NextSTART History (c) Copyright 1999-2011 by Jorge M.R.Coelho Winstep Software Technologies E-mail: support@winstep.net WWW: http://www.winstep.net -------------------------- Version 11.4 build 635 - New Features: * Updated Polish language file. Fixes: * Icon in the Version Information dialog had a dark gray background. * Opening native Winstep theme files from FireFox failed with an error. * Fixed issue with re-arranging Quick Launch items on the Taskbar via drag & drop. * Single .ICO files displayed in the Icon Browser dialog appeared jagged. -------------------------- Version 11.2 build 630 - March 22, 2011 - Maintenance Release Fixes: * Tooltips were not showing up over window preview thumbnails. * Hotspot hotkeys could stop working after midnight. -------------------------- Version 11.2 build 628 - March 14, 2011 - Official Release New Features: * Added Polish language file. * Added Indonesian language file. * Added Croatian language file. * Updated French language file. * Updated Farsi language file. * Updated German language file. * Glass blur for semi-transparent backgrounds on Vista and 7 is now enabled by default. * Changed UI background color so buttons no longer have ugly white border under Vista/7. * It is now possible to drag items from 'Show Running Application' menus. * Under Windows 7, Pinned applications now show up properly in the NextSTART taskbar's Quick Launch section. * Languages in the About tab of Preferences are now sorted in Alphabetical order. +++ Release * You can now drag files over taskbar window thumbnails - after half a second the associated window is restored and brought to the foreground. * The Customize/Font Manager dialog can now also set text colors for inactive menus. * Added two extra messages to help troubleshoot when registration fails for some reason. * Thumbnail Window Previews can now be skinned. +++ * Added troubleshoot warning that pops up if Comctl32.ocx is not installed correctly. * Theme wallpapers that are not set to tile are now automatically set to stretch. Fixes: * Fixed problem preventing the application from being registered with a serial number. * The 'Exit' button in Preferences was not being translated when switching languages. * The Glass blur effect was not being correctly applied when the menu was rolled up. * Application was not being high DPI virtualized on Vista/7 with high DPI (150%) when starting up. * Remove from Menu, Insert New Menu Item, Make Tab from Folder and Show Container context menu actions where not working if the currently selected language was any other than English. * It was possible to initiate a drag & drop operation on a menu simply by mousing over the menu with the left mouse button already pressed (i.e.; menu was not detecting that the operation was not being initiated in the menu itself). * Fixed some major issues with high DPI virtualization on 7 and Vista. +++ Release * Hotkeys were being activated even if the Shift key combination wasn't an exact match (for instance, CTRL+1 would also activate if the user pressed CTRL+SHIFT+1) * After beta 1, selecting a new language in NextSTART would select the wrong language in WorkShelf. * When changing a Theme via NextSTART, WorkShelf Desktop modules attached to the NextSTART taskbar would become detached. * Colors set using the Customize/Font Manager dialog were not being saved into the theme. * Fixed an issue that could cause NextSTART to stall for a while after installing a new font if another application was not responding to broadcasted messages. -------------------------- Version 10.9 build 603 - October 13, 2010 - Official Release New Features: * Added Chinese Simplified language file. * Added Bulgarian language file. * Added Korean language file. * Updated Dutch language file. * Updated Spanish language file. * Updated Norwegian language file. * Added an Exit button to Preferences. * The Windows taskbar no longer reserves screen space when hidden. * Added 5 new menu opening animation effects: Fire, Flare, Heal, Explosion and Magic. Fixes: * Quick Launch items added to the NextSTART taskbar via the right-click context menu 'Add New Quick Launch Item' option, were disabled by default. * Sometimes restoring a maximized window that was minimized would make it lose the maximized status. +++ * Fixed some problems with reserving screen space in beta 1. * Should have fixed a problem with system tray icons not being visible after a reboot. * The Start Button right-click 'Associate to Windows Start Menu' option will now not appear if the hotspot assigned to this action has been disabled. * A hidden taskbar was being restored with the auto-hide status on. * Restoring NextSTART settings was causing NextSTART to become unstable and crash. * Quick launch icons might not be restored properly after a restore or a reset. * Restoring from Preferences was not correctly applying the theme used on the backup. -------------------------- Version 10.6 build 589 - July 13, 2010 - Official Release New Features: * Added Serbian language file. * Added Slovak language file. * Added MKV thumbnail support. Changes: * The 'Fonts' button in the Themes tab of WorkShelf Preferences was renamed to 'Customize'. * Capturing WorkShelf Desktop modules to the NextSTART taskbar was broken. * Missing translations in the Shutdown, Log Out and Restart Windows confirmation dialogs. Fixes: * Under Vista NextSTART could crash with an 'Array fixed or locked' error when double-clicking one of the special Vista system tray icons. -------------------------- Version 10.4 build 583 - April 29, 2010 - Public Beta 3 New Features: * Windows thumbnails of tasklist menus now pop up immediately. +++ * When switching to a different language in NextSTART, the language in WorkShelf changes automatically to match. * Text colors and Text Effect colors for the current theme can now be changed in the dialog that pops up when you click the 'Customize' (previously 'Fonts') button in the Themes tab of Workshelf Preferences. Fixes: * Fixed 'This Array is Fixed or Locked' crash that could occur on Vista systems when mousing over one of the Vista system tray icons. +++ * The Language Manager no longer uses the English language file to perform an unnecessary English to English translation when the currently selected language is English. * Fixed bug in the Task Exclusion and Task Customization lists which prevented properly editing and removing items in them. +++ * The Task Icon Customization, Task Exclusion and Snapshot Exclusion list dialogs were not enabling the Remove and Edit buttons even though the first item was selected when opening the dialog. * It was still not possible to remove certain Task Icon Customization items. +++ * Hotspots were not being translated when switching languages. * System Tray and Media Player sub-menu entries in menus were not being translated when switching languages. * The Media Player Menu was displaying the wrong icons. * Right clicking a Media Player Menu item was displaying an empty context menu instead of displaying nothing. * Fixed issue in which the taskbar and hotspot buttons could stop responding after running a full screen game. * After Applying a theme without clicking Ok, selecting a different theme in the Themes tab in Preferences would make NextSTART revert to the previous theme. -------------------------- Version 10.3 build 557 - March 25, 2010 - Public Beta 2 New Features: * Added 'Monitor' sub-menu to the Taskbar context menu. * The Update Manager can now notify the user of, and install, new Language files. * Added new menu type that displays the contents of the Windows system tray. * Hostpots can now show a menu displaying the contents of the Windows System tray. * Vertical taskbar can now be resized horizontally. * Added option to set the System Tray button to the left or right of a floating system tray. +++ * Added option to display the full contents of the system tray on menus, regardless of the current Windows setting. * Added option to display the full contents of the system tray on the taskbar, regardless of the current Windows setting. * The Icon Browser dialog now displays a large 128x128 icon image when dealing with a single icon file. * Reorganized right-click context menus in order to be more consistent between different item types. +++ * Added option to keep the Windows taskbar visible even when NextSTART task management is enabled. * Added options to set the direction of an expanding floating tasklist. * Added options to the the direction of the system tray expansion. +++ * Internal Commands are now sorted alphabetically in the Hotspot Properties Editor and in the Menu Editor. * You can now drag the taskbar by left clicking any area that not the tasklist and the system tray while pressing ALT. * The 'Browse Container' context menu option of a shortcut now browses the folder containing the target of the shortcut instead of the folder holding the shortcut (just like 'Show Container' opens the target folder as well). * You can now change the attributes of Virtual Shell Items in pre-built menus via the Menu Entry Properties Editor item that now shows up in the context menus of Virtual Shell Items. * The 'Browse' context menu option now opens a sub-menu instead of first closing the context menu. * The WinAmp Internal Commands have been renamed to 'Media...' and are now able to control the Windows Media Player as well. * Added 'Expand Right', 'Center' and 'Expand Left' options to the context menu of the control button in a detached systray. Fixes: * Added Swedish language file. * Added Farsi language file. * NextSTART is now able to launch Microsoft games on the Start Menu in 64 bit systems (previously it returned an error). * Clicking on the 'Select Area' button to define a hotspot area would make a new Hotspot wizard appear immediately after defining the area. * The 'Select Area' feature was not properly assigning hotspot coordinates on multi-monitor systems. * Showing or Hidding Desktop icons wasn't working properly under Windows 7 after applying a theme in the Windows Personalize dialog, and the wallpaper could become corrupted. * It was no longer possible to define a hotspot opening a menu showing the contents of a virtual folder. * Pressing Apply in Preferences did not apply changes made to Hotspots. * Our old Logitech 64 bit Setpoint friend was still corrupting some objects in NextSTART (like the system tray window). * The Tasklist Groups menu overlapped a vertical tasklist positioned at the left side of the screen. * Under certain conditions it was possible to change the type of a menu at the root of the menu tree. * Fixed some issues with resizing and re-positioning a floating taskbar. * The system tray button would sometimes retain the Vista Glass blur effect while attached to the Taskbar. * The system tray is now centered to the system tray button when floating. * Fixed several issues with vertical taskbar. * System Tray button set to transparent while attached to the taskbar was not becoming transparent at startup. +++ * Memory was being leaked every time a shortcut pointing to Windows Installer was resolved. * Under Vista, the systray mouse over popups of system icons now appear at the proper place instead of always above the Windows taskbar. * Should have fixed the problem that caused all objects to pile up at one corner of the screen. +++ * Fixed NextSTART crash in last beta because of the new system tray when exiting Preferences. +++ * Fixed a couple of systray positioning and sizing problems on the taskbar. * The system tray was not reacting fast enough when expanding or collapsing it. * Vista system icon mouse over popups in the Systray were no longer appearing. +++ * Reserved screen space was being updated while resizing the taskbar and not just at the end of the operation. * Setting the system tray not to show was also making the Windows taskbar visible. +++ * It is no longer possible to manually select 'Virtual Shell Item' in the Item Properties Editor, Hotspots Editor, Menu Editor and Hotspots Wizard. * In the Menu Editor 'Run as Administrator' appeared as 'Run as Another User' under Vista and above. * NextSTART could crash when dragging an item from the taskbar to a menu if this caused a sub-menu to open automatically. * Thumbnails of some files were showing up blank (transparent). * NextSTART could crash under certain circunstances when closing a window via the thumbnail close button. * Fixed an issue disabling hotspots via the check boxes on the left panel in Hotspot Preferences. * Fixed issue with Systray positioning when detached from the taskbar. * Systray expand button was backwards. * The Hotspot Item Properties Editor was opening the folder browser instead of the file browser for 'Program' item types. -------------------------- Version 10.1 build 537 - Feb 11, 2010 - Public Beta 1 New Features: * New User Interface with multi-language support. * Under Vista and above, semi-transparent hotspot buttons on the desktop and floating tasklist and systray button now also apply Glass Blur. * New Hotspots Wizard. * New Menu Editor. * The system tray size is now independent of the Windows system tray size. * Changed the icons for NextSTART menu items. * Themes now offer 'live' previews. * You can now change just the wallpaper from the Themes tab. * Added a Wallpaper lock setting to the General Preferences tab. * Icon sizes for Quick Launch Items, Menus, Taskbar buttons and Hotspot Desktop buttons can now be set freely instead of locked at specific intervals. * Maximum icon Size for the tasklist and Quick Launch icons is now 64 pixels. * Maximum icon size for Desktop Hotspot buttons is now 255 pixels. * Moved the Middle Click Emulation setting to the Advanced Settings dialog in the Advanced Preferences tab and added some missing settings to this dialog. * Added a Fonts button to the Themes tab in Preferences which opens a dialog from where you can change all the fonts and text effects used in the current theme. * Added a right click context menu to the system tray button. +++ * The user can now select if pressing a Shift key is required to initiate drag & drop on a menu in the Advanced dialog of the Advanced Preferences tab. * The system tray button background can now be set to transparent when the button is attached to the Taskbar. * The XP Systray Expand/Collapse arrow (and Windows 7 Show Systray arrow) now have their own bitmaps (the Taskbar collapse and Expand bitmaps are still used if the new bitmaps do not exist on the theme): ShowSys.ico/png/tif - Expand system tray ShowSysM.ico/png/tif ShowSysP.ico/png/tif HideSys.ico/png/tif - Collapse System tray HideSysM.ico/png/tif HideSysP.ico/png/tif Under Windows 7 only the Expand System tray bitmaps are used and are automatically rotated so any arrow points up instead of sideways. Otherwise you can also provide Windows 7 specific bitmaps: ShowSys7.ico/png/tif - Expand system tray ShowSys7M.ico/png/tif ShowSys7P.ico/png/tif * To prevent diagonal movements with the mouse pointer (to reach grouped window thumbnails) from triggering another task button on the way (which dismisses our current group of Windows thumbnails and replaces them with the thumbnail(s) for the button we accidentaly just moused over), thumbnails do not switch until the pointer has been over the same thumbnail for at least 100 ms. * Menu animations are now strictly per-user settings and cannot be changed by switching to a different theme. * Deleting items from the Quick Launch area now also displays a confirmation dialog. * Delete Item confirmation dialogs can be switched off. +++ * The Quick Launch area is now able to accept and resolve shortcuts to virtual shell items. * You can now drag the Windows Recycle bin to the Quick Launch area and use it to delete itens via drag & drop into the QL button. * Made some improvements to the Icon Browser dialog. * Dragging an item over the Start Button in the taskbar for over half a second now automatically opens the NextSTART menu. * At least under Windows 7, NextSTART is now able to list most Control Panel items in a menu on x64 bit systems. * Under Windows 7 right clicking the system tray control button now also gives you access to the panel used to configure which icons appear on the system tray. * Got rid of the Monitor settings for the floating tasklist and systray which are no longer necessary. * Simplified the Taskbar hide, collapse and activate methods. * Taskbar hide animation is now much smoother. +++ * Renamed the 'Taskbar Screen Position' option in the Taskbar right click context menu to 'Taskbar Settings' and moved it to just before the 'Tasklist Settings' option. * Added 'Tasklist Actions' dialog to 'Tasklist Settings' in Preferences. * Added 'Lock/Unlock Tasklist' command to the tasklist settings context menu. * Added 'Lock/Unlock System Tray' command to the system tray button context menu. * Inserted blank space between object names and their font properties in the Font Manager dialog. * In NextSTART you can now right-click and drag, which results in the menu 'Create Shortcut Here/Copy Here/Move Here' appearing when the file is dropped. * The Themes Manager in Preferences now automatically saves thumbnails of the theme previews, which are later displayed when browsing themes in menus and dialogs. * Added a 'Restore File Associations' button to the Troubleshoot dialog to restore Winstep theme and license key file associations. Fixes: * The tasklist menu would constantly bring minimized windows to the foreground if the menu auto-dropdown setting was enabled. * The tasklist menu was displaying 'flashed' task list items with a close button. * Fixed a few Internal Command icons that were not displaying properly under Vista. * The hotspot Select Area window was being shifted from position. * Task icons of groupped windows belonging to 64 bit applications were not being displayed properly. +++ * Quick Launch buttons being dragged were bleeding 'magic pink' for icons with an alpha channel. * When dragging an item over a menu with sub-menus, the sub-menus were too quick to open automatically. * The 'Show Tasklist Tooltips' option now only affects text tooltips, not the window thumbnails. * Fixed a serious bug in the previous betas which caused the wrong taskbar sections to be selected. * The folder browser dialog popped up pointing to the wrong folder. * The 'Perform this action when NextSTART runs' setting in the main hotspots wizard page was not being saved. * Hotspot hotkeys were being set to 'None' when NextSTART restarted. * Fixed icon remanining on screen when performing a drag & drop operation that resulted in a prompt requiring user input to complete the operation. * 'Hide the Tasklist' and 'Hide the Systray' settings were not working properly in private beta 3. * Some systems booted so fast that the Windows system tray was yet to be populated when NextSTART started, resulting in NextSTART falling back to the old system tray capture method (not compatible with Windows 7). +++ * The icons of some shortcuts were not being resolved properly when dropped into NextSTART. * Under Windows 7 it was not possible to dismiss the systray window by clicking somewhere else on the desktop. * The Detach Tasklist and Detach System Tray settings were not being applied. * Thumbnails of folders in Vista and above no longer appear as jagged icons. * Document and Video thumbnails with alpha channels should now be displayed properly. * The Theme live preview displayed a default NeXT-style menu after going to the Wallpaper section and then back to the Themes section. * Fixed problems with the position of the systray components when floating. * Enabling 'Hide systray' in Preferences caused a blank bar to appear on the screen. * When changing themes the taskbar could become temporarilly multi-row. +++ * The system tray background button was not re-appearing when detaching the system tray from the taskbar if the 'Hide Button Background' setting was enabled. * Fixed Z-Order issues with NextSTART. * After editing a hotspot, the Hotspot Preferences tab cycled rapidly through each hotspot in the list. * Under Windows 7 the 'Show Windows Start Menu' internal command is now able to keep the menu in the same screen position when using Search or All Programs, although with a lot of flicker as the Start Menu tries to reposition itself back to its original position. Functional but not pretty. -------------------------- Version 9.11 build 511 - Nov 23, 2009 - Public Beta 5 New Features: +++ Beta 2 * The appropriate user language (if available) is now selected by default when running for the first time. Fixes: * Window Peek setting was not being saved properly. * Fixed a problem with Skype 4.x becoming unresponsive when clicking its systray icon. * Fixed problem where certain context menu options (such as My Computer's Manage) resulted in an error under 64 bit windows. * Shortcuts to 64 bit applications were not being resolved properly. * Logitech's Setpoint software was causing painting problems on menus, docks, etc..., on 64 bit systems. +++ Beta 3 * Fixed problems with desktop icons losing focus when being selected after raising the desktop with WIN+D. +++ Beta 4 * Fixed 64 bit redirection issues with 64 bit applications in the \Windows\System32 \ folder. -------------------------- Version 9.5 build 503 - May 21, 2009 - Xtreme 9.5 Official Release New Features: +++ Beta 2 * Added new menu selection bar skinning options to draw a frame around the selection bar. +++ Beta 3 * Added new 'Glass Bur' effect in which semi-transparent backgrounds automatically blur the see-through background under Windows Vista and above. * Added 'Colorize' effect which tints backgrounds of existing themes. * NextSTART is now able to react immediately if the user tells Windows not to hide notification icons (or vice-versa) while NextSTART is running. +++ Beta 4 * Tasklist and Task Group menus now display a close button for each task in the menu, which, when clicked on, closes the application. +++ Beta 5 * Completely replaced the systray on 32-bit Windows 2000, XP and Vista systems. This should put a stop to systray painting problems. +++ Beta 7 * The new method of displaying the systray now also works on 64 bit systems. +++ Beta 8 * The Toggle, Enable and Disable NS Task Management Internal Commands are now 'remembered' between sessions. * Renamed 'Enable NS Task Management' in General Preferences to 'Replace Windows Taskbar' * Added 'Replace Windows Taskbar' setting to the Tasklist and Systray Preferences screen. * The 'Replace Windows Taskbar' setting is now applied immediately on exiting Preferences. +++ Official Release * Added a new text effect, 'Sharp', to prevent text from becoming 'blurred' because Cleartype doesn't anti-aliase properly against a semi-transparent background. * The Startbar now also features the Glass Blur effect under Vista/Win7. Changes: +++ Beta 2 * Changed menu animation speeds again so each notch above the first is now 100 ms instead of 200 ms, i.e. possible menu animation delays are now 100 ms, 200 ms, 300 ms, 400 ms and 500 ms, opposed to the previous 100 ms, 300 ms, 500 ms, 700 ms, 900 ms. * The 'Overlap Menus by x Pixels' option now allows negative numbers and up to 3 digits. +++ Beta 4 * The Systray Clock button now takes into account any content offset balue when using the tasklist bitmap as the background. * Menu Auto Drop Down is now a per-user setting by default instead of theme dependent. +++ Official Release * The task close button on tasklist and grouped tasks menus now only shows on mouse over. Fixes: * Dragging a menu by left clicking and dragging it would fail if the mouse pointer moved too fast. * The Auto-Hide function of the systray left the systray expand/collapse indicator on the screen. * Fixed a problem where the Windows Start Menu could pop up at the wrong screen position. * NextSTART could crash with an Access Violation error under XP when browsing task snapshots. +++ Beta 2 * Hotkeys in NextSTART hotspots (such as CTRL+F9 to Refresh the Systray) could be missed if NextSTART was not the foreground application. * Changed icon path in the Item Properties dialog was not 'sticking'. * Menus mixing alpha blended skins with solid colors were not being skinned properly. * Gradient selection bars on menus with alpha blended skins were not being painted properly. * Menu frames on menus with alpha blended skins were not showing up. * Menu sub-folder indicators would use any existing inactive bitmap even if 'Use Inactive' was disabled. +++ Beta 3 * Adjusted the width of the Systray button for GDI+ systray button backgrounds and AM/PM time. * Fixed a small positioning problem with the systray background bitmap. +++ Beta 4 * Prevented re-entrancy of the menu paint routine while the menu is playing the open animation, which could cause problems. * Increased the likelyhood of 'systray recovery'. +++ Beta 5 * The 'Initializing' prompt did not feature glass blur on the window borders under Vista. +++ Beta 6 * Fixed GDI leak in Explorer because of the new systray DLL hooking into it. +++ Beta 7 * The 'blank' parts of the new systray icons now also respond to mouse clicks and mouse overs. * Shortcuts to 64 bit programs are now displayed properly on 64 bit systems. * Solved a handful of problems with shortcuts and launching 64 bit applications on 64 bit systems. * Control Panel menu is now able to display 64 bit Control Panel applets, although a handful may be missing. +++ Beta 8 * Added missing mouse double click event to systray icons. +++ Official Release * Fixed title of Tip of the Day dialog appearing as '%1 Tip of the Day". * Fine-tuned the size and position of the icons in the new system tray. * Balloon tooltips should now appear at the proper position when you click on a systray icon. * Under Win7 most of the system icon (net, volume, etc...) left click popups will now appear at the proper position. * Should have fixed a problem under XP 64 bit where 64 bit task applications were not being properly grouped. * Text with the Outline and Drop Shadow effect was ignoring the Bold and Italic properties. * The title of the groupped tasks context menu was displaying the caption of one of the windows instead of the group caption. * Fixed a couple of problems remaining with the new systray. -------------------------- Version 8.11 build 455 - Dec 9, 2008 - Xtreme 8.11 Official Release New Features: * It is no longer necessary to press SHIT or CTRL to re-arrange task buttons in the NextSTART Startbar. Just left anywhere on the task button, outside of the icon itself, and drag. * Added support for .pdf (Adobe Reader) and .ppt (PowerPoint) document thumbnails. * Quick Launch items now accept drag & drop of .PNG and .TIF icons. * The Properties dialogs for Quick Launch and Menu items now properly display PNG and TIF icons. * XP/VISTA: The taskbar now display thumbnails of grouped windows side by side. * XP/VISTA: Taskbar window thumbnails are interactive, you can left click on the thumbnail to bring the window to the foreground or minimize it if it already is the foreground window, middle click or click on the small close button to close the window, and right click to minimize the window. * XP/VISTA: Peek window support: mo using over a task window thumbnail now hides all other windows and shows only that window. * Changed the Tasks context menu to include a 'Tasklist Settings' sub-menu. From there you can set the tasklist icon size, show/hide icon labels, set the size of the window thumbnails, set task grouping mode, customize tasks, detach or attach the tasklist to and from the startbar and, when detached from the startbar, rotate the tasklist and set it to normal or always on top of other windows mode. * Increased the default size of task buttons for 32x32 and 48x48 task icon sizes. * The Capture Desktop internal command now adds the screnshot to the Recent Documents list. * Added a right click context menu to the Start Button from where you can Explore and Open the current user and all users Start Menu folders. * Remove items from the Quick Launch section now simply disables the associated hotspot instead of actually deleting it. This prevents the Quick Launch window from being automatically retrieved again from the Windows real Quick Launch folder when NextSTART runs. * Added options to open the Windows Quick Launch folder, and add new items, to the right click context menu of Quick Launch items. * Reorganized the Startbar context menu. * Double clicking the Systray Button now opens the Windows Date and Time dialog. * Added support for Microsoft Common Controls. Standard window controls now assume the default look for the installed Windows version. +++ BETA 2 * Right clicking a grouped task button now opens a menu with group and tasklist settings instead of displaying the grouped tasks menu. * Added a 'Show Desktop' Internal Command (equivalent to WIN+D) . * Changed tooltips so they have a drop shadow. * Reduced the height used by document thumbnails on context menus. * Menus now automatically display document thumbnails on mouse over - making it a lot easier and faster to identify picture and video files and removing the need to constantly right click items to see the thumbnail on the context menu. * The Peek window function now only hides top level windows. * The Themes menu now displays thumbnails of the themes. * Added 'Show Container' to the context menu of each theme in a Themes menu. * Added 'Classic' and 'Win7' Tasklist Styles to the tasklist context menu. * Added an option in Tasklist Preferences to turn on or off the Peek window function. * Some system icons were still being rendered incorrectly for icon sizes over 32x32. * Increased the rendering performance of window thumbnails and fine tuned the algorithm so the morphing animation works at roughly the same speed regardless of how powerful (or not) the CPU is. +++ FINAL * Added the Tasklist Settings menu to the context menu of the Startbar. * The window thumbnail animations were too fast and were changed to be smoother. * Added 'Associate to Windows Start Menu' and 'Associate to NextSTART Menu' options to the context menu of the Start Button. * The speed at which windows fade in and out, when using the Peek window feature, is now adaptive to the host system speed. * Windows fading in and out no longer show a nasty 'black window' flicker on systems with slow video cards. * When running Winstep Xtreme for the first time, the Auto Update prompt appears at startup but with the 'Always Ask before checking for Updates' option disabled. If the user does not enable that option, the system silently checks for updates once every 24 hours from then on. Fixes: * Fixed clicking on a task button sometimes failing to minimize an application. * Under Vista, restoring a maximized window that is currently minimized would result in the window losing its maximized status. * Some dialogs could appear partly below or above the screen edge. * VISTA: The 'Documents' menu no longer displays shortcuts that result in 'Access Denied' errors when trying to access them. * When saving a new theme, it was possible to enter a theme name with invalid characters, which resulted in the new theme folder not being created. * Fixed problem with a vertically oriented floating tasklist showing only the scroll buttons if its position was set to 'Bottom Right' or 'Bottom Left'. * Should have fixed for good (fingers crossed) the NextSTART crash that could occur when double clicking a menu folder item to open the folder in Explorer. +++ BETA 2 * The 'SubTheme' folder was not being created except when saving a NextSTART theme with sub-themed menus for the first time. * The 'Menu Entry Properties' item on context menus was not opening the properties dialog. * While Peeking into a window, some hidden windows could sometimes become visible again. These windows are now re-hidden, but, if they are being constantly updated, they might quickly flicker on and off on the screen. * Fixed problem were windows sometimes did not minimize when clicking on the tasklist or window thumbnail. * Right clicking a context or system menu no longer performs the same action as left clicking. * Fixed a problem with the Peek window function and minimized windows because of a bug on the GetLayeredWindowAttributes function in XP. +++ FINAL * Clicking on the snapshot of a grouped tasks menu would crash NextSTART with a 'Array Locked' error. * The Peek window feature was reseting the windows window minimize animation to enabled, although the user might have previously disabled himself. * Fixed small cosmetic problem with window live thumbnails in Vista. * Fixed a glitch were a click on a task button seemed to be ignored because the tasklist had entered into drag & drop task re-organization mode. * Task related context menu options like Restore, Minimize, etc, were not working in beta 2. * NextSTART could crash with an Access Violation error if the user right clicked on a grouped window thumbnail to get the task menu and then moved the mouse pointer onto another thumbnail. * Fixed a couple of problems with task context options not working properly. -------------------------- Version 8.9 build 411 - Sep 26, 2008 - - Xtreme 8.9 Official Release New Features: * Menu opening animations are now faster and smoother. +++ BETA 2 * The 'Restore NextSTART' Settings is now MUCH faster and completely imune to the old INI file 64 KB file size limitation. * Decreased the delay in showing an 'Empty' menu when trying to access an inaccessible network drive. * Changed the version number from 2.7 to 8.7 for consistency with Winstep Xtreme release numbers. +++ BETA 3 * Renamed the 'Find Files' internal command to 'Search' * Renamed the 'Standby Mode' internal command to 'Sleep' * Renamed the 'Log Out' internal command to 'Log Off' * Made several changes to the default NextSTART menu created when you first run NextSTART. * Added a 'Troubleshoot' dialog to the Global Preferences tab. From that dialog you can reset NextSTART settings, menus and hotspots back to their installation defaults. * Removed the automatic backup done on first run to preserve the default settings, which is no longer necessary because of the new 'Troubleshoot' feature. * Menus displaying special folders like 'My Programs', 'Favorites', etc, no longer display icons as shortcuts. * The special 'Show Desktop', etc..., Quick Launch icons no longer display as shortcuts in the Startbar's Quick Launch section. * Changed 'system Uptime' so it now displays 'Up x Hours y minutes' when the system has been up for less than a day. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Renamed 'Delete' in the context menu of Regular menu items to 'Remove from Menu' to emphasize the difference between file system and NextSTART menu items. * Added support for the BASIC version of Winstep Xtreme. * VISTA: The Display Properties internal command now opens the MS Personalization dialog. Fixes: * The 'Execute Item' sound effect was not playing. * NextSTART crashed on exit if 'Exit Winstep Xtreme' was selected in WorkShelf. * Drag & Drop was not working properly when the source was a NextSTART menu. +++ BETA 2 * If an Exception happened, the Exception handler was not properly disabling NS Task Management so the user could have access to the Windows taskbar in case of a crash. * Fixed problem that would cause NextSTART to crash with an Access Violation error when attempting to display a menu holding the contents of a network drive that was inaccessible. * Fixed problem with Hotspot activation and mice where the user has swapped the functions of the left and right keys. * Fixed NextSTART crashing on exit if 'Exit Winstep Xtreme' was selected in WorkShelf (again). +++ BETA 3 * 'Restore NextSTART' was broken in beta 2. * The 'Run' internal command was displaying the wrong icon under Vista. * NextSTART would crash with an 'Access Violation' error when tripple-clicking a sub-menu entry (to open it in an Explorer window) that pointed to a currently inaccessible network drive. +++ SILENT UPDATE * Added time adjusting code to prevent menu opening animations from slowing to a crawl on systems where it took more than 10ms to render each animation frame. * The Startbar was not reserving screen space properly on systems where the Windows Taskbar was set to auto-hide AND always on top. This caused the Shelf to appear under or above the NextSTART Startbar, making it very difficult to access one or the other. -------------------------- Version 4.6 build 392 - May 30, 2008 - Xtreme 8.5 Official Release New Features: * Thumbnails are now generated for .FLV (Flash) files provided a thumbnail handler for flash movies is available on the system. * The 'Show Volume Control' Internal Command now snaps the volume control to the mouse pointer in Vista. +++ BETA 3 * Turned the systray drop shadow off by default. +++ BETA 4 * Added a 'Open Folder' button to the Registration tab in Preferences that opens the License key folder in Explorer. * Added a new default hotspot, activated by CTRL+F9, to refresh the systray. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Changed the new default 'Refreh Systray' hotspot into a Quick Launch item. * The 'Recent Documents' menu should no longer momentarily 'freeze' NextSTART if one of the recent document links points to a disconnected network drive. * Tasklist menus now highlight tasks that are or were being flashed and need user attention. * Menus displaying grouped tasks now highlight tasks that are or were being 'flashed' and need user attention. * Changed the task manager algorithm to support the new task flashing in menus. * You can now drag an item over a tasklist or grouped tasks menu and, after a short pause, the task under the mouse pointer is brought to the foreground. * When dragging an object over the menu, the selection bar now follows the mouse pointer. * When dropping a file onto a menu, the item label no longer displays the file extension. Fixes: * Problem where a sub-menu would automatically open on mouseover even when auto-drop down was disabled. * 'Refresh Systray' internal command had been removed by accident. * Fixed some cases where dialogs could appear behind the parent dialog if the parent menu was set to always on top. This could effectively lock the user out of NextSTART. * The Browse dialog always popped up twice. * It was possible to drop items into a menu while modal windows were open, which had the potential to crash NextSTART or even corrupt the menu contents. * Fixed a problem where menu items pointing to files but with invalid filename characters on the name were moved instead of copied when using drag & drop to copy that item. +++ BETA 3 * VISTA: The 'Show Start Menu' internal command was displaying the current user image in the wrong location. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * The Animation Speed setting was being saved as part of a theme. * It was possible for the current user and all users folders under Programs not to be merged if the case of the folder names did not match. * Zip and Cab files dragged onto a menu were being accepted as folders under XP and above, therefore rendering the item unusable. * The 'Find' button in the NextSTART Help Browser was not working on systems with IE7 installed. -------------------------- 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.