NextSTART 3.x History (c) Copyright 1999-2005 by Jorge M.R.Coelho Winstep Software Technologies E-mail: support@winstep.net WWW: http://www.winstep.net -------------------------- 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.