 2 to 3 seconds. Changes: * Reduced the default menu animation speed to the minimum. It's possible that the old default setting gave a 'perceived' impression that NextSTART was slow. Fixes: * .Xtreme theme packs were not being created properly and could still be recognized as zip files by IE. * The update subscription reminder was not showing up if the user was running an update released after the period covered by his license key. * VISTA: NextSTART was not hidding the orb Start Button on non-English versions of Vista. * The support email address in the About tab of Preferences had a leading space, which could confuse some email clients. * Groupped tasks menus were not displaying icons. * Groupped tasks menus would disappear if a window's caption changed while the mouse pointer was still over the task button. Windows with rapidly changing captions could make it very difficult to access groupped tasks menus. * Edge bumps would behave erraticaly on multi-monitor systems with secondary monitors at the right. * It was possible for the default Snapshot Exclusion list not to be properly initialized when Winstep Xtreme run for the first time. * When backing up settings, and if the file already existed, the confirmation dialog would pop up twice. * The begining of tasklist tooltips could appear partially off-screen. +++ * Child dialogs of the Item Properties dialog would pop up behind the parent dialog if the menu was set to Always On Top. * Fixed a problem with dragging from a sub-menu into a parent menu and the spring folders feature. -------------------------- Version 4.2 (build 339) - April 16, 2007 - Xtreme 7.4 Official Release New Features: * Theme files now have an .xtreme file extension associated to Winstep Xtreme. Themes can now be automatically imported and applied by clicking on the .xtreme file. * Added an Uninstall survey. +++ * Added a 'Show/Hide All Modules' internal command. Useful to show/hide WorkSHelf desktop modules through NextSTART hotspots. * Added a 'More Themes' internal command. Opens the Themes page on the Winstep web site which holds a list of repository sites for Winstep themes. * Added a 'Exit Winstep Xtreme' internal command to quit both NextSTART and WorkShelf, but asking for confirmation first. * Added a 'Quick Exit Winstep Xtreme' internal command to quit both NextSTART and WorkShelf, WITHOUT asking for confirmation first. * Task menus and the NextSTART tasklist are now only refreshed when stricly necessary, which should decrease CPU consumption a bit. +++ * NextSTART, when it trial mode, now updates the number of days it has been running for every day, instead of only at startup time. +++ * You can now also specify a 24x24 icon size for menus. * NextSTART should now automatically detect full screen games and videos, even when they don't change screen resolution. +++ * Should have increased a little bit the speed of text rendering with outline and/or shadow effects in alpha blended menus. * Added .xtreme file extension switches to convert .xtreme files to and from .zip and for just Importing instead of Importing *and* Applying. +++ * Because context menus are text only, on themes where menu icon size is larger than 16x16, NextSTART automatically reduces the size of each menu button when possible to just accomodate the text, since it doesn't have to accomodate big icons as well. Changes: * Changed the small 'Busy' dialog to a more 'Aero Glass' type look. +++ * NextSTART no longer warns if a specific font does not exist when loading a theme. Fixes: * The color of the systray button tooltip was still old style yellow. * Menu text positioning and lenght issues with alpha blended menu backgrounds. * Fixed problem where the Automatic Update Manager would keep prompting the user about new versions if one of the executables in the list had been deliberately deleted by the user. * The auto hide systray button now works properly even if the Windows taskbar is hidden (i.e.; the systray no longer disappears). * The auto hide systray button now only appears if this function has not been disabled by the user. +++ * If the 'EnableAutoTray' entry did not exist in the Registry, then NextSTART would not display all the systray icons nor show the uncollapse systray button. * .Xtreme theme files are now NOT automatically converted to .zip files when downloading via Internet Explorer. +++ * NextSTART would crash if any of the 'Quick Exit' commands were used. * Task menus of groupped tasks in the taskbar were not displaying task icons. * If an application was very busy, the NextSTART tasklist could sometimes display the wrong icon or no icon at all. +++ * VISTA: Fixed problem where dragging file system items into targets outside NextSTART would fail in Vista because of file permission rights. * Tooltips in NextSTART no longer display garbadge characters on non-western language systems (Russian, Japanese, Chinese, etc...) * Should have fixed systray staying behind on the screen when auto-hiding the NextSTART startbar into a screen edge. +++ * The startbar might not come automatically forward when the user clicked on the Show Desktop quick launch icon. * NextSTART could crash and remain in memory if you tried to exit it from a hotspot button using one of the internal commands. +++ * Text on sideways menu titlebars was getting cropped. * Fixed bug where, under very specific conditions, sub-menus would not align properly with vertical parent menus. * Task Snapshots and tooltips could pop up half outside the left screen edge. -------------------------- Version 4.1 (build 320) - February 6th, 2007 - Xtreme 7.1 Official Release New Features: * The Automatic Update Manager now knows if it needs to download the full or the update pak. * Added Left, Right and Top offset settings to define the area where titlebar buttons begin being positioned on menus. * Improved the taskbar's response to repeatedly clicking the same tasklist button. Previously, repeated mouse clicks on the same task button could sometimes appear to be ignored, instead of the associated window being minimized as it should. Changes: * Changed the color of the tooltips to make them more Windows Vista like. Fixes: * The menu roll down function was broken. * The text in context menus could overlap the icon area in some themes that had a specific area for menu icons. * Should have prevented NextSTART from sometimes crashing on exit. * Should have prevented the shareware nag screen from sometimes popping up on Windows startup even for registered users. * The Automatic Update Manager was crashing on Win9x systems. * Startbar single and double line section separators were not being drawn on startbars based on PNG and TGA bitmaps. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 318) - November 24th, 2006 - Xtreme 6.11 Official Release New Features: * Added a new default hotspot, which displays the main menu and is activated by bumping the top left screen corner. Changes: * Changed the flashing tasklist button sound default to 'no beeping'. Fixes: * The contents of a menu bigger than the screen could, under very particular conditions, run off the end of the menu. * NextSTART could skip some Quick Launch items when gathering them for the first time. * Fixed some potential issues with shortcuts leading to virtual shell folders not being properly added to the shelf or docks. * The 'Restore' task context menu command was not restoring maximized windows to normal size. * Copying or moving a QL item in the startbar associated to a Internal Command, would corrupt the command structure and prevent it from functioning properly. * Internal Command icons in the Hotspot Properties dialog were not being saved properly. * Wrong icon used for the 'Raise WorkShelf' Internal Command. * A bitmap could be painted incorrectly if the non-stretchable areas were larger than the destination area. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 315) - November 17th, 2006 - Xtreme 1.0 RC1 Release New Features: * New 'Raise WorkShelf' internal command that brings all WorkShelf components to the Foreground (provided WorkSHelf is running, of course). * Added thumbnail support for TIF and TIFF files. * Added support for TIF icons and bitmaps. * The Winstep Auto Update function is now an external application capable of downloading and installing any updates by itself. * The following settings are now shared between WorkShelf and NextSTART: * Internet connection Settings * Lock Wallpaper * Winstep Theme Integration * Use Common File Dialogs in Preferences * Show Tip of the Day. * The Tip of the Day dialog is now shared between NextSTART and WorkShelf, showing tips for both applications and only popping up, when enabled, once. * Added 'Cascade Windows', 'Tile Windows Horizontally', 'Tile Windows Vertically' and 'Hide/Show Desktop Icons' commands to the context menu of the NextSTART Startbar. * Added a 'Screen Position' sub-menu to the context menu of the NextSTART Startbar, which makes it easier to dock the Startbar at different screen edges. * Added an 'Update Subscritption Reminder' that goes off when your 1 year of free updates subscription expires. * Added a 'Customize Tasks' option to the context menus of tasks, which brings up the dialog where you can specify which tasks not to show on the tasklist, which to show only when the window is minimized, customize task icons and manage the snapshot exclusion list. * NextSTART now keeps an eye on the Quick Launch folder and automatically adds new Quick Launch items to the NextSTART Quick Launch section, instead of only doing that at startup. It also purges the Quick Launch section of QL items that are pointing to non-existent programs and/or folders. * Context menus no longer display icons even if the theme supports them. This is to prevent all the items in the context menus displaying all the same icon, which did not make sense. * Added a 'Browse Container in NextSTART' context menu option that allows you to browse, on a menu, the folder that contains a file item in a Regular NextSTART menu. * The NextSTART Startbar is now always visible even when the user clicks on the 'Show Desktop' Quick Launch button. * The NextSTART Systray now supports XP's 'Hide Inactive Icons' button. +++ * Changed the order of the tasks context menu so that the standard commands are in the same order as that of the Windows tasklist and at the bottom of the menu, so that the mouse pointer doesn't have to travel so much to reach them as before. * Systray 'Hide Inactive Icons' button is now centered vertically with the systray. * NextSTART and WorkShelf now share the Task mouse click actions. * Increased the systray button by two pixels to better accomodate the clock. Changes: * The default right click action on tasklist buttons is now to display the task menu rather than minimize the window. * Removed the Intro screen that was displayed when NextSTART was run for the first time. Fixes: * Using the 'Open' context menu command would always close the parent menu even if this was associated to a 'Parent Menus Stay Open' or 'All Menus Stay Open' hotspot. * Tasklist buttons set to a solid color on a non-per pixel alpha theme were not showing the correct color. * Tasklist buttons set to 'Transparent' were being rendered as if set to 'Solid'. * With the "Menu Arrow Style" set to "flat" the menu would display it right initially, but would revert it to the 3D arrows style on selection. * NextSTART would show the startbar/tasklist after exiting Preferences even if NextSTART Task Management had been disabled. * When Restoring using the button in the Global Preferences tab, the options in this tab were not being restored properly. * Fixed the problem that caused the tasklist in the startbar to be displayed outside of the startbar whenever the later was resized. * The Startbar was not reserving screen space on multi-monitor systems with a secondary monitor to the left of the primary monitor. +++ * The Systray 'Hide Inactive Icons' button could end up being displayed BEHIND the startbar if the startbar was set to 'Always on Top'. * The systray background in the startbar was not being expanded to include the 'Hide Inactive Icons' button. * The tip of the day was still being shown twice on startup. * The Auto-Update prompt was still being shown while the Tip of the day was visible on the screen. * The Auto-Update application stayed running on the background when it prompted the user to check for updates, which to all effects disabled auto-update until the next reboot. * The Collapse/Uncollapse startbar handle was not clearing the background prior to changing state. * The Systray 'Hide Inactive Icons' button would disappear if the startbar was collapsed. * The Systray 'Hide Inactive Icons' button could sometimes be stuck in the mouseover or normal states. * On single row startbars, and depending on the theme, the Quick Launch icon area might not have been displayed at all. * The Systray 'Hide Inactive Icons' button was appearing above the systray button on a vertical startbar. * Fixed some problems which the subscription renewal code. * The icon displayed on the systray button, when it was set not to display the clock there, was too big. * Fixed problem related to menu animation in which a menu or sub-menu could pop up at the top left corner of the screen instead of where it should. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 297) - September 1st, 2006 - Public Beta 4 New Features: * Added new 'Icon Size' option to the context menu of Quick Launch items. * The 'Internet Settings' dialog now also displays update information. * New 'Fast User Switching' Internal Command (Win 2000 and above only). Fixes: * Fixed an issue with the size of Quick Launch icons without a background button where the Quick Launch icons could disappear from the Startbar. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 296) - June 30, 2006 - Public Beta 3 New Features: * Tasklist bitmaps now have top and bottom tile sections. * NextSTART no longer keeps adding itself to the Registry Run section when set to run at startup. This could cause some Registry monitors to keep flagging the application. * You can now specify a Proxy Server and Proxy Port different from those specified in Internet Explorer. Fixes: * WIN VISTA: The Vista 'Start' button is now also hidden by NextSTART. * WIN VISTA: Showing the contents of the Recycle Bin returned an error. * NextSTART added 'desktop.ini' files to the top of the default main menu when running for the first time instead of ignoring them. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 293) - June 19, 2006 - 3rd Beta 3 Preview New Features: * You can now set the tasklist icon size from the tasks context menu. * Added Shift key modifiers to mouse clicks on menu titlebars: SHIFT + Left Click = Rotate Menu CTRL + Left Click = Roll Up Menu ALT + Left Click = Toggle Always On Top status SHIFT + Right Click = Open NextSTART Preferences CTRL + Right Click = Close Menu * Added a Startbar systray background. Bitmaps to use are: Sysback.bmp/jpg/PNG SysbackV.bmp/jpg/PNG Fixes: * Hotspot buttons were leaking icons and/or GDI+ objects. * The Hotspot Button Properties dialog displayed the generic PNG file icon for PNG icons. * NextSTART was not displaying layered (per pixel alpha) windows under Windows 2000. * NextSTART was using PixOS instead of Aero as the default theme under Windows 2000. * The Make Snapshot function in the Themes Manager tab was not capturing layered windows. * Sub-menu sub-themes did not share the same auto drop down settings as the main menu theme, and, worse, there was no way to set these settings. * Systray.ico was not being applied, only Systray.png. * NextSTART no longer crashes when displaying the Control Panel menu and the buggy Logitech Camera Control applet is installed on a system. * If the center section of a bitmap was larger than the destination area, then the bitmap was being cropped instead of stretched. * Dragging a task button around to manually re-position it on the tasklist did not work on PNG based tasklists. * An empty tasklist would leave artifacts on the screen if using PNG files for task buttons. * Shortcuts are no longer automatically resolved when dropping files into folder type menus, which would cause the actual files to be copied/moved instead of the shortcut itself. * Fixed serious GDI resource leak in the tasklist in which 2 GDI handles were leaked everytime a new window was opened. * Unzip was not honoring sub-directories, which caused themes with individual bitmaps for sub-menus to overwrite the main bitmaps and setting files when importing themes. * When you load a per-pixel alpha theme for the first time that uses one or more fonts not yet installed on your system, these fonts are automatically installed as normal. However, because of a bug in GDI+, the fonts will not be recognized until NextSTART is re-started, which can cause all text to be missing. From now on, when this occurs, Arial will be automatically used instead, and the proper font will be used when NextSTART is re-started. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 288) - May 31, 2006 - 2nd Private Beta 3 Preview New Features: * Quick Launch items are no longer widely spaced when set to show icons only. * Items retrieved from the Windows Quick Launch area are no longer stored as shortcuts but as the actual files. * Any shortcuts dopped into NextSTART sections are now resolved first so NextSTART points to the actual files instead of to the shortcuts. * Systray button now supports PNG backgrounds and icons. Fixes: * Tasklist bitmaps could not update when changing themes. * Setting tasklist buttons to 'Transparent' would crash NextSTART. * Titlebar Button Preferences was not displaying nor storing the correct settings. * Hotspot button menus could be partially obscured by the hotspot button if this was set to be always on top. * The use of PNG files for mouseover and active/pressed states of Tasklist buttons, Start Button and Quick Launch buttons was broken. * The Export to Zip function was not working properly. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 285) - May 26, 2006 - Private Beta 3 Preview New Features: * After flashing, a taskbar button now retains the 'Mouse Over' look until you click on it or the window is brought to the foreground. * Added 'Delete' option to an Hotspot Button context menu. * Added 'Duplicate' option to an Hotspot Button context menu. * The title of hotspot button context menus now displays the associated Hotspot Number within brackets, just like the context menu of Quick Launch buttons. * You can now set the z-order of an Hotspot button through it's context menu. * Hotspot buttons now have their own Properties Editor, from where you can set most options related to it in a single dialog. * You can now set specific tasks to only appear in the tasklist when they have been minimized. * You can now re-order tasks by CTRL+Left Click a task button and dragging it into a new location within the tasklist. * The Grouped tasks menu can now optionaly open automatically on mouse over. * You can now have a separate sub-theme for sub-menus and the main menu, by checking the 'Enable Sub-Theme' checkbox in the Skinning Preferences tab. Fixes: * Hotspot Buttons were not displaying indexed icons (i.e.; "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll,35") * The Hotspot number in the Hotspot Preferences tab is no longer reset to zero when you click on the Preview button. * Task snapshots were not being positioned properly on vertical tasklists. * Dragging the Startbar would disable tasklist mouseovers until the user clicked somewhere on the startbar. * Moving the Startbar or applying any setting in NextSTART Preferences would make the tasklist temporarily revert to non-grouped mode when it was set to 'group similar'. * The Shake animation option would cause menus not to appear at all if running a NON per pixel alpha theme. * Task Snapshots were leaking GDI resources if snapshots were shown in quick sequence, one after the other. * NextSTART Preferences no longer comes forward when you click on another NextSTART element or when a tooltip/window snapshot pops up. * Fixed some issues with certain UI elements not appearing enabled or disabled when they should in the Task User Defined Icons dialog. * Hotspot Buttons no longer come forward when you click on another NextSTART element. * Grouped task items now display a proper window snapshot even if the window is minimized. * CTRL+Left Click dragging an item from the NextSTART Tasklist was not using the proper Data Type. * Hard Coded themes (i.e.; themes bound to specific menus and/or hotspots) were not working. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 284) - May 2, 2006 - Public Beta 2 Emergency Update Fixes: * The date of a new release could not be obtained on non-English systems. * The Auto Update window would disappear as soon as the user clicked on it, making it impossible to set the number of days that should elapse before the user got another update available warning. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 283) - May 2, 2006 - Public Beta 2 New Features: * You can now use PNG files to customize tasklist icons. * Added a Back button to the NextSTART Help panel. * Made sure System Menus cannot be saved by mistake. Changes: * Changed the position of icons in hotspot buttons. Unless user-specified, the size of hotspot buttons now takes into account not only the size of the icon as well as the left and right non-stretchable areas of the bitmap. The icon is also offsets horizontally so it doesn't overlap the left tile area. Fixes: * NextSTART was not clearing the previous theme's bitmaps in the Startbar if and Tasklist if the new theme failed to provide new ones. * NextSTART was NOT automatically using the normal version of a bitmap if the user specified MouseOver and Pushed-In Start button or Quick Launch states in Preferences but then forgot to include the bitmaps. * Task context menu actions could potentially be applied to the wrong windows. * Some issues with the opening and closing of Task Context menus. * System menus (menus created by NextSTART instead of the user) might potentially appear on the list of available menus and could crash NextSTART if they were selected in the Menu Editor. * NextSTART's version of the Windows Open and Save common control dialogs could create problems with Stardock's Enhanced Dialog utility. * The Hotspot Button font size property wasn't being saved properly, which caused it to have extremely large values when a theme was loaded. * Hotspot buttons where the user didn't specify button size could have the icon appearing un-centered on the button. * Hotspot buttons where displaying the normal bitmap instead of the mouseover bitmap after being clicked on. * NextSTART was failing to restore the Windows taskbar and systray on exit, if ANY task management internal command was issued or if a switch between a theme with a startbar and another without occured. * NextSTART was not un-hooking itself from the system wide Shell Hook, which could cause potential problems or even crashes. * Potential name conflict between system menus and user defined menus. * Potential malfunction when deleting menu items. * If a docked startbar got to be smaller than the space reserved by the Windows taskbar, later increasing its size did not make WorkShelf occupy a new position above or below it. * Horizontal menus might not be painted properly, dependent on the size of the menu button bitmap. * The right menu text offset has been increased by 10 pixels for per pixel alpha menus because text was still running over the end of the menu (because of different GDI and GDI+ point size issues). -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 268) - April 25, 2006 - 4th private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * Added a 'Overlap Background' option to the menu selection bar. This option is useful when you are using per pixel alpha bitmaps for the menus: with it disabled, the background of the selection bar bitmap is erased before being applied to the menu (so the selection bar bitmap fully replaces that space). With it enabled, the bitmap is instead painted on top of the current background, which can be useful when the menu button bitmap is being applied to the whole menu and, therefore, you want parts of it to 'show through' the selection bar. You must be careful because alpha values from the background and selection bar bitmap will be 'added' to each other. * New Hotspot Button skinning Preferences panel. Hotspot buttons can now use their own bitmaps and will use the taskbar bitmaps by default, as always, if none are specified: Hotspot.bmp/jpg/png HotspotM.bmp/jpg/png HotspotP.bmp/jpg/png * Hotspot buttons can now use PNG file bitmaps as background (i.e.; are per pixel alpha transparency enabled). * Task Snapshots now pop up instantaneously after the first delay. * Hotspot Buttons now accept PNG files as icons. * You can now set the icon used by a Hotspot Button by dragging & dropping an .ico or .png file into it. * NextSTART can now do gradients and use solid colors on per pixel alpha menus. * The NextSTART Startbar now supports per pixel alpha transparency. * Added support to vertical text on vertical titlebars of per pixel alpha menus. Changes: * Changed method used to 'capture' the tasklist, systray and WorkShelf desktop modules onto the Startbar to make it compatible with layered windows. * Moved the menu arrow and command symbol skinning settings to an individual Preferences panel. * Moved the Selection bar skinning settings to an individual Preferences panel. * Moved the Startbar Section Separator skinning settings to an individual Preferences panel. * Re-organized the Skinning Preferences tab. Fixes: * Prevented windows that constantly change their caption bars to reflect some setting (e.g.; GIMP, eMule) from having snapshots taken all the time. This could be very annoying because the window is forced to redraw, every time a snapshot is taken, to prevent screen artifacts. * WorkShelf Desktop Modules were not being captured properly into the NextSTART Startbar. * The Tasklist snapshot and tooltip no longer flicker on and off every couple of seconds. * The left tile of a menu button bitmap could be drawn with the incorrect size. * Prevented Mouse Wheel scrolling when the menu is rolled up. * Prevented menu position being reset when the menu was dragged and repainted. * Dragging a rolled up menu now causes it to automatically adjust its size to the new screen position when un-rolled. * When clicking on the Start Button or a Quick Launch button, the button now displays the mouseover state until the pointer moves away. * A tasklist detached from the Startbar could lose it's always on top status. * 'Detach Systray From Startbar' wasn't working. * New Hotspot buttons were not immediately shown when pressing OK in Preferences. * Menus are no longer automatically unloaded when clicking on a skinning Preferences window, which helps preview any changes you make if you leave a menu open while accessing Preferences. * Hibernate Internal Command was executing a Standby instead. * When saving a theme NextSTART now copies PNG files as well. * The 'Tile Bitmap' settings in the Quick Launch Skinning Preferences were being ignored. * The Start Button now always respects the Startbar inner edge offset, instead of trying to center itself in the first row, which prevented it from being aligned with the top Startbar edge. * Vertically resizing the Startbar could cause it to shift upwards or downwards. * Resizing the Startbar using an edge above or below a Quick Launch button could cause that button to be activated once the user let go of the left mouse button. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 265) - April 13, 2006 - 3rd Private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * Added an option to specify the size of thumbnails in context menus as well as an option to control if thumbnails are displayed or not to the Menu Preferences tab. * Moved everything related to skinning NextSTART to it's own new tab in Preferences. * Changed the method used to display modal dialogs in Preferences so that CPU usage no longer goes up to 100% while they are being displayed. * Dialogs related to skinning NextSTART now open faster. * Added an 'Opacity' sub-menu to a task's CTRL+Right Click menu. There you can set the opacity level of an application, either 25%, 50%, 75% of 100% (fully opaque). * Added 'Fade-in' effect to the task snapshot. changes: * Changed the tooltips font to Tahoma. * Changed the bitmap used as the background of task snapshots. * Maximum text width in a menu is now also determined by the sub-menu arrow offset even when that menu has no sub-menus. This allows you to have per-pixel alpha menus with drop shadows at the right without running the risk of text overlapping the menu's right edge. * Changed the default Task Snapshot size to Large. Fixes: * Fixed low-quality, blurred, text when ClearType was not enabled. * The 'Use NeXT style File Browser' option wasn't working. * Selection bar alpha was being added to the menu's alpha instead of overwriting the value. * Thumbnails of video files were not being rendered properly on menus with per pixel alpha. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 262) - April 5, 2006 - 2nd Private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * Added options in the Tasklist and Systray Preferences tab to set if task snapshots are displayed or not and define the snapshot size. * Added options in the Tasklist and Systray Preferences tab to detach the tasklist and systray from the Startbar. This options do essentialy the same as disabling 'Tasklist' and 'Systray in the Startbar Sections part of Startbar Preferences. Changes: * Moved settings related to the tasklist and systray in floating mode (i.e.; when detached from the Startbar) into a dialog of its own. * Changed the thumbnail rendering code. It is now faster and does not fail on some thumbnails as the previous code did. Fixes: * WinstepXtreme.exe would run NextSTART v3.x instead of v4.0. * GDIPlus.dll is no longer installed on XP systems since it is already part of the OS. * The task window snapshot function now forces a window to repaint after taking a snapshot from it. This should take care of some window refreshing problems caused by the snapshot function. * The tasklist snapshot feature could crash NextSTART on some XP systems. * Text rendered on per-pixel-alpha transparent windows was transparent on XP Systems with ClearType disabled. -------------------------- Version 4.0 (build 247) - March 31, 2006 - Private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * Implemented all the necessary code changes to make NextSTART part of Winstep Xtreme. * NextSTART can now accept PNG files as well as icons. * NextSTART menus now support per-pixel alpha transparency through the use of PNG files. Menus retain the old bitmap filenames, except that they now accept .png files as well as the old .bmp and .jpg formats. * NextSTART now pops up a small initializing splash screen on startup. * Added a new dialog that pops up when there is a new version available. This dialog not only displays version and release date information as it allows you to temporarily dismiss the notification for up to 15 days. * Smoother menu animations on XP and above systems. * Added new 'Ripple' menu animation. * NextSTART can now display thumbnails of image and video files in that item's context menu. * NextSTART now only enumerates running tasks when windows are created or destroyed, instead of every second. This should save a few cycles. * Pressing CTRL+Right click on a task button will now open the task's context menu. * NextSTART right click context menus now also display owner drawn context menus, such as 'Send To' and 'Open With...'. Since these type of menus are owner drawn, they will not be skinned. * On XP systems, besides displaying the tooltip of a task in the tasklist, NextSTART can now display a snapshot of the actual window as well. * Added 'Move' and 'Size' commands to the context menu of tasks. * Task List Menus now support all the functions of the Tasklist, including CTRL+Right click to show a task's context menu and user-specified mouse click actions (i.e. see Mouse Settings in Global Preferences). * Added two new items to the task's context menu: 'Change Task Icon' and 'Add to/Remove From Snapshot List'. * Added Proxy support. When connected to the Internet via a LAN, NextSTART now uses the Proxy settings specified in the Connections tab of Internet Explorer. Changes: * Changed 'Don't show this message again' in the Ask to check for Updates dialog to 'Always ask before checking for updates' to prevent users from thinking that un- -selecting this box would disable new update checking. * The delay on spring folder sub-menus (i.e.; automatically open a sub-menu when dragging an item over it) is now tied to the menu auto drop delay instead of being fixed at 2 seconds. * Because the spring folder delay is now tied to the auto drop delay, these last controls are no longer disabled in Preferences when Menu Auto Drop down is turned off. * Changed the User Defined Task Icons panel to include the Snapshot exclusion list. Fixes: * NextSTART no longer interprets double clicks with the middle mouse button as a normal left button double click. * The 'Don't show this message again' option in the Ask to check for Updates dialog always showed up un-checked. * The tasklist tooltip took focus away from the currently active window. * If NextSTART was installed without WorkShelf and there was a new update available, it would open the WorkShelf download page instead of the NextSTART download page. * The security descriptor for the critical section mutex was nor properly initialized, which would cause a delay of up to 30 seconds for NextSTART to load on Win9x systems. * Some item types (such as folders) where not properly converted when dragging items from NextSTART to WorkShelf and vice-versa, resulting in things like dropping a folder and getting a in-shelf clock module. -------------------------- Version 3.41 (build 236) - January 30, 2006 - Official Release Fixes: * It was no longer possible to re-arrange menu items even if pressing the SHIFT key, the item was always copied. * Menus that turned Inactive by becoming semi-transparent could momentarily be displayed as a black rectangle while the new sub-menu opened (the larger the sub-menu, the longer the parent menu remained black). Now you should, at the most, get a flicker lasting a fraction of a second. * Z-Order (Always On Top) problems: the Startbar/Tasklist and Hotspot buttons could under certain conditions lose their Always On Top status. * If you chose not to display the Systray, NextSTART would show a gray bar at the top of the screen on startup. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 232) - December 5, 2005 - Official Release Changes: * If the Automatic Update Notification window is disabled but the auto update function enabled, then NextSTART checks for updates every 24 hours instead of every week. Fixes: * Should have fixed the intermitent problems with WorkShelf overlapping the NextSTART Startbar or jumping to the wrong screen position when changing themes. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 229) - November 23, 2005 - Public Beta 7 New Features: * Added a 'Disable Taskbar Beeping' option to the Sound and Animation tab in NextSTART Preferences. This prevents NextSTART from beeping while flashing a tasklist button. Fixes: * Re-positioned the NextSTART control window which could still be visible on some multi-monitor configurations. * NextSTART now waits for the resize of the Startbar to be complete before updating the reserved screen area. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 227) - October 18, 2005 - Public Beta 6 New Features: * Auto Update can now optionally check for new beta versions. * Customizing a task's icon in WorkShelf now automatically customizes the same task's icon in NextSTART. Fixes: * NextSTART was not reserving screen space at the right. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 226) - September 15, 2005 - Public Beta 5 New Features: * Added new 'Select Item' sound effect. Fixes: * The Reserved Screen Space area was not being updated when capturing WorkShelf modules caused the NextSTART Startbar to resize. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 222) - September 12, 2005 - Public Beta 4 New Features: * Added a 'New Folder' entry to the context menu of items in menus pointing to folders. * Added Auto Complete to all Filename edit boxes. Changes: * Renamed 'Use Windows File Browser' to 'Use NeXT style File Browser' and made NextSTART use the Windows Common File dialog by default. Fixes: * NextSTART warning that a specific font was not installed when in fact it was. * If Hotspot 0 was a button, disabling NS task management (and therefore hiding the NextSTART startbar) would fail to automatically display the button on the screen as it should. * Selecting 'Show Special Folder' in the Item properties dialog box did not automatically make the item label reflect the Special Folder name. * If an item in a Regular Menu pointed to a folder or Program that no longer existed, right clicking it would have no effect, thus making it impossible to edit or delete the item from the menu without having to resort to the Menu Editor. * Quick Launch Refresh setting was not being saved properly. * Context menus could sometimes terminate with an item separator instead of a valid context menu option. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 221) - August 30, 2005 - Public Beta 3 Release New Features: * Added a 'Refresh' option to the Quick Launch section in the Startbar tab of NextSTART Preferences. When enabled, NextSTART scans the Windows Quick Launch folder on startup and automatically adds any missing/recently added Quick items. * The Menu Item Properties Editor now allows you to create new empty menus, thus enabling you to bypass the Menu-Editor. * Added Initialization Mutexes so NextSTART and WorkShelf do not initialize at the same time, which could spell trouble under certain conditions. * NextSTART can now capture WorkShelf desktop modules into the Startbar as icons, so that Theme changes do not affect their size and, therefore, the size of the Startbar. * Added an option in the WorkShelf Sections of the Startbar Preferences tab to capture WorkShelf desktop modules as icons instead of their advanced skinning format. This prevents wild Startbar size changes when switching themes. * Added option to specify the size of the WorkShelf Desktop module icons in the Startbar. * You can now select a theme in the Theme Management tab of NextSTART Preferences and apply it by clicking on the OK or Preview buttons at the bottom of the panel. This takes care of a common mistake - and a big source of confusion - for first time users, who would do just this instead of clicking on the diskette button and would then be terribly surprised because nothing happened. Users are always right! * Added support for the 'Browse in NextSTART' context menu entry in WorkShelf. Changes: * Removed the 'Multi User' option. NextSTART is now always Multi-User aware (i.e. each user has his own NextSTART settings), just like WorkShelf. * Moved 'Disable all Sounds' and 'Disable all Animations' from the Global Preferences tab to the Sound and Animations tab. Fixes: * The New Item Properties Editor was allowing users to create entries pointing to non-existing menus, thus creating the potential to crash NextSTART. * Dialogs resulting from context menu actions on NextSTART menu items (such as Rename, New, Properties, etc...) no longer appear behind the menus if the menus are set to always on top. * Seem to have fixed the Access Violation error associated to context menus. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 211) - August 17, 2005 - Public Beta 2 Release New Features: * Hotspot buttons now also accept items dragged from NextSTART menus and WorkSHelf. Fixes: * On themes where sub-menus should open aligned to the parent's titlebar, context menus could be too short when close to the reserved screen area at the bottom of the screen. * the Single and Double line settings for the startbar section separator were both displaying a double line. * Context Menus of Hotspot buttons were broken by Beta 1. * Re-wrote the context menu code which seemed to be causing some Access Violation errors on ocasion. * NextSTART was not executing Internal Commands or applying Themes from menus. * The 'Tip of the Day' dialog could be resized. * The 'Disable Sounds' and 'Disable Animations' options in the Global Preferences tab were reversed (checked for on and unchecked for off). * NextSTART was crashing in the Menu Editor and Item Properties dialog if you selected a URL type item. * URL items were not displaying the proper icon. -------------------------- Version 3.4 (build 210) - August 13, 2005 - Public Beta 1 Release New Features: * The NextSTART Recent Documents Menu under XP no longer displays hundreds of files, but the last 15 used documents. * Added option in Global Preferences tab to control how many Documents are displayed in the Recent Documents menu. * Spring folder items when dragging (open sub-menu automatically after 2 seconds). * New 'Browse with NextSTART' right click context menu option for Program type items in NextSTART menus that point to folders (and would therefore open in Explorer if you clicked on them). Selecting Browse with NextSTART from the context menu will open a NextSTART sub-menu displaying the contents of that folder. * New 'Make Shelf from Folder' right click context menu option. Right click on a folder item in a menu and you will get an option to create a new WorkShelf shelf displaying the contents of that folder. Note that WorkShelf must be running for this command to execute properly. * Added 'New Quick Launch Item' to the Startbar context menu. * NextSTART can now automatically check for updates over the Internet. * Added a 'Check for Updates' Internal command. * Added a 'Check for Updates' item to the Info sub-menu of the default NextSTART menu. * Added a 'Tip of the Day'. * Added 'Show Tip of the Day' Internal Command. * NextSTART now accepts virtual shell items (such as the objects in Control Panel) to be dropped into menus. If such a virtual object is dropped into a folder type menu, a shortcut is created into it in the folder. * You can now drag & drop file objects from normal menus into Explorer windows. * Added support for URLs. You can now drag & drop an URL from Internet Explorer windows into a NextSTART menu. * You can now copy URLs from NextSTART menus to Explorer windows. * Added Starbar capture support to WorkShelf's new Net, RAM and Wanda modules. Changes: * Re-organized Global Preferences tab to make room for the new features. * Removed the 'Show Launch Errors' option which was no longer used by NextSTART. Fixes: * NextSTART now signals WorkShelf on exit that the Reserved Screen area has possibly changed. * Drag & Drop support between WorkShelf and NextSTART (and vice-versa) has been restored. * NextSTART always showed hidden files even if the 'Show Hidden Files' toggle was unchecked. * Fixed problem where WorkShelf modules released from the NextSTART startbar where no longer being returned to their proper position. -------------------------- Version 3.3 (build 208) - March 10, 2005 - Official Release New Features: * NextSTART now automatically disables the XP notification area feature of hidding non-used systray icons when it first runs. This XP feature is incompatible with the way NextSTART handles the systray. A reboot or log-off might be necessary for all systray icons to be visible again under NextSTART. Fixes: * Fixed irregular flashing of tasklist buttons. * The Startbar was still taking into account the size of the tasklist icons even if the tasklist was not contained in the Startbar. -------------------------- Version 3.2 (build 206) - August 20, 2004 - Official Release New Features: * Added 'Reserve Screen Area' option, enabled by default, to the NextSTART Startbar Preferences tab. When enabled, maximized windows do not cover the Startbar when it's docked to one of the screen edges. * Added'More... instead of scrolling' option into the Menu Preferences tab. When selected, instead of displaying scroll arrows a large menu displays the 'More...' option. This allows the user to display very large menus as collumns, or side by side panels. * New 'Emulate Middle Click' option in the Global Preferences tab, enabled by default, that allows you to disable the middle click emulation (Left Mouse Click+ALT key), for mouses without a middle button, if that is giving you trouble. * It is now possible to prevent NextSTART from capturing WorkShelf desktop modules into the Startbar if they are too large. Fixes: * If a hotspot button had no tooltip it would not display a context menu. * NextSTART was crashing on NT4 systems because of a bug in the multi-monitor code. * Should have fixed icons of some applications sometimes disappearing from the tasklist. * Using more than 36 hotspots would corrupt the first 36. * The transparent systray under XP is no longer automatically refreshed every 15 seconds since this could, after a while, cause Windows to pause with close to 100% CPU activity for a fraction of a second. * Middle Clicks ('Kill Task' action by default) were having no effect on menus displaying groupped tasks. * Groupped task buttons in the tasklist now also flash (W2k/XP) when required. * Systray button in Startbar would disappear after 15 seconds if the systray was larger than a single row of icons (XP only). -------------------------- Version 3.2 (build 200) - May 22, 2004 - Private Beta Release New Features: * The NextSTART Startbar can now also capture the WorkShelf desktop CPU Meter, Email Checker and Weather Modules. * The Mouse Wheel can now be used to scroll the tasklist on the NextSTART Startbar. Just click on an empty spot on the Startbar first to give it focus. * Under XP the transparent Systray no longer flickers when items are added to or removed from it and it should have less transparency rendering problems. * Under XP the transparent systray is now automatically refreshed every 15 seconds. * Taskbar buttons now flash when the application is trying to get the user's attention (e.g.; Messenger windows). Windows 2000 and XP *ONLY*. Fixes: * Wrong name displayed for groupped items on the tasklist in W2k/XP systems. * The Tasklist tooltip would sometimes fail to display. * Internal Commands flickered when selected in the Menu Editor. * Clicking Cancel after making changes in the Menu Editor (or clicking on the Restore button) did not cancel changes made to menus. * The sub-menu indicators in the Menu Editor were not being displayed. * Deleting a sub-menu item on the panel at the left of the Menu Editor did not update the contents of the right panel. * Deleting the last item in the Menu Editor would crash NextSTART. -------------------------- Version 3.1 (build 197) - March 15, 2004 - Official Release. New Features: * A small 'Busy' dialog appears when NS is applying settings or initializing. * The Startbar no longer moves out of place when reserving screen space. * Added a Find button to the Help Browser. * The built-in NeXT style File Browser now saves the current icon setting and last used path between sessions. * The NextSTART uninstaller now asks if you wish to clear NextSTART settings and delete all files (eg; Themes folder) before proceding with un-installation. Changes: * The multi-monitor list is now only refreshed when there is a system display change notification. Fixes: * A hung application could also hang NextSTART if the corresponding button on the NextSTART tasklist was clicked in order to minimize, bring to foreground or restore the application. * Power Off Monitor internal command was not working. * The Reserve Screen Area function could conflict with drag and drop operations within NextSTART. * The Windows Commond Dialog File Browser was not correctly displaying multi-file type associations (eg; "*.wav;*.mid") * When using Windows File Dialogs, the Restore option would keep prompting the user for a backup filename. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 196) - Dec 24, 2003 - Maintenance Update Fixes: * In multi-user systems the wallpaper could change between log ons. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 193) - Dec 09, 2003 - Final Release Fixes: * The menu was not rolling up properly if the menu titlebar was set to be at the bottom of the menu instead of at the top and the menu had an endcap. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 192) - Nov 28, 2003 - Release Candidate 1 New Features: * NextSTART now automatically adjusts down the number of rows in the startbar when switching themes (e.g. after using a theme in which one of the objects in the startbar was so big that forced it to resize). * Added 'Use Windows Browser' option to Global Preferences tab. The user can now choose between using NextSTART's built-in file browser or the standard Windows open file dialogs. * FileBrowser now respond to the typing of a letter and automatically scrolls to the next file whose first character matches that letter. * NextSTART now supports up to 72 hotspots (36 more than previously). Fixes: * The 'Exit NextSTART' internal commands would restart the program instead when run from a hotspot button. * The startbar collapse button mouseover was not working properly. * Icon Offsets for the tasklist were not being ignored, as they should, on a vertical, icon style only, tasklist. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 191) - Jan 1, 2003 - Public Beta 3 Release New Features: * New Internal Command: 'Rebuild Icon Cache'. Changes: * The 'No Titlebar on sub-menus' and 'Lock sub-menu width' options for horizontal menus are now skinning options instead of per user settings. Fixes: * Beta Timeout after Jan 1st 2003. * The icon size of Quick Launch items was not being saved properly. * Problem that would make NextSTART 3.0 themes crash 2.81 when loaded in that version. * If there were no Quick Launch items, the Quick Launch section would not be visible on the startbar, which would prevent it from being populated with items by using drag & drop. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 190) - December 10, 2002 - Public Beta 2 Release New Features: * New 'Show Volume Control' internal command: pops up the Windows volume control at the cursor position. * NextSTART now automatically retrieves shortcuts in the Windows Quicklaunch area into the Startbar's QuickLaunch section when version 3.0 is run for the first time. Changes: * The icon offset values in the Tasklist Skinning Preferences tab now accept negative values. Fixes: * The hotspot button/Quick Launch Properties dialog sometimes would not update the associated icon properly. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 188) - November 18, 2002 New Features: * Added Mouseover and Pressed states to hotspot buttons. The pressed state uses the tasklist's 'active task' settings. * To prevent accidental drags of the Quick Launch hotspot buttons on the startbar, they only start being dragged if the mouse moves more than 6 pixels while clicking on them. * The icon size of the Quick Launch area hotspot buttons can now be set independently of the size of the tasklist icons. Keep in mind that NextSTART will automatically increase the number of minimum tasklist rows to make sure the QL buttons fit. * Added maximum titlebar text width percentage slider - relative to the titlebar width - to the Titlebar skinning Preferences tab. This feature allows the skinner to make sure titlebar text does not overlap edge areas of the menu titlebar bitmap. Bug Fixes: * System tray was not being correctly positioned on the startbar if the startbar had large edge offsets. * A non-transparent systray would disappear from the startbar when this was collapsed. * Unchecking 'Always on top' on the Properties dialog of a hotspot button was having no immediate effect on the hotspot button itself. * NextSTART was ignoring the T.Tile and B.Tile sections of the Quick Launch hotspot button bitmaps. * The order of the Startbar sections was not being saved properly, which would make them revert to the default at apparently random times. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 185) - October 31, 2002 New Features: * Startbar sections can now be re-ordered. * Quick Launch hotspots can now be re-arranged with drag & drop, plus they can be dropped into NextSTART menus and Workshelf shelves. * Items being dragged are now semi-transparent under XP/W2k. * Hotspot buttons can now have a caption plus an height and width defined by the user. * Added 'Properties' context menu option to Quick Launch and Hotspot buttons. Opens a dialog that permits configuration of the associated hotspot. * New 'Quick Exit NextSTART' internal command to shutdown NextSTART without confirmation. * Added 'Lock Sounds' and 'Lock Animations' options to the Sound and Animation Preferences tab. These two options allow the user to set a specific sound/animation environment that is not changed by themes. * NextSTART no longer shows an hotspot button if the hotspot is also associated to the Start Button and the Start Bar is active. * Added 'Hibernate' internal command for systems that support this feature. * When running a full screen game, NextSTART no longer updates the tasklist. This prevents it from using up CPU cycles needlessly. Changes: * 'Power off Monitor' internal command is no longer available for NT/2000/XP systems since it is only valid for Win9x/ME. Bug Fixes: * Wrapped gradients could sometimes display the wrong colors. * When dragging an item over an hotspot button the button could start moving with the cursor. * The 'transparent' background option now works as intended with hotspot buttons. * The 'Run' context menu option of Quick Launch Hotspot buttons was not working if the Quick Launch button opened a menu. * Fixed positioning problems when dragging a floating, collapsed Start Bar by the handle. * The number of tasklist rows in the start bar was not being automatically saved after manually resizing the start bar. * Clicking 'Cancel' on a skinning preferences window would cause all settings modified since the last time Ok was pressed in the main Preferences window to be lost. * The alpha transparency sliders are now disabled if running under a Win9x/NT 4 system (which does not support alpha transparency). * The taskbar 'Sort by Similar' option was theme based instead of a per-user setting. * The 'Undock', 'Z-order' and 'Lock' options of the start bar where not being saved when performed through the Start Bar's context menu. * The systray button clock tooltip would show up even if the time was not being displayed on the button. * Fixed some minor positioning problems with the objects in the Startbar. * It was possible to resize the Startbar in such a way that the Start button either appeared 'cropped' or at the very begining of the Start bar. * Tasks in the tasklist were sometimes not displaying an icon or showing the wrong icon. * NextSTART could sometimes be fooled into thinking the user was still running a full screen game and refuse to activate hotspots. Moving the mouse over the Startbar, Tasklist, hotspot button or a menu now cures the problem. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 178) - September 27, 2002 - Private Beta 4 Release. New Features: * Quick Launch Hotspot tooltips are now delayed by 1 second. * NextSTART should not interfere with full screen games anymore. Hotspots no longer activate while running the game nor does the systray pop up on top of the game. Bug Fixes: * Accessing the Program Files, Documents and Favorites special folder menus could crash NextSTART on Win9x systems. * The color of the number of tasks grouped in a single task tile was not being set properly. * The Systray was not being centered correctly on a horizontal Startbar without docked WorkShelf modules. * The systray was not being displayed on the Startbar if the Windows taskbar was vertical. * Some of the per-user settings in the Menu Preferences tab were still being retrieved from themes. * Hovering the mouse pointer *exactly* on the top edge of a tasklist button would make the tooltip flash on and off very rapidly. * Changing screen resolution no longer breaks the systray transparency. * Better handling of systray transparency. * The Encap of a menu could sometimes not be painted correctly when the menu was rolled up. * Problem where NextSTART menus would refuse to pop up on monitors to the left of the primary monitor. * There was a potential situation where NextSTART could lose the theme settings after pressing Cancel on any of the skinning Preferences dialogs. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 170) - September 23, 2002 - Private Beta 3 Release. New Features: * NextSTART now releases memory more aggressively. * 'Enable Active Desktop' button on Global Preferences tab. Allows the use of Active Desktop on a system where it had been permanently disabled by NextSTART. Bug Fixes: * NextSTART should now recognize when monitors are added and removed from the system while it's running. * Showing the Monitor Dialog could crash NS on single monitor systems. * Menu title text horizontal offset was not working. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 167) New Features: * New icons for the WinAmp control commands. Bug Fixes: * Startbar could always revert to disabled if you run build 163 with the Startbar set to disabled or you disabled the startbar at any time. * NextSTART would not group or sort all similar windows, sometimes a similar window would remain 'orphan'. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 163) New Features: * NextSTART can now control Winamp. Added 10 new Internal Commmands: WinAmp Play WinAmp Stop WinAmp Pause WinAmp Previous WinAmp Next WinAmp Volume Up WinAmp Volume Down WinAmp Equalizer WinAmp Playlist WinAmp Preferences * Added new 'Show WinAmp Menu' menu type. * Startbar inner area offsets from the startbar edges. * Start Button text justification and vertical/horizontal offsets. * Hide/Collapse handle for Startbar is now customizable. New bitmaps: Hide.ico - Expanded horizontal bar handle. HideM.ico - Mouseover horizontal expanded bar handle. HideP.ico - Pressed horizontal expanded bar handle. Show.ico - Collapsed horizontal bar handle. ShowM.ico - Mouseover horizontal collapsed bar handle. ShowP.ico - Pressed horizontal collapsed bar handle. VHide.ico - Expanded vertical bar handle. VHideM.ico - Mouseover vertical expanded bar handle. VHideP.ico - Pressed vertical expanded bar handle. VShow.ico - Collapsed vertical bar handle. VShowM.ico - Mouseover vertical collapsed bar handle. VShowP.ico - Pressed vertical collapsed bar handle. * When creating a new hotspot button, it now automatically assumes the icon of the associated Program, Folder or Internal command. * Full Monitor support: User can now choose in which monitor to place the Startbar, Tasklist and Systray. Hotspot areas can now be defined in any monitor. All tooltips appear in the correct monitor. Hotspot buttons can be placed in any monitor. Startbar and Tasklist can be made to span across all monitors. * If the contents of a Folder Menu are changed in Explorer, now NextSTART automatically re-paints the menu to reflect the change. * In Windows XP the contents of zip and cab files can now be viewed in NextSTART as sub-menus if the 'Browse Zip Files' option is enabled in the Menu Preferences tab. * NextSTART no longer shows the 'desktop.ini' file in folder menus. * Added context menu to the QuickLaunch Hotspot buttons in the Startbar: Run, Delete, Change Icon. * It's now possible to abort the Magnifying Glass operation in the Hotspots Preferences tab by pressing ESC. * Added context Menu to the Startbar: Preferences,Theme,Dock/Undock, Z-Order, Exit NextSTART. * Dragging an item over an Hotspot button associated to a menu now automatically opens that menu so the item can be dropped onto it. * The Startbar Quick Launch area now accepts dropped NextSTART and WorkShelf items. * NextSTART can now capture Workshelf's desktop modules into the Startbar, which resizes automatically to accomodate. * The grouped tasks menu now displays the correct icons for the tasks. * Tasklist menus now display the correct icons for the running tasks. * NextSTART now makes sure the width of a vertical Startbar is enough to hold *all* the elements. Bug Fixes: * A multi-row tasklist could sometimes be 'missing' a task at the end. * The NextSTART tasklist was not providing enough parameters to NextSTART or WorkShelf when dragging a task from it. * Fixed some cases that could potentially result in an Error 402: 'Must close or hide topmost modal form first' being reported. * Double clicking on the name of the zip file when importing or exporting a theme made NextSTART crash with Error 402: Must close or hide topmost modal form first. * Collapsing a Startbar that spawned more the width of a single monitor on a multi-monitor system could crash NextSTART with an overflow error. * NextSTART was ignoring the 'Don't Show' tasklist setting. * Dragging a shortcut to the Quick Launch area instead of an actual file would make it display the default icon. * Opening a tasklist menu no longer disrupts a NS tasklist with grouped items. -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 156) - September 12, 2002 - Public Beta 1 Release. Added: The tasklist highlight icon feature (which works by turning the icon opaque on a semi-transparent tasklist) now highlights the text as well (if any). Added: Basic multi-monitor support. Menus and sub-menus can now be open in secondary monitors and the Startbar can reside in a secondary monitor as well (undock and drag to secondary monitor). Added: New 'Refresh Systray' internal command. Useful to refresh a transparent systray that for some reason became opaque. Most useful way to use this new command is to associate it to an hotspot and then assign a hot key to it (for instance, CTRL-F10). Added: The icon of a grouped task now displays the icon of the process running those tasks, NOT the icon of one of the tasks. Added: You can now specify which hotspot is run by the Start Button. Added: You can now customize the icon of a Quick Launch hotspot item in the Startbar by dropping a *.ico file into it. Added: Quick Launch buttons now make use of the available vertical space provided by a multi-row Startbar. Added: Lists now respond to the typing of a letter and automatically scroll to the next item whose first character matches that letter. Fixed: The systray now appears properly on a vertical Startbar. Fixed: The tasklist highlight button/icon now functions properly when either the tasklist OR the startbar have alpha transparency set. Fixed: The tasklist highlight button/icon option was not working properly if tasklist tooltips were enabled. Fixed: The icon-only tasklist was not overlapping the number of grouped windows over the task icon. Fixed: The icon displayed in the 'End Now' dialog for a hung task being terminated should now be the correct one. Fixed: The tasklist should no longer display a different task icon when that task is hung. Fixed: The Mouseover tile on the tasklist would 'stick' sometimes. Fixed: The non-stretchable sections were not being calculated correctly for the section separators of a horizontal startbar. Fixed: The Startbar collapse/expand clickable area is no longer limited to the small 16x16 collapse/expand symbol. Fixed: Tasklist was not showing the proper 'active' tile if the task in question was grouped. Fixed: Themes that did not use transparent bitmaps for the task tiles would display an ugly pink bar extending from the end of the tasklist to the right edge of the screen. Fixed: The Solid background color option for the Startbar was broken. Fixed: The sorting function of the themes listbox was case sensitive, so themes starting with a lower case would always show up at the end. Fixed: The Horizontal Menu settings in Menu Preferences were not being used. Fixed: The Version Info window still displayed 'Nextstart2.exe' -------------------------- Version 3.0 (build 154) - September 10, 2002 - Private Beta 1 Release. Added: Complete re-design of NextSTART Preferences, so that only per user settings are now top level. Skinning settings are buried one level deep. Added: New optional Startbar wich can contain the Start button (leading to Hotspot 0), a Quick Launch hotspot area, the tasklist and the systray. Added: Startbar can be floating or docked to any screen edge. When docked it can be made to extend the full width/height of that edge. Added: Startbar can collapse to a screen edge or to a handle. Support for auto-collapse and auto-activation has been included. Added: Startbar can be resized by dragging one of the edges. If not docked or locked, the Startbar can be moved by clicking on an empty space and dragging. Added: Tasklist mouse button actions can now be defined in the Global settings tab. Added: New tasklist mouse actions: Bring to front/minimize. Show a task actions menu. Minimize Similar. Restore Similar. Close Similar. Added: Pressing CTRL+SHIFT when minimizing, restoring or closing a task will perform the same action on all similar tasks. Added: You can now customize the icon of a particular task by dropping an *.ico file on it. Added: If you press SHIFT or CTRL, you can now drag a task into either a NS menu or WorkShelf. Added: Support for active (foreground) and mouseover task tiles. Added: The size of task tiles can now be specified, and the task names can be displayed on the task buttons. Tasklist buttons can be fixed width or resized dinamicly to accomodate the maximum number of tasks in the available space. Added: If there are too many tasks currently running to display on the available space, the tasklist now shows scroll buttons which allow you to scroll one row of tasks at a time. Added: Support for multi-row tasklist. Added: Tasklist tiles can now be separated by a gap. Added: Tasks can now be groupped into a single button or sorted into similar tasks (eg.; all IE windows together). Added: Tasklist transparency (W2k/XP only!). Added: The systray button can now display the time. Added: NS's task manager now prompts to terminate an application if the task is not responding, instead of just killing it. Added: Two new sound effects, one for the startbar collapsing and another for the startbar expanding. Added: When saving and loading themes NextSTART now displays the 'Busy' hourglass so it does not appear hung while performing these functions. Added: When saving a theme with 'save fonts' enabled, NextSTART does NOT save the following Window fonts, which are already installed by default on basically every version of Windows: Arial Times New Roman Courier New Marlett WingDings Verdana Tahoma Added: NextSTART now warns the user before allowing hotspot 0 to be deleted. Added: New bitmaps: TasksA.bmp/jpg : Foreground window task tile. TasksM.bmp/jpg : Mouseover task tile. Startbar.bmp/jpg : Startbar background. StartbarV.bmp/jpg : Vertical Startbar background. Start.bmp/jpg: Start Button. StartM.bmp/jpg: Start Button Mouseover. StartP.bmp/jpg: Start Button Depressed. BarSep.bmp/jpg: Startbar section separator. BarSepV.bmp/jpg: Vertical Startbar section separator Quick.bmp/jpg: QuickLaunch button background. QuickM.bmp/jpg: Quicklaunch button on Mouseover. QuickP.bmp/jpg: Quicklaunch button depressed. Added: NextSTART now warns on startup if Active Desktop is enabled, and allows the user to turn it off. The Active Desktop warning can be disabled in the Misc.Options section of Global Preferences. Added: Completely re-designed Theme Manager tab in Preferences. Much easier to select themes now. Themes can also be made to carry a preview screenshot. If the theme does not have a preview screenshot, the wallpaper is shown instead (when available). Added: Button in the Theme Manager to automatically create a theme preview screenshot. Added: You can now load a theme by double clicking on the theme name. Added: Button in the Theme Manager to open the currently selected theme in an Explorer folder. Added: Text Drop shadow and Outline effects. Added: Menu Auto-Drop down can now be made into a per-user setting. Changed: 'Register' button in the shareware nag screen now takes you directly to the Buy Now page on the Winstep web site. Changed: Bump edge delays. Wait times to activate are now: Notch 1: Immediate. Notch 2: 275 ms Notch 3: 550 ms Notch 4: 825 ms Notch 5: 1100 ms Fixed: When saving a theme with 'save fonts' enabled, NextSTART was not saving the Endcap and SepFont fonts. Fixed: Deleting a theme through the delete button in NextSTART theme preferences would usually result in a sharing violation. Fixed: Bug where the menu would sporadically not roll up properly. Fixed: If the tasklist, for some reason, cannot find an icon to display for a particular task, it nows displays the windows 'default application' icon. Fixed: The tasklist now properly displays the icons of Visual Basic/Delphi applications. Fixed: Deleted blank entry in the menu's titlebar text style.