WorkShelf 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 946 - New Features: * Updated the German language file. * Updated Polish language file. * Removed 'dead' bitmaps from resource file. * Changed the default sub-dock indicator icons. * Changed the default icon used for themes with no thumbnail. * Most dock mouse over effects can now be combined with the magnify effect. * Split the Position & Behavior tab in the Dock Properties dialog into two tabs. * Re-arranged the Effects tab in Preferences. * Added a new 'Contents' tab to the Dock Properties dialog. * Moved 'Indicator Offset from Icon Reflection' to its own dialog box with preview. * Icon Spacing in the dock now has independent vertical and horizontal settings and was moved to its own dialog box with preview. * Dock transparency now has independent settings for icons and background and was moved to its own dialog box with preview. * Re-organized some settings in the Dock Properties dialog for a more logical layout. * Improved the bounce animation that occurs when launching an icon from a dock. Fixes: * Icon in the Version Information dialog had a dark gray background. * Opening native Winstep theme files from FireFox failed with an error. * It wasn't possible to change the icon of a sub-dock placeholder after editing a module in the Item Properties Editor dialog. * Section headers in the Modules Advanced dialog were not being colorized. * Icon reflections for the Zoom mouseover effect where not being cropped properly. * The 'Keep this dock visible when pressing WIN+D' setting would always be checked after a re-start. * Open Desktop modules could steal focus from some games immediately after launching, causing the game to minimize. +++ * A dock with the persistent Flare/Afterglow mouseover effects could appear partially on screen after auto-hidding into the screen edge. * A magnifying dock could suddenly appear garbled if you quickly moved the mouse pointer back and forth over it. * On beta 1, a dock at the top of the screen with the 'Do not flip background' setting enabled would magnify the icons off the screen edge. * Fixed automatic icon size problem that could sometimes occur when the dock was too large to fit on screen. * Single .ICO files displayed in the Icon Browser dialog appeared jagged. * Fixed problem with URLs dragged from FireFox which would not be saved into folders displayed by the Shelf. -------------------------- Version 11.2 build 938 - March 14, 2011 - Official Release New Features: * Added Greek language file. * Added Finnish language file. * Added Indonesian language file. * Added Croatian language file. * Updated Polish language file. * Updated French language file. * Updated Farsi language file. * Updated German language file. * Non-square icon images and document thumbnails are now displayed with the proper aspect ratio. * Added an automatic retry after 30 seconds if Weather.com returns an 'unknown error' when polling weather data. * URL files (such as shortcuts to Steam games) now show the correct icons. * The 'Delete Item' explosion animation is now smoother and twice as fast. * Glass blur for semi-transparent backgrounds on Vista and 7 is now enabled by default. * Moved dock's 'Lock Position' Nexus menu setting to the 'Screen Position' sub-menu. * Changed UI background color so buttons no longer have ugly white border under Vista/7. * Added support for the new NOOA Weather module METAR URL. * The My Computer (Drives) Shelf tab now updates automatically when adding and removing drives. * Besides the already existing right-click option, you can now also customize the image displayed by a system tray expand icon by dropping an .ICO, .PNG or .TIF file into it. * You can now use CTRL+TAB and CTRL+SHIFT+TAB to switch Shelf tabs via the keyboard, provided the Shelf has the focus. * Languages in the About tab of Preferences are now sorted in Alphabetical order. +++ Beta 2 * RAM Meter Desktop Module is now able to properly sort and display 64 bit processes using more than 2 GB of RAM on 64 bit systems. * Set the Tab order of all dialogs. * It's now possible to 'Browse', via the right click context menu, the contents of virtual folders in Internal Commands (e.g.; My Computer). * Added support for the new Help system. +++ Release * You can now drag files over taskbar window thumbnails - after half a second the associated window is restored and brought to the foreground. * Added support for RocketDock skins with negative margin coordinates. * Re-organized the Advanced dialog in the Advanced tab of Preferences. * Added a 'Thumbnail File Types' button to the Advanced Settings dialog from where you can set which document, video and image files generate thumbnails. * Changed the default clock and recycler module images so they are no longer NeXT based. * Improved usability of task window thumbnails in the dock. * Right clicking on a folder in an Explorer window and selecting Send to -> WorkShelf, now automatically creates a new tab in the Shelf displaying the contents of that folder. * Added two extra messages to help troubleshoot when registration fails for some reason. * Thumbnail Window Previews can now be skinned. +++ * Changed application icon. * Added ability to translate suffix and prefix strings used in Desktop Modules. * Added troubleshoot warning that pops up if Comctl32.ocx is not installed correctly. * Optimized handling of RocketDock backgrounds with negative coordinates. * Theme wallpapers that are not set to tile are now automatically set to stretch. Changes: * Edge bump activation when dock are visible is now turned off by default. 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. * If the dock was set to 100% transparent with opaque icons and the dock background skin was already semi-transparent, mouse movement over the dock and drag & drop operations could become erratic. * Selecting the first monitor in the Monitors right-click menu was not docking a dock to the selected monitor but instead toggled the dock position lock. * Fixed issue where deleting a Shelf tab in the Content tab of Shelf Properties was not updating the currently selected tab view. * Selecting 'Shelf Properties' from the Shelf's body context menu was opening the tab properties dialog instead. * Application was not being high DPI virtualized on Vista/7 with high DPI (150%) when starting up. * Fixed crash when mousing over a module if the current mouse over effect was 'Sonic boom' and the modules icon cache had been disabled in Performance Settings. * Customized system tray expand buttons images were not being shown unless the dock was also set to display the currently running applications. * Fixed some major issues with high DPI virtualization on 7 and Vista. +++ Beta 2 * The right click 'Insert New Dock Item -> NextSTART Hotspot' method was not working properly on docks. * The Effect 'Settings' button was sometimes enabled when it should not be. * Editing a virtual shell folder with the Item Properties dialog would break the ability to browse it's contents via the context menu. +++ Release * Under XP non-square image and document thumbnails displayed white borders. * 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) * When moving a dock from one quadrant of the screen to another, so that the background would flip or mirror, under Vista/7 the 'glass' region wouldn't always update to overlap the new background. * After beta 1, selecting a new language in WorkShelf would select the wrong language in NextSTART. * Added missing icon to Weather.com's icon set. * When switching to a new theme, a collapsed Shelf would not properly update the glass blurred region. * Fixed some minor issues with the size and position of the 'number of instances' text that overlaps the icons of running applications in groupped mode. * Windows preview thumbnails sometimes lost their 'Always on top' status just before Aero Peek, which could cause windows to overlap the thumbnails. * Groupped task icons could sometimes not display the number of running instances. +++ * Fixed application icon not appearing properly on the taskbar. * Since beta 1, WorkShelf was crashing after displaying the uninstall survey. * Fixed an issue that could cause WorkShelf to stall for a while after installing a new font if another application was not responding to broadcasted messages. * Fixed bug that could cause icons on vertical magnifying docks to appear cropped. -------------------------- Version 10.9 build 910 - October 13, 2010 - Official Release New Features: * Added Chinese Simplified language file. * Added Norwegian language file. * Added Bulgarian language file. * Added Korean language file. * Updated Dutch language file. * Updated Spanish language file. * Added an Exit button to Preferences. * The Windows taskbar no longer reserves screen space when hidden. * Added proper In-Shelf Dock management and In-Shelf docks can now be added to a regular tab in the Shelf via the right-click Insert menu. * It is now possible to insert items at the proper position via the right-click context menu when clicking in-between icons on the Shelf. * You can now right-click drag & drop in the dock to get the copy/move/create shortcut context menu. * Added option to disable the Explosion Animation, shown when you delete an item, to the Misc.Advanced dialog in the Advanced tab of Preferences. * Balloon tooltip now also displays thumbnails of document files. * Decreased the time the dock/shelf bouncing arrow identifier remains on the screen by half. * Added option not to show icon reflections on vertical sub-docks to the Advanced dialog of the Dock Properties Behavior tab. * Added 'NextSTART Hotspot' sub-menu to the 'Insert New Item' context menu. * It's now possible to dock multiple docks and the Shelf to the same screen edge. * Sub-docks can now open parallel or perpendicular to the parent dock, or always horizontal or vertical. * Sub-docks can now open automatically on mouseover with a user-specified delay. * Added 'Do Not Launch Multiple Sessions' setting to the Misc.Advanced dialog so clicking on a shortcut to an already running application brings that application forward instead of launching a new instance. To force launch a new instance, press SHIFT while left-clicking. * Added 'Show window previews (thumbnails) on mouseover' setting to the Tasks tab in Preferences. This makes window thumbnails with peek ability pop up when mousing over task icons and brings Windows 7 "superbar" functionality to WorkShelf. * Added new 'Squish' mouseover effect. * Added new 'Rotate' mouseover effect. * Added support for 3rd party dock themes with negative content offsets. * Added Squish, Spin, Sonic Boom, Heal, Fire, Magic, Flare, Wind and Water mouseover effects. * Effect settings specified in the Effects tab of Preferences are now specific to each effect. * The new particle effect animations (Heal, Fire, Magic, Flare, Wind and Water) can be colorized in the Effect Settings panel for that effect. +++ Beta 2 * New mouseover effects added to the Shelf. * Added setting to change the color of the dock mouseover label to the Appearance tab of each dock Properties panel. * Added 'Disable edge activation' setting to the Position & Behavior tab of the Dock Properties dialog. When enabled, bumping the screen edge a dock is attached to does not bring the dock forward. * Shelf Sub-docks can now open automatically on mouseover with a user-specified delay by specifying the relevant setting in the Advanced Behavior dialog of the Shelf Properties dialog. +++ Beta 3 * New animated mouseover effects are now gray-scaled before being colorized. * Moved thumbnail exclusion list in the Tasks tab to the Advanced dialog. * Moved the 'Show window previews (thumbnails) on mouseover' setting to the 'Window Preview Thumbnails' section in the Advanced dialog. * User can now specify the size of the window previews. * Added option to disable 'AeroPeek'. * Added 'Keep this dock visible when pressing Win+D (Show Desktop)' setting to the Advanced Behavior dialog of each dock. * User can now minimize the Shelf by clicking on the currently open tab header. * Icons can no longer be dropped into a dock when the 'Lock Icons' setting is enabled. * Added 'Enable/Disable Background Blur' entry to the Effects menu of the Shelf. * The Effect Settings button is now disabled for the 'Spin' effect, which has no settings. * Added 'Lock/Unlock Position' to the dock's main context menu and the synonimous 'Prevent dock from being moved by dragging with the mouse pointer' setting to the dock's Advanced Behavior dialog. +++ * Added support for the Y'z Dock format. Changes: * Increased the default range of the bounce mouseover animation. * The bounce mouseover animation no longer 'holds' the icon at the top while the~ pointer is over it. +++ * Moved the Shelf and Docks 'Z-Order' and 'Monitor' right-click sub-menus to 'Screen Position'. * Task grouping is now turned on by default. Fixes: * Empty balloon tooltip was appearing when mousing over an empty dock. * Sub-dock items were showing the main right-click Nexus menu. * It was not possible to get the Insert right click menu on an empty sub-dock. * The Shelf was auto-collapsing even when an in-shelf dock was open. * It was not possible to drag items from the Shelf to an open in-shelf dock as the in-shelf dock would close as soon as the user clicked on the Shelf. * Dock settings changed in the Dock Properties dialog were not being applied or saved if the dock was not visible. * The 'left click and hold' feature to open shortcuts to folders as menus was not working properly with the 'Windows 7 Xtreme' menu skin. * Dropping files into a shortcut to a folder in docks or the Shelf was always copying the source file to the target folder, even if SHIFT was pressed. * The 'Change Icon' button was not being disabled for the Weather module in the Modules tab in Preferences. * When dragging a shortcut over a dock, the dock would start magnifying again even if a sub-dock was open if the source object exited and re-entered the parent dock. * Double clicking the first icon of a floating icon without the Nexus control icon was causing the dock to collapse. * Nothing would happen if the user dropped an ICO, PNG or TIFF file into an empty dock or sub-dock. * Sub-docks of docks at the top of the screen would open off-screen if the 'Do not flip background...' setting was enabled. * Size of the application icon overlayed to the thumbnail of running applications is now always half the size of the icon, independent of dock magnification size. * Application icons overlayed to the thumbnail of running applications now also use the application icon (instead of the window icon) for sizes over 32x32 pixels, so they don't appear too blurred. * The magnification size slider no longer allows you to chose values lower than current dock icon size. * Assigning huge PNG or TIF files as shortcut images no longer slows down magnifying animations. * Changes to menu behavior in NextSTART (such as auto drop down, etc...) are now picked up immediately by WorkShelf context menus. * The 'Prevent maximized windows from overlaping the dock' setting is now disabled if 'Auto-hide the dock' is enabled, as in that case no screen space is reserved. * Fixed problem that could cause WorkShelf to hang when restoring from a previous backup. * Fixed bug that preventing re-organizing icons in the tasklist section of a dock via drag & drop. +++ Beta 2 * Fixed Access violation error on beta 1 when specifying Effect Settings for the Shelf. * Sometimes restoring a maximized window that was minimized would make it lose the maximized status. * Shelf tabs were not switching on mouseover if both 'Select a different tab by mousing over it' and 'Hide tabs when the shelf is collapsed' were enabled. * Under Vista and Win7, a weather module attached to the NextSTART taskbar could overlap part of it with a blurred region. * Fixed some problems with reserving screen space in beta 1. +++ Beta 3 * The sub-dock open on mouseover delay was not being properly saved on exit. * Disabling the balloon tooltip was also disabling running program's mouseover previews. * Hidden/collapsed docks would stop magnifying and auto-hidding when changing to a new theme until the Dock Properties dialog was open and closed again. * New animated effects would become cropped if the dock icon size was dynamically changed to fit all the icons on the screen. * Spin effect wasn't working properly for large icon sizes. +++ * Window thumbnails were not updated in XP unless icons of running tasks were also displayed as thumbnails. * Nexus would corrupt memory and crash if it failed to retrieve the configuration settings of a 3rd party dock theme. * It was impossible to use system tray popups if the dock popup delay was set to 0 ms. * The dock clock label displayed the date with the month and day reversed. * A hidden taskbar was being restored with the auto-hide status on. * The grouped tasks menu was sometimes displaying the wrong icon for running applications. * If NextSTART was started after WorkShelf, the Shelf would not position itself correctly. * Desktop modules based on non-alpha blended bitmaps were displaying the magic pink color. -------------------------- Version 10.6 build 887 - July 13, 2010 - Official Release New Features: * Added Serbian language file. * Added Slovak language file. * Added .MKV thumbnail support. * Decreased start up time even further. * The Nexus category in the Themes tab of Preferences now also lists 3rd party dock themes and is able to apply them to all docks. * The Dock & Shelves Manager tab in Preferences now displays the Dock/Shelf number for the currently visible docks & shelves. * The Themes Manager tab in Preferences is now also able to import 3rd party dock themes. * Added option to disable the 'Initializing' splash-screen at startup to the 'Misc.Advanced Settings' dialog in the Advanced tab of Preferences. Changes: * The 'Fonts' button in the Themes tab of WorkShelf Preferences was renamed to 'Customize'. * Moved the 'Show dock control icon' item from the main Nexus menu to the 'Insert New Dock Item' sub-menu. Fixes: * Modules on the desktop were assuming changes to module size in Preferences when switching to the configuration of a different module. * Capturing WorkShelf Desktop modules in and out of the NextSTART taskbar was broken. * Title of the Weather module context menu was not being translated. * Recycle Bin enumeration was still potentialy taking a long time at startup. * Shelf and docks were not properly repositioning themselves when screen resolution was changed. * The dock's 'No Background Flip' setting was not being saved properly. * A drag & drop move of the first icon on a dock with no control icon would corrupt the dragged item and would not allow the item to be copied. * Fixed duplicate Control Panel in the Desktop tab of the Shelf in Windows 7 systems. * It was not possible to dock a new dock to a screen edge occupied by a *disabled* dock. * The dock was not displaying running application thumbnails when the dock was set to display running applications via the context menu. * Fixed issue in which WorkShelf could freeze for up to a minute after resuming hibernate due to 3rd party services being busy and blocking. * The Zoom dock effect could sometimes cause currently zooming icons to be cropped when sitting next to icons that updated frequently (like the clock). * Fixed other visual glitches with special dock effects and icons getting cropped. * Fixed item positioning problems when hovering a magnifying dock and shortcuts were added, removed or had their running status changed. * Setting a dock with a semi-transparent background to be 100% transparent with opaque icons prevented the dock from working properly. -------------------------- Version 10.4 build 881 - April 29, 2010 - Public Beta 3 New Features: * Added 'Enable/Disable Background Blur Effect' to the Effects sub-menu of the dock context menu. * The 'Show/Hide Desktop Modules' command now smoothly fades the modules in and out instead of abruptly hidding or displaying them. * Added 'Show/Hide System tray' and 'Show/Hide Running Programs' to the Insert context menu. * Sub-docks can now display a systray or a list of running tasks by selecting the appropriate option via the 'Insert' context menu. * Removed the blank separator between normal and system tray icons in the dock when the system tray expand button is also visible. * Added 'Group Tray Icons' setting. A grid of 16x16 tray icons can now be groupped together into a single dock icon. * Nexus now uses a default separator bitmap if the dock skin does not have one. * Windows thumbnails of grouped tasklist menus now pop up immediately. * Dock expansion when magnifying is now 3 to 5 times faster. * Moved the enumeration of items in the recycle bin to a background thread. This prevents Nexus from freezing or taking a long time to initialize on systems with very slow hard drives and very full recycle bins. * Delayed the initial enumeration of Recycle Bin items for 30 seconds. This should give Windows enough time to finish booting before Nexus engages in a concurrent and potentially very disk intensive enumeration if the recycle bin has many items on it. * Blurring of semi-transparent backgrounds is now 25% faster. * Insertion of items into docks by drag & drop is now a bit smoother. +++ * Module scaling can now be applied from the Modules tab in WorkShelf Preferences in 1% intervals. * Icons used for in-shelf/in-dock modules can now also be set in the Modules tab of WorkShelf Preferences. * Screen edge bumps now only activate the dock when the pointer bumps the area where the dock is. This should help prevent accidental dock activations. * Functionality specific to specific modules is no longer active if the module is not being used anywhere. +++ * When switching to a different language in WorkShelf, the language in NextSTART changes automatically to match. * Added negative Edge Offsets up to -16 pixels for docked docks. * Inserting a new item via the Item Properties Editor now shifts the icons in the dock to make room for the new item. * The icon of the System Tray Expand Button in a dock can now be customized by right clicking the item and selecting 'Dock Item Properties'. * Nexus is now also compatible with specific 3rd party dock themes that use huge dock backgrounds (Eclipse, Scepter, etc...). * 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. * Added 'Disable Magnify Effect Buffer' setting to the Performance vs. Memory dialog in the Advanced tab of WorkShelf Preferences. Enabling this setting will reduce memory footprint but also significantly lower performance of the expansion and contraction phases of the magnify effect for non-tiled dock backgrounds. * Added 'Disable desktop modules smooth meters feature' to the Performance vs. Memory dialog in the Advanced tab of WorkShelf Preferences. Although enabling this setting has no effect on memory usage, it will lower CPU usage on themes using gauges in the Desktop CPU and RAM meter modules. Useful for very low end systems. +++ * You can now turn a separate dock into a sub-dock of another dock by dragging the dock's control icon and dropping it in-between icons of the target dock (previously this would attach the sub-dock to an existing icon of the target dock). * Detaching a sub-dock from the parent dock now removes the sub-dock placeholder icon from the parent dock as well. Changes: * Moved the 'disable sounds and disable animations for this module' settings to the Module's Advanced dialog in WorkShelf Preferences. +++ * Moved the dock activation shortcut to the Advanced Behavior dialog and the 'Respect space...' and 'Do not flip background...' settings to the Position & Behavior tab in Nexus Preferences. Fixes: * Long dock icon labels no longer extend beyond the monitor edge. * The Insert Sub-dock command was not inserting the correct icon. * When using the AfterGlow effect, the currently selected dock icon would keep flashing after opening a context menu even when the mouse moved away from the dock. * WorkShelf was still performing actions specific to some modules even if those modules were not placed anywhere. * WorkShelf might not repaint properly after exiting Hibernate. * If a system tray or tasklist icon updated while dragging a floating dock on the screen, the dock could switch orientation in mid-drag, which caused it to jump to another position. * The troubleshoot option 'Reset Docks and Shelves' was also reseting the dock settings to it's default values, instead of just the content. * Under 64 bit systems some programs in the dock might not be flagged as running if the 32 bit version was running when the dock expected the 64 bit or vice-versa. * WorkShelf could freeze for a long period of time when returning from hibernate or sleep. * Docks no longer 'flash' when changing sizes or being repositioned between different screen quadrants. * With large effect magnitudes for the bounce and zoom effects, icons of docks docked at the top of the screen could extend beyond the screen edge. * Eliminated the dark 'shadow' that seemed to expand around the dock when the icons magnified. * Corrected rounding errors in the magnification algorithm which could cause docks being magnified to 'shake' slightly. * Fixed 'This Array is Fixed or Locked' crash that could occur on Vista systems when mousing over one of the Vista system tray icons. * Fixed potential memory leak. +++ * 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 some issues that could cause WorkShelf to crash on exit if certain dialog windows were open when exiting. * Fixed bug in the Task Exclusion and Task Customization lists which prevented properly editing and removing items in them. * Applying a 'Tile' dock background after using a theme with overlays would not dismiss the previous overlay. * Fixed several problems with overlays and graphic dock magnifying 'glitches' caused by the changes made to the magnify routine. * Some tiled 3rd party dock themes had graphic glitches on magnifying docks. +++ * The Email Checker module balloon tooltip was not reporting the number of messages found on the servers. * 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. +++ * The system tray expand button would disappear from docks if all system tray icons were set to be hidden in Windows. * It was possible to initiate a dock uncollapse operation while the dock was still playing the collapse animation and vice-versa. * Clicking on the icon reflection is now the same as clicking on the icon itself for launching and right-click context menu operations. * In the Fonts Manager dialog for the current theme (Preferences -> Themes -> Fonts button) the font used for RAM hogs was not being listed even if the current theme used it. * Values could under certain conditions be reported as 0 KB, 0 MB or 0 GB. * Fixed issue in which docks, shelves and modules could stop responding after running a full screen game. -------------------------- Version 10.3 build 853 - March 25, 2010 - Public Beta 2 New Features: * Updated Swedish language file. * Updated Farsi language file. * Added UAC Warning at startup if Xtreme is running with elevated privileges. * Gauges in CPU and Net Meter desktop modules no longer just 'jump' to a new value but rather smoothly accelerate torwards it. * The Update Manager can now notify the user of, and install, new language files. * Added new 'Systray' tab type to the Shelf. * Moved the 'Dock Contents' section from the Appearance tab to the Effects tab. * Re-arranged the dock Effects tab. * Nexus docks can now display the Windows system tray. +++ * Added option to display the full contents of the system tray on docks, regardless of the current Windows setting. * Added option to display the full contents of the system tray on a System Tray Shelf, regardless of the current Windows setting. * The Icon Browser dialog now displays a large 128x128 icon image when dealing with a single icon file. * The icons of in-Shelf and in-Dock modules can now be directly specified by the user via the module's context menu. +++ * Improved performance of displaying the system tray in docks and shelves. * Added option to select the Dock control icon color, replace it with a user defined icon, or hide it altogether to the Appearance tab of the Dock Properties dialog. * Added 'Dock Entry Properties' option to the right-click context menu of the control icon, which allows the user to change the image of the dock control icon, rename the dock and set the dock's activation hot key. * Added 'Rename' option, to name the dock, to the right-click context menu of the control icon. * The image used for the Nexus control icon can also be set by dragging & dropping an image file directly over the control icon. * Reorganized right-click context menus in order to be more consistent between different item types. * Switched the position of 'Tab Name' and 'Tab Type' in the Tab Properties dialog. * Module and Internal Command names are now sorted alphabetically in the Item Properties Editor dialog box regardless of the currently selected language. * The 'Add New Item' context menu option now opens a sub-menu from where you can quickly select the item type (or add via the Item Properties Editor as before). +++ * Added 'Lock/Unlock Icons' to the Shelf's left mini-tab context menu. * When the icons are locked a floating shelf can now be dragged around the screen by clicking anywhere on the shelf body, including the icons themselves. * A floating shelf can now be dragged around the screen by pressing ALT while clicking anywhere on the shelf body, including the icons themselves. * Added 'Lock/Unlock Icons' to the context menu of the dock control icon and the Shelf's left mini-tab. * When the icons are locked a floating dock can now be dragged around the screen by left clicking anywhere on the dock and dragging. * The 'Style' option now appears on the context menu of Desktop Modules if the current theme for that module displays a pre-set icon. * Added option to 'Hide Windows taskbar at startup' to the General tab in Preferences. * Added option to open sub-menus on mouseover to the Advanced Settings dialog of the Advanced tab in Preferences. * Added new set of Weather icons made by Mark Gisis (aka. Teknofrik). * You can now Browse, via right-click menus, shortcuts placed in the dock to Virtual Shell Items such as My Computer. +++ * 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). * The in-shelf and in-dock clock, Weather and Email Checker modules now glow while connecting to the internet (behavior can be disabled in the settings dialog of each module). * The WinAmp Internal Commands have been renamed to 'Media...' and are now able to control the Windows Media Player as well. * You can now Cancel any changes made in the Content tab of the Shelf Properties dialog. Changes: * Re-arranged the Effects tab of the Dock Properties dialog. * Moved the 'Show running applications' setting from the Appearance tab of the Dock Properties dialog to the Effects tab. * Re-arranged the Appearance tab of the Dock Properties dialog. * Moved the "Launch applications with a single click...' setting to the Advanced Settings dialog of the Advanced tab in Preferences. * Re-arranged the Advanced Settings dialog. Fixes: * The 'Make module opaque on mouseover' setting wasn't doing anything. * In certain themes with Glass Blur enabled the blur of a collapsed shelf could overlap the taskbar or whatever was below it. * Tooltips of the Desktop modules were not being translated. * 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. * Docks were not repainting when magnified, with the cursor at the same position, and a tasklist or system tray icon was updated. * WorkShelf system tray icons now only signal a change when necessary, which prevents the system tray from having to repaint every second. +++ * Docks could stop magnifying when the mouse was over an icon and the dock contents updated for some reason. * Memory was being leaked every time a shortcut pointing to Windows Installer was resolved. * 'Create dock from Shelf' wasn't adding the shelf tab contents to the new dock. * Should have fixed the problem that caused all objects to pile up at one corner of the screen. +++ * The system tray was not reacting fast enough when expanding or collapsing it. * Fixed problem with icon labels including CR+LF control characters appearing at the wrong position of the shelf if the shelf background was not per-pixel alpha. * Fixed potential bug which could cause icons in a dock to overlap if the dock content was changed while magnifying. * The 'Check Weather' button in the Weather Settings dialog could use the wrong difference between location and UTC times (UTC Bias) when getting the weather for locations in the US. * Thumbnails of some files were showing up blank (transparent). * Fixed issue auto-installing themes, which could end up being installed at the wrong location. * The wrong icon was being displayed for unknown themes. -------------------------- Version 10.1 build 834 - Feb 11, 2010 - Public Beta 1 New Features: * Added Czech language file. * Added Chinese (Traditional) language file. * Added Russian language file. * Added Spanish language file. * Added Polish language file. * NextSTART Hotspot items in the Item Properties dialog now list what the hotspot does. * Native Nexus themes and 3rd party dock backgrounds are now listed under the same 'Themes' heading. * When Importing, Nexus will automatically distinguish between native Winstep themes and 3rd party dock themes. Only if there is a conflict will it ask for clarification. * 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. +++ * The user can now specify the folder used to save screenshots taken by the 'Capture Desktop' internal command in the Advanced Settings dialog of the Advanced Preferences tab. +++ * WorkShelf is now able to accept virtual shell folder items (e.g. My Computer) being dragged from NextSTART, converting them to virtual shell items. * Dock alignment is now by percentage and set via a slider. * Made some minor improvements to the Icon Browser dialog. * At least under Windows 7, the Control Panel tab is now able to list most Control Panel items on x64 bit systems. * Improved the display of some system icons which appeared 'fuzzy' when using large icon sizes. * Added setting to the Advanced Behavior dialog not to flip the dock background for docks at the top of the screen. This makes it possible to have a Leopard style dock at the top of the screen looking like it does at the bottom. * Added a warning to WorkShelf startup: if the number of items in the Recycle Bin take 10 or more seconds to enumerate, a warning pops up saying that the Recycle Bin is too full and that it is causing WorkShelf to take a long time to start. If also asks the user if he wants to empty the Recycle Bin and empties it if the answer is affirmative. +++ * Re-Organized the Modules tab in Preferences. * Inserted blank space between object names and their font properties in the Font Manager dialog. * The Themes sub-menu in the Appearance & Sounds context menu of docks now also lists 3rd party dock themes. * The Themes Manager in Preferences now automatically saves thumbnails of the theme previews, which are later displayed when browsing themes in menus and dialogs. * The right click context menu of themes in the Themes tab of a Shelf now also displays a (larger) thumbnail of the theme. * Added a 'Restore File Associations' button to the Troubleshoot dialog to restore Winstep theme and license key file associations. Changes: * Resized the Item Properties Editor dialog in order to show a larger icon. * Changed the Uninstall Survey so it no longer depends on the IE browser control. Fixes: * Fixed a few Internal Command icons that were not displaying properly under Vista. * Words 'New Tab', 'Hide All Running Modules' and 'Show All Running Modules' were not being translated. * The 'New Folder' dialog still used the old UI and the text in it was not being translated. * The Version Info dialog displayed 'Nexus.exe' instead of 'WorkShelf.exe' +++ * The folder browser dialog popped up pointing to the wrong folder. * Preferences hotkey appeared as 'None'. * Fixed icon remanining on screen when performing a drag & drop operation that resulted in a prompt requiring user input to complete the operation. * The Drag & Drop 'Copy/Move/Create Shortcut' right-click menu on the shelf was not working. * The Shelf was auto-collapsing while the right-click drag & drop context menu was open. +++ * The icons of some shortcuts were not being resolved properly when dropped into WorkShelf. * Thumbnails of folders in Vista and above no longer appear as jagged icons. * Thumbnails with alpha channels should now be displayed properly. * Settings in the Advanced dialog of the Dock Position Preferences tab were not being properly set or retrieved. * 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. * RAM usage values in the system tray icon were all being reported as 0. -------------------------- Version 9.12 build 820 - Dec 1, 2009 - Public Beta 6 New Features: * Added support for 3rd party tiled dock themes. * Added support for multiple 3rd party dock backgrounds (i.e. single folder with multiple backgrounds in it). * Added support for nested 3rd party dock backgrounds (i.e. folders within folders, which can happen when importing 3rd party dock backgrounds). * Added support for separators of 3D 3rd party dock backgrounds. * Where supported, background names of 3rd party themes are extracted from the configuration files themselves instead of folder names. * Added complete Dutch and French language files. * Added item separator bitmap to the Leopard theme. Changes: * Double clicking a dock or Shelf in the Docks & Shelves tab in WorkShelf Preferences now opens that dock or Shelf Properties page. Fixes: * Icon reflections were not being properly adjusted to the background tile if a bitmap reflection mask was provided and the icon image had a size mismatch with the maximum magnification size. The K-TEK4D1 to K-TEK4D5 tiles are examples of Nexus themes were icon reflections are not allowed to show outside the tile background itself. -------------------------- Version 9.11 build 818 - Nov 23, 2009 - Public Beta 5 New Features: * Completely redesigned User Interface. * Multi-language support. * All themes now display a real time live preview of the theme in question. * You can now apply different theme wallpapers from the Themes tab. * Added dock icon spacing setting to the Appearance tab in Preferences. * Added setting to lock icons and prevent them from being dragged. * Added setting not to show the identifying bouncing arrow when in configuration dialogs. * Added setting to prevent the auto-hide function from only kicking-in when another window has the focus. * Added setting to prevent the righ-click context menu of file and folder items from displaying all the options that would be displayed by Explorer. * Added 'Browse Container' item to the right-click context menus of file items in docks. * When you delete a sub-dock, the parent sub-dock tile is also deleted if it is a dock placeholder instead of an application shortcut. * You can now rename modules/docklets. * Updated Weather.com's XML request string to work with the new requirements. * The user can now specify Weather.com's source URL and XML request string in the advanced dialog of the Weather Module settings. If Weather.com changes the format of the request string again a new release should no longer be necessary to fix the issue. * You can now set basic positioning settings in the Docks & Shelves Preferences tab, as well as enable or disable specific docks and shelves. * Started using Interpolation Mode HighQualityBicubic instead of HighQualityBilinear which improves the 'sharpness' of icons a little bit. +++ * Added 'Running' indicators for dock shortcuts to applications that are currently running. * Customizable Left, middle and right click actions for running programs, shared with NextSTART. * Added 'Display confirmation dialog before deleting' setting to the Advanced Settings dialog and to the Delete Confirmation dialog itself. * Blank separator items no longer show a background when using a tiled theme. +++ Beta 1 * Added Hibernate and Sleep options to the Exit sub-menus. * Shortcuts to virtual file system objects dropped onto the Shelf or docks are now resolved instead of stored as pointers to the shortcuts themselves. * Added 'Change Icon' setting to the right-click context menu of dock and shelf items. +++ Beta 2 * Changing the voice or sound themes via context menus no longer refrehes the WorkShelf objects on the screen. * Added a new theme setting, 'Maximized Offset', to prevent certain Nexus themes, like Leopard, from reserving too much screen space when the dock is attached to a screen edge and the 'Prevent Maximized Windows from overlapping the dock' setting is set. * Added Italian male and female voices. * Added a setting in the Misc.Advanced Settings panel that controls if docks popup on mouseover or not and the popup delay (from 0 ms to 1000 ms). * The appropriate user language (if available) is now selected by default when running for the first time. +++ Beta 5 * It is now possible to perform drag & drop operations on 'Browse Container' menus. Changes: * Moved the 'Hide Dock Control Icon' option from the Appearance and Settings sub-menu into the main Nexus menu. +++ * Reduced a bit the font size used for the title of windows in the list of currently running applications so more of long titles can fit. * Improved the timing adjustment of the dock's sliding animation so it adjusts itself to where it should be at a certain point in time. * Default context menu theme (when no NextSTART theme is available) is now the same menu theme used in Nexus. * Icon reflections in vertical docks now take into account icon spacing, which prevents the reflections from being horizontally cropped too soon with most themes. +++ Beta 2 * Adjusted the UI to make room for larger foreign text strings. +++ Beta 4 * Added missing functionality to the Save As and Delete buttons in the Sounds tab in Preferences. Fixes: * The Net Out module was showing exactly the same values as 'Net In'. * Renamed the 'Browse with NextSTART' item that appeared on the context menu of folder shortcuts to 'Browse. * On some themes it was hard to click on the left mini-tab, and the first shelf would open instead. * A dock set to an effect other than magnify could leave parts of it behind when hiding into a screen edge. * When using the sticky tab feature, the shelf would uncollapse and display a blank tab if collapsed. * Nexus was losing the Glass Blur effect when switching to a different theme in the Themes tab in Preferences. +++ * Clicking Ok in Preferences after reseting settings in the Troubleshoot dialog was causing the previous theme to be applied. * Fixed 'Access Violation Error' when opening the themes tab. * Control Panel tab in 64 bit systems was not showing proper control panel items. * Blank METAR codes would always be replaced with the default NY METAR code on startup. * Canceling after applying a Theme was not reverting to the original theme. * Fixed some issues with changing the Glass Blur setttings in the Themes tab. * Fixed an issue in which the dock background would disappear when magnifying if it was set to be semi-transparent. * Fixed an issue in which a tiled dock background set to be semi-transparent would display the magnified half of the tile fully opaque when magnifying. * Right clicking on the dock's running applications separator did not pop up a context menu. * Running indicators were only appearing on shortcuts to applications that appeared on the tasklist. * The 'Run As Admin' in the Item Properties dialog and all the settings in the Performance dialog always appeared cleared. * Changes to the Magnification Effect settings were not being applied. +++ * Changes to the Weather module tint color where not being remembered at Startup. * 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 menus, docks, etc, to go blank on 64 bit systems. +++ Beta 2 * Changed the included Leopard Nexus theme to prevent it from reserving too much screen space when the dock is attached to a screen edge and the 'Prevent Maximized Windows from overlapping the dock' setting is set. * Some settings were not being properly initialized on first run. +++ Beta 3 * Fixed problems with desktop icons losing focus when being selected after raising the desktop with WIN+D. +++ Beta 4 * Fixed annoying flicker that happened when the mouse pointer exited the dock after the desktop being raised (WIN+D). * Setting some of the Sounds to was not sticking. * Fixed 64 bit redirection issues with 64 bit applications in the \Windows\System32 \ folder. +++ Beta 5 * Context menu options on file items of 'Browse Container' menus now work properly. -------------------------- Version 9.5 build 780 - May 21, 2009 - Xtreme 9.5 Official Release New Features: +++ Beta 2 * Added a 'Scale' sub-menu to the context menu of each module and 'Scale All Modules' sub-menu to the 'Desktop Modules' context menu which allows the user to scale down modules from 10% of original size to full size. Very useful when running themes intended for high resolutions on a low resolution screen. * The Module Preview window in WorkShelf Preferences now also displays the in-shelf/in-dock version of the module, together with a warning note that style and appearance settings might have no effect if the current theme is overriding them. * The Net Meter now properly identifies Wireless interface types (as well as ATM, Tunnel and Firewire). * The dock magnification stop animation no longer interferes with the context menu opening animation, i.e.; the dock now waits for the menu animation to complete before initiating it's own de-magnification animation. +++ Beta 3 * Docks can now be disabled in the Dock Properties dialog. Disabled docks can be re-enabled in the NeXuS Common Preferences tab of WorkShelf Preferences. * Added new 'Glass Bur' effect in which semi-transparent backgrounds automatically blur the see-through background under Windows Vista and above. * Balloon tooltips and the 'Busy' pop up now feature the Glass effect under Vista and above. * Floating docks can now be moved by left clicking any non-icon area (including icon reflections) in the dock and dragging. * The Icon Browser now remembers the last folder you retrieved an icon from. * Added an option to Hide/Show the Dock Control Icon in the Appearance & Sounds sub-menu of a dock's context menu. * Balloon tooltips which close automatically no longer display a Close button. * Added 'Colorize' effect which tints backgrounds of existing themes. * Shelf content offsets in Shelf Advanced Skinning now allow up to 4 characters. +++ Beta 4 * Colorize setting in the Dock Style Editor dialog now works. * Increased the width of the 'Please Wait...' prompt. * Task Group menus now display a close button for each task in the menu, which, when clicked on, closes the application. * Added a 'Offset from Edge' setting for docked docks. +++ Beta 7 * Docks no longer momentarily 'pause' animations while an application is being launched. +++ Beta 8 * Item Properties dialog now also displays icons for Modules and URLs. +++ 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. Changes: +++ Beta 2 * Removed the 'Update Interval' from the CPU Meter Settings dialog which was no longer having any effect. * Removed the Background and Grid color settings for the CPU, Net and RAM meters which were no longer having any effect. * Moved the module Settings item to the top of each module's right click context menu, to make them easier to find for the first time user. * Re-organized the CPU, Net and RAM meter settings dialogs and added a note that Histogram and Graphic color settings might not affect Desktop Modules if Advanced Skinning is currently enabled for them. * Dialogs now avoid popping up 'glued' to the top or bottom of the screen. +++ Beta 3 * Decreased by half a second the delay for the dock item's information tooltip to pop up . * Replaced 'Open' with 'Apply' in the context menu of Themes (Themes Shelf). +++ Beta 6 * Increased the maximum number of characters in the symbol offsets for the mini- -tabs from 2 to 3. +++ Beta 8 * The 'Control Panel' shelf is now replaced with the 'Documents' shelf on new instalations when WorkShelf detects it is running on a x64 OS. Fixes: * The 'Hide Hidden Files' folder shelf properties was not being saved. * Fixed a problem where the Windows Start Menu could pop up at the wrong screen position. * A dock could potentially show up blank when running certain Internal Commands. * The reflections of dock items with PNG images would sometimes disappear. +++ Beta 2 * If both the 'Collapse Dock on Applicaton Launch' and 'Bounce Icon on Launch' options were set, the dock would collapse and then a single dock tile with a bouncing icon would appear on the screen. The dock now only collapses once the bouncing animation has finished. * Setting the Net, RAM or CPU meters graphic to 'Outline' or 'Filled' had no immediate effect. * Fixed a problem in VISTA in which certain icons would be displayed as very small icons. * The transparency slider now affects the module preview in Module Preferences. +++ Beta 3 * Prevented some rare situations where a dock or shelf background could have a totally transparent section in the middle. * Current Net Interface Type was not being properly set. * Moving a floating dock into another monitor was not automatically re-adjusting the dock icon size to fit the dock. * Pressing CTRL+F11 to open Preferences and keep it pressed would repeatedly play the Open Preferences sound. * Switching from a PNG based to BMP based theme could sometimes prevent the theme from being applied properly to the shelf. +++ Beta 4 * Fixed a problem where a floating shelf could sometimes be displayed off screen with no way to get it back. * Desktop modules could be set to the wrong screen position after playing a full screen game that changed screen resolution. * Docks, Shelf and Desktop modules with Glass Blur would lose this effect after running an application that disabled the Vista Desktop Window Composition engine. * Docks, Shelf and Desktop modules could become unresponsive to mouse clicks and pass these clicks to windows underneath after running a DirectX full screen game. +++ Beta 5 * Fixed problem in Vista where docks would become unblurred after auto-hiding. * The 'Initializing' prompt did not feature glass blur on the window borders under Vista. * Fixed Shelf and Desktop Module position problems when manually changing screen resolution. +++ Beta 7 * The Tasklist Grouping task context menu option was not doing anything. * Should have fixed the blank process names for the Desktop Module's CPU and RAM hogs under Vista 64 bit. * 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 shelf is now able to display 64 bit Control Panel applets, although a handful may be missing. +++ Beta 8 * Window snapshots in the Tasks shelf were blured when expanded. +++ Official Release * Text with the Outline and Drop Shadow effect was ignoring the Bold and Italic properties. * Glass Blur settings applied to the dock via the Dock Properties dialog where not 'sticking' between sessions. * The Clock Module lost its Blur and Colorize settings when opening the Module Preferences tab. -------------------------- Version 8.11 build 739 - Dec 9, 2008 - Xtreme 8.11 Official Release New Features: * The dock control menu can now be accessed by righ-clicking on any dock item. * Items can now be inserted into a dock by right clicking on any existing dock item and selecting 'Insert Item' from the context menu. * Added an option to insert an empty sub-dock to the context menu of every dock item. * Shelf tabs can now be reorganized directly by clicking on a tab and dragging. * Added support for .pdf (Adobe Reader) and .ppt (PowerPoint) document thumbnails. * You can now hide a dock's control icon. * The Capture Desktop internal command now adds the screnshot to the Recent Documents list. * Sub-docks can now be detached, duplicated and deleted from the context menu of the parent dock item. * Task Window thumbnails are now natively retrieved as 256x256 so they don't look blurry when icon size or dock magnification size is set above 128x128. * Added support for Microsoft Common Controls. Standard window controls now assume the default look for the installed Windows version. +++ BETA 2 * The Item Removal confirmation dialog now presents a lot more information concerning the item about to be removed from the dock or shelf. * Added a 'Show Desktop' Internal Command (equivalent to WIN+D) * One-line text tooltips now have an alphablended background with a drop shadow. * Some system icons were still being rendered incorrectly for icon sizes over 32x32. +++ FINAL * 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: * The Desktop Recycler was not automatically updating how may items were in it and how much space they occupied, except when the Recycler toggled between Empty and Full. * 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' shelf no longer displays shortcuts that resulted 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. * Icons retrieved from inside EXEs or DLLs were blurry at icon sizes over 32x32. +++ BETA 2 * Docks were not reserving screen space. * Fixed problem with large TIF images which were rendered as icons instead of thumbnails, thereby slowing everything down due to their very large size. * Right clicking a context or system menu no longer performs the same action as left clicking. +++ FINAL * Shell notifications responsible for letting WorkShelf know about recycle bin changes, etc, stopped working if Explorer crashed. The notification handler is now reset if Explorer crashes. * Docks attached to a screen edge but without the 'Hide into screen edge' option set did not restore when the associated screen edge was bumped with the mouse pointer. -------------------------- Version 8.9 build 726 - Sep 26, 2008 - Xtreme 8.9 Official Release New Features: * Added a 'Check for Updates' internal command to the default 'Main' shelf. * Added 'Toggle Shelf' to the context menu of the WorkShelf systray icon. * Tweaked the Dock Magnification algorithm so that the dock's zooming speed accelerates as the dock magnifies. This smooths the movement and also minimizes expansion of the dock when the mouse cursor accidentaly passes over it. * Added 'Keep Tile Aspect Ratio' option to NeXuS Skinning. This setting automatically adjusts tile size so that the background tile bitmap is never deformed by different icon/magnification sizes. With this setting enabled, Content Offset from Edge is then specified as a percentage rather than absolute pixel values. * Added 'Adjust Icon Reflection to Tile' option to NeXuS skinning. This option is only available when the skinning mode is set to Tiles and the 'Keep Aspect Ratio' option is also set. It forces a scan of the alpha channel (transparency) of the background tile so icon reflections are only rendered on the visible parts of the tile. * Added support for optional transparency mask bitmaps for adjusting the icon reflection to tiles. If the 'Adjust Icon Reflection to Tile' setting is enabled, NeXuS will look for the following bitmaps and use them instead of the actual tile when rendering icon reflections if found: nxTile-Mask.png/tif/bmp - Reflection mask for bottom docks nxTileTop-Mask.png/tif/bmp - Reflection mask for top docks nxTileLeft-Mask.png/tif/bmp - Reflection mask for Left docks nxTileRight-Mask.png/tif/bmp - Reflection mask for Right docks. * Increased the performance of the magnification effect when mousing over tiled dock themes. * The Net Meter module no longer refreshes the info about all existing network adapters every second, instead it only refreshes information about the NIC currently selected for monitoring, which should increase overall performance a little bit. * Increased the performance of the flat magnify effect. * The Shelf no longer uncollapses automatically when applying themes for objects other than the shelf itself. * The docks and Shelf now remain collapsed when changing themes. * Added AfterGlow, Bounce, Rock and Swing icon mouseover effects to the shelf. * The dock collapse to and uncollapse from screen edge animations are now much smoother. * The Shelf Content tab in Preferences now previews the Main tab instead of the Themes tab, to prevent the delay in rendering Theme snapshots. * The shelf collapse and uncollapse animation is now much smoother. * Context menu opening animations are now faster and smoother. * Added support for applying just NeXuS or single Module themes by double clicking on a .xtreme theme files containing only NeXuS or Module items. +++ BETA 2 * The 'Restore WorkShelf' operation is now MUCH faster and completely imune to the old INI file 64 KB file size limitation. * Increased the movement range of the bouncing sub-dock arrow indicator so it doesn't get hidden behind the dock item label or new Vista drag image, and gave it a faster and more 'elastic' movement. * Double clicking a Dock entry in the Dock Manager is now equivalent to selecting the dock and then clicking on the 'Locate' button. * Added a 'Shelf Editor' button to the 'Shelf Content' tab in Preferences. * Added 'Duration' and 'Magnitude' settings to the new Shelf effects. These settings are common to all the new effects. * Added Zoom, AfterGlow, Bounce, Rock and Swing mouseover effects to Docks. * Added a 'Open Folder' button to the Dock Style Editor dialog, which opens the location of the currently selected tile/background/native NeXuS theme in an Explorer window. * Icon Reflections no longer extend beyond the dock on vertical docks. * For a more realistic effect, Icon Reflections are no longer 'attached' to the icon when the item is being 'bounced' after launch. * Added a 'Send to WorkShelf' option to Explorer's SendTo menu which can be disabled in the Global Preferences tab. To use, right click on a file in Explorer, open the 'Send To' sub-menu and select 'WorkShelf'. A dialog will pop up listing the shelves you can send the item to. You can also create a new target shelf there. * 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' * Added a 'Troubleshoot' dialog to the Global Preferences tab. From that dialog you can reset WorkShelf settings, Docks and Shelves 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. * Speeded up the Backup and Restore operations even further (especially the later, very noticeable if you have many docks and sub-docks defined) by not saving unnecessary settings. * New effects were not displaying properly on dock themes using BMP backgrounds. * Added 'Fluid Reflection' effect that animates icon reflections in real time to make them behave like they're being reflected on the surface of a lake. * Added 'Fluid Surface' effect that animates static dock backgrounds in real time. With the right dock background (e.g. Nx-Lawn, Nx-Fire, Nx-WaterBath) this can make the lawn look like it is blowing in the breeze, the fire raging and the water gently rocking back and forth. +++ BETA 4 * Repositioned the 'Fluid Refection' setting in the Dock Editor dialog and allow Fluid settings to be set even if the effect is not enabled. * When dragging over a dock partly covered by other windows, the dock now comes to the foreground until the mouse pointer moves away from it again. * The dock and shelf auto hide counters now only start once the dock or shelf is no longer the foreground window. * Changed the sub-dock opening animation, which is now much smoother and respects the current animation speed setting. +++ BETA 5 * Desktop Modules now also remember their previous positions when you switch screen resolutions. This is very useful for people with docking stations who frequently have to switch resolutions. * Added a 'Interface to Monitor' sub-menu to the Net Meter module context menu. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Theme specific NeXuS Control icons are now also applied to in-shelf docks. * Added support for the BASIC version of Winstep Xtreme. * Shelf icons are now lazy rendered if it takes more than half a second to open a shelf. This should make opening certain shelves for the first time a lot snappier. * VISTA: Folder objects in the shelf and dock now display a preview of the folder contents were applicable. * VISTA: The 'Display Properties' internal command (displayed by default in the Desktop shelf) now opens the MS Personalization dialog. * Added support for MP4 thumbnails. Fixes: * In-dock modules did not darken when clicked on. * The 'Preferences' option in the WorkShelf systray icon stopped working if the shelf was disabled. * Bringing Preferences up with the hotkey (CTRL-F11 by default) did not play the sound associated to this action. * WorkShelf crashed on exit if 'Exit Winstep Xtreme' was selected in NextSTART. * Fixed painting problems while magnifying docks that had an overlay bitmap (e.g. Paint On Glass theme). * Drag & Drop was not working properly when the source was a NextSTART menu. * Opening the Net Statistics dialog and then selecting another NIC to monitor would corrupt the Bytes Out history for the currently selected Net Meter NIC. * The Shelf was auto-collapsing even while some Shelf context menus were open. * Docks would stop auto-hiding after collapsing for the first time if animations were disabled. * Fixed some problems with the magnification effects and docks with overlays. * Fixed some problems with the magnification effect and docks with the background set to be semi-transparent by the user. * In-Shelf modules were not assuming the new theme versions when changing themes. * The newer NeXuS bitmaps introduced in the previous version were not being saved via the Themes Manager. * When clicking on a groupped task icon when the 'Open on Mouseover' option was enabled, the groupped tasks menu would open, close and open again. * Selecting non-standard icon sizes for the shelf would result in distorted and jagged icon images. +++ BETA 2 * Moving the middle scroll wheel while the shelf was collapsed would make the shelf icons show up 'hanging on the air'. * Fixed several problems when Restoring backed up WorkShelf configurations, such as the dock theme not being properly applied, not all docks appearing on the screen, etc... * Fixed terrible memory leak that, over time, caused memory fragmentation and thousands of soft page faults per second. * Fixed visual glitch with right and bottom docks and the Flat Magnification effect. * Fixed visual glitch with the Flat Magnify effect on docks with overlays offseting from the dock background. * Non-stretchable area settings for dock overlays were not being applied. * Fixed painting problems with 'Under the Dock' overlays and tiled docks. * Dock would sometimes stop updating when dragging an item over it if the magnification effect was on. * Auto-Hide docks no longer auto-hide if a sub-dock is currently open. * Docks hiding to the screen edge with an offset overlay would still have part of the overlay visible. * The dock uncollapse animation was faster than the dock collapse to screen edge animation. * The sub-dock indicator bouncing arrow was appearing when dragging over running task items on a dock. * The Weather Settings Panel was reseting custom METAR/Weather.com codes (e.g. clearing the METAR code to get weather information from Weather.com only resulted in the METAR Code appearing again on a subsequent opening of the Weather Settings panel). * Fixed yet another case in which the Shelf could auto-hide when checking the Properties of a Shelf item. * Exiting WorkShelf with the Network Active Connections panel open would crash WorkShelf. * The 'Confirm File Delete' dialog would sometimes pop up on the wrong monitor on multi-monitor systems. * Fixed an Access Violation error that occured a short while after deleting the last item on a Regular Shelf. +++ BETA 3 * Image of dragged items on docks with reflections was 'streched'. * The 'Run' internal command was displaying the wrong icon under Vista. * Fixed Restore WS Settings hanging WorkShelf in Beta 2. * A dock set to activate by bumping one of the screen edges was activating even when the user bumped the screen edge of ANOTHER monitor instead of that were the dock resides. * Fixed drawing glitches with the mini-tabs when the shelf was collapsed. * The Ripple Settings were not being saved when modified via the Dock Properties panel. * Fixed the position of the sub-dock indicators on vertical rightmost docks which was off by a few pixels. * Horizontal docks at the top of the screen using background skinning mode had the bottom of the icons cropped when fully magnified if the icon reflection effect was enabled. +++ BETA 4 * The new dock Fluid animations would stop running until mouseover after un-collapsing from a screen edge. * Fixed some automatic fit-on-screen sizing issues with sub-docks. * Fixed positioning problem of some sub-docks relative to the parent dock. * Docks were un-collapsing automatically - but remained unresponsive - whenever Windows broadcasted a system wide change event. +++ BETA 5 * The dock and shelf now also do NOT auto-hide if the mouse pointer is over them, as the change in Beta 4 caused a situation where the shelf could auto collapse while dragging an item from another window over it. * Fixed problem where the sub-dock indicator bouncing arrow would 'freeze' when dragging an item over a dock. * When changing a dock effect via the Dock Properties dialog, the previous dock effect could remain active in some of the dock icons. * Worked around a VB5 Floating Point bug that caused icons in bottom docks to magnify down instead of up. * Desktop Net Meter was not displaying advanced skinning Histograms set to draw mode. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Fixed MAJOR potential problem that could cause WorkSHelf to crash when rendering the icons of problematic DLL files. * Fixed potential timing problem that could prevent the shelf from unloading completely when telling WorkShelf to 'Hide the Shelf'. * Fixed Shelf selection drawing glitches with some animated in-shelf modules. * When changing the current Shelf effect from None to something other, icon labels would disappear as items were moused over. +++ SILENT UPDATE * Added time adjusting code to prevent collapse and uncollapse animations from slowing to a crawl on systems where it took more than 5 or 10ms to render each collapse animation frame. -------------------------- Version 2.6 build 650 - May 30, 2008 - Xtreme 8.5 Official Release New Features: * The 'Show Volume Control' Internal Command now snaps the volume control to the mouse pointer in Vista. * Renamed the 'Confirm File Delete' dialog for dock and shelf items to 'Confirm Item Removal'. * Item Separators and Dock Placeholders no longer play the 'execute' sound when clicked on. * Added 'Magnification Smoothness' setting to the dock magnification settings dialog. Controls how smooth (or how fast) the dock zooms or un-zooms when the mouse cursor enters or leaves the dock. * Changed the 'Remove' context menu item for dock and shelf items to 'Remove from dock' and 'Remove from shelf', respectively. * The Dock Style Editor now previews Backgrounds as it does native NeXuS themes. * A dock partially covered by another window now temporarily comes into the foreground, after a short pause, when a visible part of the dock is moused over. * Thumbnail rendering is now much faster and the shelf remains 100% responsive. * Thumbnails are now generated for .FLV (Flash) files provided a thumbnail handler for flash movies is available on the system. * The 'Recent Documents' shelf should no longer momentarily 'freeze'WorkShelf if one of the recent document links points to a disconnected network drive. * Dock icon magnification no longer uses the hi-resolution multimedia timer and is now as smooth and as fast as the system allows it. This should be especially noticeable on slower systems. * Added icon reflection effect to dock items. Icon reflection is a per-user, per-dock, theme-independent, setting . How much of the icon is reflected can be specified in the Dock Properties dialog. * The in-shelf/in-dock Net, CPU and RAM meters now use a new, more modern, background. +++ BETA 2 * Changed the Dock's 'Mouseover Effect' sub-menu to 'Effects' and added to it the options to toggle the Icon Reflection and Water Ripple effects. * Added a 'Effects' sub-menu to the 'Appearance and Sounds' sub-menu of the left mini-tab right click context menu. * Added icon reflections to Shelf items. The icon reflection effect can be turned on or off from the 'Special Fx' dialog in 'Shelf Icon Preferences' or from the 'Appearance and Sounds' left mini-tab right click context menu. * Made sure some of the effects are not available from setting dialogs and context menus unless the Windows version on the user's system supports them. * The Recent Documents shelf no longer returns links to files that do not exist anymore. * Modified the algorithm of the shelf icon zoom effect, which should now feel smoother and more 'organic' on Core2 Duo and above systems. * The in-shelf and in-dock RAM and Net meters are now only updated when required instead of every second, which should help performance a little bit. * Optimized a bit the drawing of GDI+ images on non-GDI+ surfaces. * The background of the in-shelf/in-dock CPU, Net and RAM meters is now skinnable: wsMeter.ico/.png/.tif In-shelf/In-dock meter background. Note that for a 128x128 pixel background image, the graph starts and ends 8 pixels from the edges. This means the outmost 8 pixels of the background can be used for borders, shadows, etc... +++ BETA 3 * Added the 'Show/Hide Desktop Modules' internal command to the default dock. * A clicked dock icon now becomes darker until the mouse button is released to signal it's being clicked on. * Added an option to toggle the 'icon bounce effect on launch' to the dock Effects sub-menu. * The Shelf can now be disabled through the 'Shelf and Dock Management' sub-menu in the shelf's left mini-tab context menu and NeXuS control icon context menu or the new 'Disable Shelf' option in Shelf Preferences. When disabled, all resources used by it are released. * Further increased the performance of the dock magnification effect on non-tiled docks. * Changed the way the dock magnifies when reflections are enabled so it looks more natural. Docks with zoomed tiles for background still use the old way, since it makes sense for a background that magnifies with the icon. +++ BETA 4 * Re-worked the dock magnification algorithm which should have taken care of some 'jumpiness' that could occur while mousing across a magnified dock. * Added a 'Open Folder' button to the Registration tab in Preferences that opens the License key folder in Explorer. * Created a new 'Shelf and NeXuS Common Preferences' tab in WorkShelf Preferences. * Moved settings common to the shelf and the docks to the new Preferences tab. * Renamed the 'Shelf Icon Preferences' to 'Shelf Content Preferences' * Moved the Shelf Special Effects settings to the 'Shelf Content Preferences' tab. * Moved the 'Recent Documents' section from the Global Preferences tab to the 'Shelf Content Preferences tab'. * Added a Dock Manager to the new 'Shelf and NeXuS Common Preferences' tab. From there you can create new docks, or remove, duplicate, edit and make new shelves from existing docks. * Added a 'Locate' button to the Dock Manager which uncollapses the currently selected dock, brings it to the foreground, and points to it with a bib bouncing arrow. * Images of items dragged from the shelf or a dock now correctly use alpha blending instead of the old 'magic pink', which could create small 'artifacts' around the image's edges. +++ BETA 5 * Added Task Grouping to the Tasks Shelf and docks displaying running tasks. * Lowered memory usage of the desktop Weather module. * The CPU, Net and RAM desktop modules now use the new meter backgrounds. * The user is now able to optimize WorkShelf for Performance or for Memory usage through a new 'Performance' button in the Global Preferences tab. On the 'Performance vs Memory Usage' dialog box that pops up, there are four different settings to tweak. Any memory savings achieved are reported as soon as the dialog is closed. * Improved the movement and appearance of the 'locate dock' bouncing arrow. * Added support for dock separator bitmaps, both for native NeXuS themes as well as for backgrounds applied via the Dock Style Editor dialog. NxSep.png/.tif/.bmp - Separator bitmap for bottom docks. NxSepLeft.png/.tif/.bmp - Optional Separator bitmap for left docks. NxSepRight.png/.tif/.bmp - Optional Separator bitmap for Right docks. NxSepTop.png/.tif/.bmp - Optional Separator bitmap for Top docks. * It is now possible to specify individual non-stretchable sections for dock start/end tile caps and the start/end caps of dock per-tile overlays. * Added the ability to open grouped tasks menus on mouseover after a short delay. * Dragging an object over a task item in a dock or shelf now brings that window to the foreground (or opens the grouped tasks menu if that item is a grouped tasks icon). * Docks are now also brought to the foreground when the user clicks on "Show Desktop" or hits the WIN-D key. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Changed the task manager algorithm to support the new task flashing in menus. * Menus displaying grouped tasks now highlight tasks that were 'flashing' and need user attention. * The tasks shelf now also supports task flashing. * Optimized the shelf icon zoom effect to support task flashing in shelves. * Task icons of grouped tasks now display the number of windows that are grouped together. * You can now drag an item over a grouped tasks menu and, after a short pause, the task under the mouse pointer is brought to the foreground. * The selection bar now follows the mouse pointer when dragging an object over a grouped tasks menu. * The in-shelf and in-dock modules now always use their GDI+ version if the system supports it. Fixes: * Fixed some cases where dialogs could appear behind the parent dialog if the dock/shelf was set to always on top. This could effectively lock the user out of WorkShelf. * The Browse dialog always popped up twice. * It was possible to open the main Preferences window via the systray icon when modal windows were open, which would cause the dialog to appear blank. * It was possible to drop items into a shelf/dock while modal windows were open, which had the potential to crash WorkShelf or even corrupt the dock/Shelf contents. * Disabling the Shelf edge bump prevented all other items/docks from being activated via the keyboard or edge bumps. * Fixed a problem where shelf/dock items pointing to files but with invalid filename characters on the name were always moved and never copied when using drag & drop to copy that item, regardless of CTRL being pressed or not. * Context menus of Always on Top docks would go behind the dock if the dock was moused over while the menu was open and a label popped up. * Sub-menus of context menus could lose their Always on Top status although the parent menu never did. * Icons being dragged over an Always on Top dock were appearing behind the dock. * The 'Explosion' effect was appearing behind Always on Top docks when deleting items. * The in-shelf and in-dock RAM meters were rounding memory usage to the GB. * Fixed crash that would occur if GDI+ failed to initialize for some reason on Windows 2000 systems and above. * The NexuS control icon was not displaying properly on systems without GDI+ support (e.g. Win95). +++ BETA 2 * Fixed the Flat Magnify effect which had stopped moving the dock in Beta 1. * VISTA: The 'Show Start Menu' internal command was displaying the current user image in the wrong location. * Fixed a bug introduced in Beta 1 in which a shelf would not open until all icons in it had been rendered, which could cause a delay when opening shelves, with lots of items, for the first time. * The in-Shelf and in-dock email checker modules were not updating automatically to show 'no mail' when the user launched the email client via the module. * Minimizing a window in front of a dock could cause the window to restore when the mouse pointer moved away from the dock. * Fixed a problem in beta 1 with the digital meter clock contents appearing at the very begining of a dock. +++ BETA 3 * Fixed bug introduced in Beta 2 where right clicking on a shelf icon would pop up the correct sub-menu but then the item would become unselected and the action would be executed on the first shelf item instead. * Fixed painting problems with the shelf icon zoom effect when using the keyboard to navigate the shelf and moving to another icon row. * Icons being dragged from the shelf over an Always on Top dock were appearing behind the dock. * The dock no longer 'flashes' when an item is added or removed from it. * The Net and RAM systray icons were not being re-added to the systray after an Explorer crash. +++ BETA 4 * The Dock Auto Hide feature had stopped working in beta 3. * When exiting and re-entering the dock, the user no longer has to wait for the dock to finish de-magnifying before it starts magnifying again. * Fixed a problem where a dock showing running applications could 'flash' on and off if a task snapshot was updated while magnifying. * Non-standard icon sizes on the shelf (e.g. 47x47) displayed blurry icons enlarged from the standard icon size just below it (e.g. 32x32). * Fixed a problem in beta 3 where a magnifying dock might not repaint correctly if the user moved the mouse pointer across the dock extremelly fast. * Dock item labels now appear on the correct location for horizontal docks with icon reflections. * After beta 3 the shelf was no longer popping up on the screen after clicking the 'Show Desktop' quick launch button. * When dragging an item on top of a sub-dock indicator, the sub-dock would open correctly but could then be incorrectly positioned if the insertion point at the parent dock changed. * Images of items dragged from the shelf or a dock would look distorted if the icon reflection effect was enabled. +++ BETA 5 * The Z-Order context menu of the desktop modules was not doing anything. * The dock 'launch' bouncing effect was leaving the icon in the wrong position after beta 4. * Selecting a Background in the Dock Style Editor, applying it and then opening the Dock Style Editor again could corrupt WorkShelf's memory. * The 'Zoom Tiles' NeXuS setting was not being saved properly when exiting WorkShelf. * Adjusted the position of the dock item labels on vertical docks with the icon reflection effect enabled. +++ OFFICIAL RELEASE * Fixed positioning problems with the dock separator bitmap. * Fixed some 'shakiness' that was still occuring while mousing over magnifyed vertical docks that had the icon reflection effect enabled. * The in-shelf mail checker module was not properly erasing the background if the shelf icon reflection effect was enabled, which caused the reflection to become more and more opaque. * The Desktop Module preview in WorkShelf Preferences stayed in the same place after Beta 4 if the user dragged the Preferences window. * Separator bitmaps were being painted behind the dock placeholder even if it had an icon attached to it. * Zip and Cab files dragged onto a shelf or dock were being accepted as folders under XP and above, therefore rendering the item unusable. * The 'Find' button in the WorkShelf Help Browser was not working on systems with IE7 installed. -------------------------- Version 2.5 build 606 - February 20, 2008 - Xtreme 8.2 Official Release New Features: * Querying the Recycle Bin for size and number of items can be very slow if the bin is filled with thousands of files. This query should only occur for Recycle bin related activities now, which can significantly speed things up over previous versions when doing a lot of file operations. * Added statistical data collection. * WorkShelf now uses a different - and faster - method to retrieve process performance information for the CPU monitor module on XP SP1 systems and above. * The clock module should now assume the correct 24 Hour or AM/PM time format for the user's location when Workshelf runs for the first time. * The Weather Module should now assume the correct Metric/Imperial Units (e.g. temperatures in C or F) for the user's location when Workshelf runs for the first time. * WIN9X: Winstep Xtreme now uses Aero LowRes instead of PixOS as the default theme. * The dock magnify animation is now a bit faster and smoother. * The 'Show Start Menu' Internal Command now automatically positions the Windows Start Menu next to the mouse pointer. * Added a new ? default icon to be displayed when the item's icon or file cannot be found. * Added New Internal Command: 'Capture Desktop'. Saves a screenshot of your current desktop into the Windows Desktop as a JPG file. * The Exit WorkShelf/Winstep Xtreme confirmation dialog now allows the user to set if WorkShelf/NextSTART runs automatically at Windows Startup. * Moved the Create, Duplicate, Delete and Make Shelf from Dock NeXuS context menu options into a 'Dock Management' sub-menu. * WorkShelf is now able to expand environment variables e.g. %SYSTEMROOT%, %HOMEPATH%, etc... +++ * Minimized windows with no stored snapshot are now displayed as icons instead of small window titlebars. * Explorer tasks now display the correct folder icon on tasklist docks/shelves with icon sizes larger than 32x32. * Removed another unnecessary instance where Recycler bin contents were still being enumerated. * Speeded up WorkShelf startup by improving the way settings are read from the Windows Registry. * Speeded up the enumeration of NICs at startup if the user has not selected one to monitor yet. * Improved the detection of the correct NIC to monitor when running for the first time. * Added a 'Run As Admin' (VISTA) or 'Run As Another User' (NT/W2k/XP) option for program items in the Item Properties Dialog box. This allows the user to launch an item that requires elevation without having to right click on it first to select 'Run As' from the context menu. Note that, unlike the context menu option, this method also works for documents: the document is passed as the argument of the associated application and it is the later that is the target of the elevation prompt. * 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. * Added hotkeys to Desktop Modules, which can be set in the Module Preferences tab. Pressing a module hotkey will toggle it between visible and not visible. * The 'Apply to All' button in the Module Preferences tab no longer applies the 'Show in All Shelves' and 'Show on Desktop' settings to all the modules. * The Backup and Restore Settings dialog now remembers the last folder used for backup. * The 'Disable Edge Bumps' setting available in the context menu of WorkShelf's tray icon now also disables all hotkeys and dock activation edge bumps. * Added a 'Fonts Manager' button to the Theme Management tab in Preferences that opens a dialog which allows you to quickly and easily replace all the fonts being used in a theme. * VISTA: The WorkShelf 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 synchronizing the clock with the Internet Time servers and installing theme fonts). * Winstep Xtreme can now be registered by double clicking on the registration key (Xtreme.wsxkey). * The Active Network Connections panel now also resolves the hostnames of local addresses. * The Exception Handler dialog now gives the user the option to attempt to continue runing the application or exit it. * If WorkShelf 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. * The Active Network Connections panel now offers identical functionality to SysInternal's excelent TcpView utility: you can sort network connections by any field, close connections, terminate processes, retrieve information about processes, perform WHOIS queries, and copy connection data to the clipboard. New, modified and terminated connections are highlighted so it's easier to track what is going on. The new Active Network Connections panel is also MUCH faster and responsive than the previous versions. * VISTA: The Active Network Connections panel can terminate processes and close network connections even if the associated process is running with elevated privileges. * Disabling All Animations in the Global Preferences tab now also disables any sub-dock and context menus opening animations. * 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'. * VISTA: The CPU meter and RAM meter modules are now able to display performance information for *all* processes, including services and applications running with elevated privileges. +++ * Enforced automatic connection time out after 60 seconds to prevent modules communicating through the Internet to remain 'locked', i.e. forever waiting for a connection to close. +++ * You can now optionally specify a theme-specific NeXuS control icon by having a nxControl.ico/.png/.tif file in the theme folder. * The NeXuS sub-dock indicators are now also skinnable: nxSubC.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock closed indicator for a dock attached to the bottom screen edge. nxSubCtop.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock closed indicator for a dock attached to the top screen edge. nxSubCleft.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock closed indicator for a dock attached to the left screen edge. nxSubCright.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock closed indicator for a dock attached to the right screen edge. nxSubO.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock open indicator for a dock attached to the bottom screen edge. nxSubOtop.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock open indicator for a dock attached to the top screen edge. nxSubOleft.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock open indicator for a dock attached to the left screen edge. nxSubOright.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock open indicator for a dock attached to the right screen edge. nxSubM.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock mouseover indicator for a dock attached to the bottom screen edge. nxSubMtop.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock mouseover indicator for a dock attached to the top screen edge. nxSubMleft.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock mouseover indicator for a dock attached to the left screen edge. nxSubMright.ico/.png/.tif Sub-dock mouseover indicator for a dock attached to the right screen edge. If you don't include any of the above bitmaps, NeXuS uses the default indicators. If you only include nxsubc then the same bitmap will be used for all dock orientations and indicator states, and will also be automatically rotated/flipped to match the current dock orientation. If you only include nxsubC, nxsubO and nxsubM then the indicatators will be automatically rotated/flipped to match the other dock orientations. +++ * Renamed 'Delete' to 'Remove' in the context menu of items in docks and regular shelves to emphasize the difference between file system and WorkShelf items. * Dock and Shelf icon sizes can now range from 16x16 to 256x256 in 1 pixel increments. * Added shelf body content offsets. The content offsets are relative to the shelf body non-stretchable area sections. * The 'Shelf Body Advanced Skinning' setting has been removed and replaced by a single setting that applies to both tabs and body. * 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 new fonts installed while WorkShelf was running from being displayed until WorkShelf was restarted. * All settings in the Active Net Connections dialog are now saved between sessions. * The Active Net Connections dialog no longer flickers when trying to resize it below the minimum size. * WorkShelf no longer shows desktop icons on exit if the desktop icons were already hidden when it started. * You can now press ALT to move a dock without having to worry about initiating a drag & drop operation instead by clicking on an item. * Added a 'Enable/Disable Time Announcement' option to the clock module context menu. +++ * Added 'Close CDROM x: Door" internal commands, where x: is the drive letter of any CDROM/DVDROM drive(s) in the system. Fixes: * Dock activation hotkeys were not working. * It was theoretically possible for a dock to auto-collapse before the un-collapse animation finished playing. * Fixed problem where copying a shortcut to a special folder shelf that only acccepted shortcuts (like a 'Send To' shelf) would result in an invalid shortcut. * Empty User Defined tasklist entries (which could cause the tasklist not to show ANY programs) are now disregarded. * WIN9X: The balloon tooltip was popping up 40 pixels more to the left than it should for Dock and Shelf items. * VISTA: The desktop CPU meter now correctly displays the top CPU hogs. Note, however, that the module can only monitor processes that belong to the current user. * VISTA: The UAC prompt no longer appears minimized When running an item that requires elevation. * VISTA: Fixed '?' characters appearing in file dates and overlapping text in the balloon tooltips of file system objects. * The Weather Forecast component of the Weather module was displaying negative temperatures as N/A. * Deleting files directly from a Folder type shelf would not update the Recycle Bin information. * Clicking on Properties for an item was not updating the item's icon if it had changed in the mean time. * The Wanda systray icon context menu commands were not working. * The dock previews in the Dock Style Editor had too many icons. +++ * VISTA: Elevated applications now minimize and restore properly when clicking on task items on the shelf or docks. * Fixed a problem displaying the Desktop Wanda module on Win9x systems or when Wanda was displayed using window regions instead of a layered window. * VISTA: Snapshots of elevated windows no longer display black. The app task icon is displayed instead. * The Net Meter module was not rounding the connection speed number. * Some of the information displayed by the desktop Net Meter module was not being displayed until the module registered network activity. * Fixed an issue with problematic paths that caused icons not to be displayed in the Item Properties dialog box. * VISTA: any click on a UAC prompt was interpreted by WorkShelf as a top left screen corner bump. * Fixed problem displaying the preview of some modules in the Module Preferences tab. * Hotkeys could fire so fast that the same action could be repeated several times before the user had a chance to take his finger off the key. * The Recycler and CPU/RAM hog fonts were not being saved with them theme. * VISTA: Elevated applications no longer show up in the tasklist without the associated exe filename. * Fixed WorkShelf preventing Windows from shutting down properly. +++ * VISTA: The Active Network Connections panel now also displays the process names associated to each connection under Vista. * Deleted Email Accounts of the Email Module came back after a Workshelf restart. * Fixed problem with the WinstepXtreme applet showing a generic VB icon. * Some task icons on the NeXuS dock would disappear instead of flashing. * The Voice Theme (Female or Male) reverted to Female after a reboot. * The shelf would not repaint correctly when un-collapsing if animations had been globally disabled. * The clock module always reported that the clocks matched even if it had just corrected the time by a significant amount. * The 'Exploding' animation when you delete an item no longer takes focus away from the source shelf/dock, which stopped the mouse wheel from working and prevented the user from navigating the shelf/dock using the keyboard until clicking on it. +++ * Path to the Help files was wrong. * VISTA: if the theme wallpaper was JPG then the wallpaper would not 'stick' between reboots. * VISTA: The 'Show Volume Control' internal command wasn't working. * The sub-dock opening sound effect was not playing if animations were disabled. * Items that were being inserted close to the end of a dock or shelf could sometimes be added to the end of the shelf or dock instead of inserted at the choosen position. * When running for the first time, the shelf could take a long time to appear and could even attempt to sync the clock with the Internet Time Servers without being visible yet. * The shelf now only intializes after NextSTART displays the startbar, which should fix a problem where the shelf would sometimes overlap the NextSTART Startbar at startup. * If a file association changed task snapshots of minimized windows would display the small titlebar picture instead of the application icon. +++ * Fixed problem in the Weather data file that caused most cities in Iowa not to be displayed in the Weather Settings panel. +++ * VISTA: WorkShelf was not installing fonts properly. * Fixed problem with text in the desktop weather module not appearing anti-aliased. * The balloon tooltip would become black when clicked on. * Fixed z-order problems with some dialogs when the source object was set to always on top. * Fixed positioning problems with some dialogs on multi-monitor systems. * On returning from Suspend, WorkShelf would be frozen for a while while the hi-response Multimedia Timer fired trying to catch up. -------------------------- Version 2.4 build 555 - November 26, 2007 - Xtreme 7.11 Official Release New Features: * Greatly improved the speed of the Email Checker module animations. * The Email Checker module now automatically retrieves the default email client on first run. * Desktop Module positions are now automatically remembered when switching themes. * Implemented the ability to provide a Wanda icon custom animation via a wsWandaAni.png bitmap. * Edge bumps now work when performing drag & drop operations. +++ * Changed the speed and frequency of the scrolling text in the Weather Module to decrease CPU usage. * Changed the speed and frequency of the blinking NeXuS task icons to decrease CPU usage. * Updated the internal list of Internet Atomic Time servers to replace those not in service any longer. * Changed the Internet communication retrial delays from 30 seconds to 10 minutes for 'No Internet Connection Available' and from 10 minutes to 1 hour for 'Failed Connections'. This primarily prevents WorkShelf from trying to connect to the Internet every 10 minutes if it thinks an Internet connection is available when it actually isn't. * Implemented the Registration Notification mechanism. * Added the ability to save and restore the current positions of the desktop modules into the Modules context menu. * The Browse for Folder dialog box now opens with the proper directory already selected. * The desktop RAM Meter can now display the current Top x memory hogs. +++ * Fine tuned the tasklist update algorithm to use even less CPU. * WorkShelf can now read Winstep theme thumbnails in JPG format. Fixes: * Separate Net in and Net out graphics were not being displayed. * Weather information scrolling text was broken under certain conditions. * Fixed missing first letter of Sky Conditions on the weather module. * Blinking task icons on NeXuS could sometimes result on Access Violation errors. * The File Browser dialog would retain the file mask from a previous browse operation, sometimes preventing it from browsing for 'All Files' * Changing the Net Meter device did not immediately update the desktop net meter module. * Desktop Module balloon tooltips no longer pop up if a context menu is open. * The Minimize and Maximize All task context menu options were not working properly. +++ * Blinking task icons on NeXuS docks could sometimes not show an image. * Icon labels flickered annoyingly on and off when dragging items over a dock. -------------------------- Version 2.3 build 546 - September 28, 2007 - Xtreme 7.9 Official Release New Features: * The Close and Open module options in the Modules context menu are now groupped together in individual sections. * Added a 'Enable/Disable Sounds' option to the shelf's Appearence and Sounds sub-menu of the left-mini tab context menu. * Optimized the way in-shelf meter modules are displayed, which reduces CPU usage when the shelf is open and several modules are visible. * Wanda, Clock, Email and Trash in-shelf/in-dock module bitmaps are now cached in memory, with dramatic effects on CPU usage, specially when Wanda is visible and animated. * Optimized the text scrolling routine in the weather module which was consuming more CPU than it should. * Exception Error dialogs now identify if the exception occured within WorkShelf or NextSTART. * The desktop weather module is now capable of displaying the weather forecast on the module itself, as well as on the tooltip as it did before. * Changed the default WorkShelf sounds to something less intrusive. * Improved startup times. * Show Folder Shelves now accept URLs dragged directly from the Browser. * Task list items on NeXuS docks now 'blink' when they need your attention. * When transparency settings for a collapsed and un-collapsed shelf are different, the shelf now smoothly fades in and out as it collapses/un-collapses. * The percentage of CPU used per process is now displayed correctly on multi-processor systems. * 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. +++ * Added a 'Delete Sub-Dock' command to the sub-dock context menu. Fixes: * .Xtreme theme packs were not being created properly and could still be recognized as zip files by IE. * The shelf, docks and desktop modules were not re-positioning themselves automatically when screen resolution changed. * Ajusted the initial position of module balloon tooltips so that the arrow of the balloon tooltip points to the horizontal center of the module. * The update subscription reminder was not showing up if the user was running an update released after the period covered by his license key. * The support email address in the About tab of Preferences had a leading space, which could confuse some email clients. * Sub-docks of docks displaying running tasks also displayed running tasks. * Dock context menus could pop up behind the dock if the dock was set to Always on Top. * 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. * Certain endcap tile bitmaps were being ignored when using the NeXus Advanced skinning mode. * The Dock Place Holder context menu was displaying 'Separator' for the title. +++ * The labels of 'Always On Top' docks now also appear above other windows even if the dock does not have the focus. * Under very specific conditions, it was possible to pop up the main NeXuS context menu on a sub-dock. * Under Vista and Win2003 dropping URLs sometimes resulted in a item label with a carriage return and a line feed inserted in it, which would also cause other drag & drop problems if that item was dragged or moved somewhere else later. * Fixed some problems with the 'Desktop Modules' context menu. -------------------------- Version 2.2 build 533 - April 16, 2007 - Xtreme 7.4 Official Release New Features: * Added 'Insert Dock Place Holder' option to the dock tile context menu. * Added a 'Don't Show Temperature in Icon' setting to the Weather module advanced skinning settings. This allows you to display the current temperature somewhere else on the weather desktop module other than on the icon itself. * Added 'In Shelf Dock' to the tooltip description of in-shelf docks. * The Desktop Clock module now supports bitmap clock hands. The bitmap versions are automatically used if the following bitmaps are found in the theme folder: wsHour.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsHourShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsMin.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsMinShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsSec.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsSecShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif All clock hand bitmaps are optional, and if you don't provide a particular and then a 'drawn' pointer will be used instead. The shadow bitmaps are displaced from the clock center by one pixel in both directions, The last hand to be painted is the seconds hand and overlaps the others, so you can use that bitmap for the clock center dot. * Added ability to define analog gauges for the CPU, RAM and Net meter desktop modules. Bitmap names are the following: CPU Module: wsCPUGauge.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsCPUGaugeShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif (optional) RAM Module: wsRAMGauge.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsRAMGaugeShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif (optional) Net Module: wsNetGauge.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsNetGaugeShadow.bmp/jpg/png/tif (optional) OR, if you wish to define individual bitmaps for Net In and Out, wsNetGaugeIn.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsNetGaugeShadowIn.bmp/jpg/png/tif (optional) wsNetGaugeOut.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsNetGaugeShadowOut.bmp/jpg/png/tif (optional) Gauge needles can also be drawn, rather than being bitmapped based. * Added ability to add overlays to the CPU, RAM and Net meter desktop modules. Bitmap names are the following: wsCPUOverlay.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsRAMOverlay.bmp/jpg/png/tif wsNetOverlay.bmp/jpg/png/tif * Added a *random* delay (up to 30 seconds) to the on-the-hour weather conditions polling, to prevent overloading NOAA servers (without the random delay and with Xtreme time sync abilities, all machines running Xtreme would poll the NOAA weather server at EXACTLY the same time). * 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 'Insert Item Separator' option to the shelf body context menu. * 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. * Added a 'Exit Winstep Xtreme' option to the shelf's Exit sub-menu. * The default dock now also features a NextSTART hotspot that opens the main NextSTART menu. * Docks can now optionally display running tasks at the end. Added new 'Show running tasks' option to the Dock Properties dialog. * Tasks in a dock can be re-arranged via drag & drop. * Tasks in a dock can be dragged and dropped into other docks, shelves or Explorer windows, in which case a shortcut is created to the application responsible for that task (i.e.; drag a text document and you get a shortcut to Notepad). * Task shelves and dock tasklists are now only refreshed when stricly necessary, which should decrease CPU consumption a bit. +++ * Added 5 day Weather Forecast through Weather.com. The forecast is displayed in the balloon tooltip of the weather module. * The weather module is now able to provide weather information for over 39,000 cities worldwide, from the 5,800 previously covered by METAR. * When selecting a weather location in the US, you can now narrow the search by specifying the State. * The timezones within the US used to display dates on the weather module are now State specific, instead of having a single timezone for the whole country. +++ * WorkShelf should now automatically detect full screen games and videos, even when they don't change screen resolution. * Workshelf now uses an absolute minimum of CPU resources when it detects a full screen game or application is running. +++ * Added 'Show Temperature Unit' to the advanced skinning text temperature setting of the weather desktop module. It is enabled by default, but, when disabled, allows you to display the temperature without the 'C' or 'F' suffix. * Should have increased a little bit the speed of text rendering with outline and/or shadow effects in alpha blended context menus and shelves. * WorkShelf now uses the default sounds whenever switching themes and the new theme does not have a sound pack, instead of keeping the sound effects of the last loaded theme that had a sound pack. * Added .xtreme file extension switches to convert .xtreme files to and from .zip and for just Importing instead of Importing *and* Applying. +++ * Process names in the desktop CPU meter module are now displayed in proper case (i.e. first letter capitalized, remaining letters in lower case). * When opening the Weather Module Settings dialog, a small 'Busy' dialog pops up while WorkShelf is busy retrieving the locations database. Changes: * Changed the balloon tooltip to a 'Aero Glass' type look. * Changed the small 'Busy' dialog to a 'Aero Glass' type look. +++ * Made some changes to the shelf drawing algorithm so icons don't end up overlapping the frames around them. * WorkShelf, when it trial mode, now updates the number of days it has been running for every day, instead of only at startup time. +++ * The Pressure value in the Weather module is now displayed as 1234.5 instead of 1,234.50. * The tooltip displayed for shelf items is now always displayed either above or under the icon, instead of at the mouse pointer position. Fixes: * It was not possible to un-collapse a dock that started collapsed. * Changing the icon size of a dock without a magnify effect did not reset the icon cache - the displayed icons would look fuzzy. * In special cases, NeXuS could keep opening a sub-dock when clicking on the sub-dock indicator,instead of toggling it. * The sub-dock open animations were overlapping the parent dock if the magnify effect was on. * Subdocks attached to dock placeholders opened automatically when dragging something over it, but then kept opening and closing. * Dragging over a sub-dock indicator now automatically opens the associated sub-dock as it should. * Collapsing/uncollapsing a dock with the magnify effect on by double clicking the control tile no longer un-magnifies the dock. * The Icon Text Effect pull up menu and text effect color well in Shelf Appearences was not displaying the current setting when opening this Preferences dialog. * Fixed problem where text on context menus could extend to, and overlap, the next menu line. * Fixed the scroll ticker 'jump' that occured on the weather module when using alpha blended background bitmaps. * Fixed label width and positioning problems with the shelf icons when using an alpha blended background bitmap. * WorkShelf no longer locks PNG and TIF files used as icons in WorkShelf or the dock or referenced in the Recent Documents shelf. * 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. +++ * .Xtreme theme files are now NOT automatically converted to .zip files when downloading via Internet Explorer. * When opening a sub-dock, the animated sub-dock would slide too far and then snap back into the correct position. * Fixed small clock hand 'jump' that occured whenever the clock hand reached the 30 second mark. * Fixed dock sizing problems where the dock might not return to 'native' icon size after having the icon size automatically reduced to fit it on the screen. * The dock balloon tooltip was not being positioned correctly if the tooltip had to be displayed with the pointer facing right. * NeXuS no longer locks PNG and TIF files used as images for dock objects. * When dragging an object from a dock or shelf, the semi-transparent icon sometimes was not immediately visible. * Bug in the bitmap flip routine which could cause the edges of the shelf body not to be displayed correctly on inverted shelves. +++ * Docks were not accepting dropped URLs. * Rotating a dock could display the icons in the wrong position. * Semi-transparency applied to dock backgrounds only wasn't working if the background used alpha blended bitmaps. +++ * Fixed problem where setting the opacity of a window via the tasks menu could affect the wrong window. * Fixed problem where starting Xtreme with no windows open and with a dock showing running tasks would freeze WorkShelf. * 'Change Task Icon' and 'Task Customization' dialogs were always appearing over the shelf. +++ * The desktop module 'auto-arrange' function was also arranging modules that had been 'position locked' by the user. * The first letter of the days-of-the-week string in the weather forecast was not being capitalized as it should on some non-English versions of Windows. * VISTA: The information in the tooltip of shell items was being compressed into a single line of text. * VISTA: Fixed problem where dragging file system items into targets outside WorkShelf would fail in Vista because of file permission rights. * Double clicking the weather desktop module or clicking on 'Detailed Weather Conditions' in the weather module context menu was failing for locations with no METAR code. The browser now displays the appropriate Weather.com page as required. * The weather module would display the forecast conditions for New York when the user upgraded from a previous Winstep Xtreme version if the location previously defined had no Weather.com code equivalent to the METAR code. * Fixed bug where the US States list box would remain disabled even when United States was selected as a country. * Fixed annoying flicker of the dock tooltip that very briefly appeared on the wrong position when rapidly moving over dock items. * Ohio Weather.com codes were missing. +++ * The email module had stopped updating itself when new mail arrived. * WorkShelf might not come automatically forward when the user clicked on the Show Desktop quick launch icon. * Fixed problems calculating the width and position of text with outline and shadow effects. * Fixed several small details with the position of icon text and icon text selection on the shelf. +++ * The Email Checker would keep trying to connect to the Internet even if no email servers had been defined. -------------------------- Version 2.1 build 507 - February 6th, 2007 - Xtreme 7.1 Official Release New Features: * Dock item labels are now displayed when dragging an object over a dock. * 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. * The Themes shelf now also includes the 'More Themes' internal command. * FontBrowser now appears as part of the programs included in the default Main shelf. * Added a 'Show/Hide Desktop Modules' internal command. This hides from view or displays all currently open desktop modules. Useful to bring the modules you want back into view and into the foreground when you need them and to hide them when not in use. Hidden modules keep performing their functions in the background, so their information is not 'stale' when brought into view again. * Added 'Show/Hide Desktop Modules' to the Desktop Modules context menu. * The Automatic Update Manager now knows if it needs to download the full or the update pak. * Added a 'Zoom Tiles on Magnify Effect' option to the NeXuS Appearence Preferences tab. This controls if the tiles on a tile based dock theme are magnified vertically *as well as* horizontally (as opposed to just vertically or just horizontally, depending on the dock orientation) when the icons are magnified. * WorkShelf now watches both the current user and all users desktop folder for changes and refrehes the desktop shelf automatically when required. Changes: * Replaced the analog clock bitmap with another capable of being magnified up to 128x128 (courtesy of John T.Folden). * Renamed all 'Show' and 'Hide' entries in the Desktop Modules context menu to 'Open' and 'Close', to make a distinction between hidding a running module and actually closing it. * Changed the color of the bubble tooltip to make it more 'modern'. * Desktop icons are now hidden at startup before displaying the shelf and desktop modules, which makes it happen much sooner in the initialization process. Fixes: * Span Monitors was not working if the Reserve Screen Space option was enabled. * The text in context menus could overlap the icon area in some themes that had a specific area for menu icons. * It was still possible to dock the shelf in the same edge as a dock. * It was not possible to open sub-docks of horizontal docks using the keyboard. * Fixed a problem where docks or sub-docks could constantly expand and contract at high speed when navigating them using the keyboard. * Fixed problem where the shelf would un-dock itself on startup or after comming out of Preferences complaining that a dock was already attached to that screen edge. * Screen edge bumps on multi-monitor systems are now working correctly. * The animated fish image in Wanda Settings was not clearing the background before drawing each frame. * Should have prevented WorkShelf from sometimes crashing on exit. * A shelf starting collapsed where the tabs are set to blend in with the body bitmap, would show the tab area as a body bitmap shrunk to fit the tab area. * Duplicated docks now have the 'Start Collapsed' setting disabled, otherwise the user would only see the collapsed control tile and assume the dock contents had not been duplicated at all. * The desktop RAM meter was not updating on systems with more than 2 GB of virtual memory. * The Automatic Update Manager was crashing on Win9x systems. * Changing a file on the desktop or on a folder associated to a shelf would make a collapsed WorkShelf re-paint incorrectly if the associated shelf was currently selected and the shelf was inverted. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 504 - November 24th, 2006 - Xtreme 6.11 Official Release New Features: * The Shelf can now have overlapped tabs. The skinner can also specify how many pixels they overlap. * The Shelf can now have the main body bitmap applied to the whole shelf, while retaining the ability to display tabs, which overlap the main bitmap. * Added Left and Right offsets to tabs, which help creating themes where the body bitmap rises up to the tabs. * WorkShelf now remembers the last target object selected in the Theme Manager tab of Preferences while switching Preference tabs. Fixes: * 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. * WorkShelf was still not using the settings defined in NextSTART for task mouse clicks. * The 'Raise WorkShelf' internal command was not working if the request came from a NextSTART internal command. * A bitmap could be painted incorrectly if the non-stretchable areas were larger than the destination area. * Docks with themes that have bitmaps for all dock orientations could display the wrong bitmap after restarting WorkShelf. * The pressed image of the shelf scroll arrows was never displayed on PNG based shelves. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 498 - November 17th, 2006 - Xtreme RC1 Release New Features: * NeXus (the dock component) has been integrated into WorkShelf. - Multiple dock support. - Docks can have an unlimited number of sub-docks levels. - Docks can be created from 'Regular' Shelves. - Shelves can be created from Docks. - Shelves can have 'in-shelf' docks. * You can now set the size of the dock's control tile icon. This way you can have an always on top dock that can collapse to a small icon. * New 'Browse Container with NextSTART' context menu option for file system objects. Allows you to browse the folder holding the item using NextSTART menus. * Deleting an item that is the parent of a sub-dock now causes the first sub-dock item to 'shift' into the parent dock, taking the place of the deleted item. * Creating a new dock now displays the Dock Properties dialog where you can set the initial dock properties or cancel the operation. * You can now have an infinite number of sub-dock levels. * Sub-docks now move much more smoothly when adding or removing items above the sub-dock parent tile. * Dragging & dropping an item onto the first 1/4 of the tile (assuming a vertical dock at the left) now inserts that item there, shifting the replaced item into a sub-dock. * Floating Docks and sub-docks now open into the area with the most available screen space. +++ * Item Separators in Docks can now display an icon, have a label and display a balloon tooltip if a label has been associated to them. * Item Separators in Docks are now called 'Dock Place Holders' in the Item Properties Editor dialog. * Implemented the 'Collapse on application Launch' dock functionality. * Implemented the 'Collapse sub-docks on application Launch' functionality. * Added the ability to drag a sub-dock Parent tile and move the sub dock with it. * Added a 'Detach Sub-Dock' command to the context menu to the parent dock tile of a sub-dock. This detaches the sub-dock and turns it into a full blown dock. * Sub-docks now close when you click on the control tile. * You can drag a dock's control icon into *another* dock, thus making that dock a sub-dock of the target. * You can drag a dock's control icon into the shelf, which makes it an 'in-shelf' dock (only pops up when you click on the shelf's dock icon). You can also move this icon into another dock, in which case the dock is made a sub-dock of the target. * You can add items to a closed in-shelf docks by dropping the item directly into the in-shelf dock icon. * Added several context menu options to the in-shelf dock icon, including 'Detach Dock from Shelf'. * Added new 'Dock Style Editor' option to the Appearence context menu of the dock's control tile. From the Dock Style Editor dialog you can choose and apply any of the bitmap background tiles that exist in the ...\winstep\nexus\tiles\ folder. +++ * Implemented the Dock Alpha Transparency level and 'Apply to Background' functions. * Implemented the IDropTargetHelper interface to docks so objects being dragged from Explorer are visible while on top of the docks. * Added support for dock 'Backgrounds'. * The Dock Style Editor now displays all the backgrounds that exist in the ...\winstep\nexus\backgrounds folder (each background is in a unique sub-folder with the image files and the background settings (INI) file). * Added icon 'Magnify' effect to docks which can be turned on or off, on a per-dock fashion, in the Dock Properties dialog. * Added 'Lock/Unlock Dock Theme' to the Appearence and Sounds sub-menu of the control tile context menu. +++ * NeXuS is compatible with ObjectDock and RocketDock Backgrounds. * Added sking rotation for dock backgrounds, depending on dock position and orientation. * The Dock Style Editor now displays the currently selected Tile or Background for that dock (if any) on opening. * Changed the dock collapse algorithm so it looks and works correctly with both tiles and backgrounds and does not cause problems with the magnification effect. * Added 'Icon Shift' effect when dragging an object over a dock. * Added sub-dock opening animation. * Added 'Open Sub Dock' sound event. * The 3 dot sub-dock indicator has been replaced by an arrow indicator which points out in which direction the sub-dock will open and 'lights up' when the associated sub-dock is open. * Added a 'bouncing arrow' effect that provides visual feedback when an object is about to be dropped into the sub-dock of the parent tile rather than into the tile itself. +++ * You can now use ICO or ICL files with 128x128 icons and NeXus will use the proper 128x128 version when magnifying. * New 'Raise WorkShelf' internal command which brings the shelf, all desktop modules and docks to the foreground. * A docked dock now respects reserved screen space, unless told not to do so in the Dock Properties dialog. * Added support for Dock activation keys and screen edge/corner bumps. * Collapsing and uncollapsing the dock now plays the same sound event as opening a sub-dock. * Added 'Monitor' sub-menu to the main context menu of the shelf and docks, which allows the user to choose, on multi-monitor systems, which monitor should the shelf or a dock be docked to. * Added a 'Desktop Modules' sub-menu to the main context menu of the shelf, the docks and all in-shelf and desktop modules, from where you can individually control which desktop modules to show and/or hide, show or hide all of them at once, or bring everything forward. * Made sure the balloon tooltip for dock items does not overlap the dock, since this actually made it quite intrusive. * Sub-Dock indicators now light up cyan on mouseover to provide visual feedback. * Added icon bounce effect when launching items through the dock. * Added a 'Settings' button to the 'Effects' pull up menu in the Dock Properties dialog from where you can specify the size of the magnification effect in pixels. * Added options in the Dock Properties panel to control the 'icon shift on drag over' and 'Icon bounce on application launch' effects. * Added 'Collapse to Screen Edge when Docked' option to the Dock Properties dialog. This makes the dock collapse towards the screen edge it is docked to instead of collapsing into a control icon. Bumping the screen edge un-hides the dock. * Added 'Auto-Hide' option to the Dock Properties dialog and to the context menu of a dock's control tile. * The dock now automatically re-sizes icon sizes (up to a minimum of 16x16) if the current icon size makes it too large to fit on the screen. * Added a 'Flat Magnify' effect, where all the icons in the dock magnify to the maximum size at once. * Added a 'Disable Magnify Effect on Drag & Drop' option to the Settings dialog of the Magnification effects. +++ * Added 'Ripple Effect' support to docks. * Added labels to docks, which appear instantaneously, being replaced by the balloon tooltip with full info after a couple of seconds if the mouse pointer remains over the same item. * Added a 'Show Labels' option to the Dock Properties dialog. * When dropping files from Explorer, WorkShelf now automatically removes any file extension from the item label (e.g.; 'WorkShelf.exe' becomes simply 'WorkShelf') * Text Effects now look much better when writting over layered windows. * Pressing SHIFT while right clicking a dock's control tile now opens the Dock Properties dialog of that dock. * Pressing CTRL while right clicking a dock's control tile now opens the Dock Style Editor of that dock. * Completely changed the dock magnification algorithms: the dock now smoothly magnifies and restores and there are no more positioning problems (like the last or first tile of a dock beeing off-screen when you are mousing over them). * Added a 'Magnification Span' setting to the Magnification Settings dialog, which allows to specify how many icons are affected at once by the magnification effect. The default is 3 but you can change this to 5 or 7. * Added a new 'NeXus Appearence Preferences' tab to WorkShelf Preferences (non-functional yet) and moved it and the Shelf Appearence Preferences tab to after the Global Preferences tab in the icon ribbon. +++ * The default dock now features a clock, recycler, default internet browser and default email client. * The Themes Manager pull up menu is now ordered alphabetically. * You can now save or load the shelf theme individually of modules and dock themes. * Added functionality to the NeXuS skinning tab in Preferences. New Dock bitmaps are: nxtile.bmp/jpg/png nxback.bmp/jpg/png nxbacktop.bmp/jpg/png nxbackleft.bmp/jpg/png nxbackright.bmp/jpg/png nxoverlay.bmp/jpg/png nxoverlaytop.bmp/jpg/png nxoverlayleft.bmp/jpg/png nxoverlayright.bmp/jpg/png * It is now also possible to drag a dock by the top or bottom edges (when the dock is vertical) or left and right edges (when the dock is horizontal). * Sub-docks now automatically shrink their icon size if they are too large to fit on the available screen space. * Added the ability to use overlays on docks. * Added the option to have 'per tile' overlays, in which the overlay bitmap is applied to each dock tile instead of to the dock as a whole. * Added 'Duplicate Dock' command to the dock's main context menu. * Added 'Duplicate Sub-Dock' to the tile context menu of a dock item associated to a sub-dock. * Added a 'Font' button to the Dock Properties dialog. You can now specify the font and font size used for displaying the labels for that dock. * Improved the rendering of desktop module tile backgrounds on older themes that do not provide backgrounds for all the modules. * The shelf no longer resets back to the top icon row when applying themes using the themes shelf. Makes it easier to try several themes in a row. * Added endcaps to tiled docks. NeXuS will automatically use the endcaps if the bitmap files are present in the theme folder. Endcap bitmap names are: nxtilestart.bmp/jpg/png nxtilestarttop.bmp/jpg/png nxtilestartleft.bmp/jpg/png nxtilestartright.bmp/jpg/png nxtileend.bmp/jpg/png nxtileendtop.bmp/jpg/png nxtileendleft.bmp/jpg/png nxtileendright.bmp/jpg/png Endcaps are added to the begining and end of tiled docks. * Added endcaps to tiled overlays. NeXuS will automatically use the endcaps if the bitmap files are present in the theme folder. Overlay Endcap bitmap names are: nxOverlaystart.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlaystarttop.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlaystartleft.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlaystartright.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlayend.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlayendtop.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlayendleft.bmp/jpg/png nxOverlayendright.bmp/jpg/png * Added a 'Extended Endcaps' switch to the NeXuS Appearance tab in Preferences. Enabling it makes the endcaps extend beyond the dock edges. Note that docks with tile or overlay endcaps extend automatically if the dock has less than 3 items in it. * Added thumbnail support for TIF and TIFF files. +++ * Added 'Enable/Disable Auto-Arrange' and 'Arrange Modules' commands to the 'Desktop Modules' context menu. * Added a 'Show In All Shelves' and 'Don't Show In All Shelves' command to the context menu of in-shelf modules. * Added support for TIF icons and bitmaps. * Internet access is now fully asynchronous, i.e.; it no longer makes WorkShelf look like it is using 100% of the CPU. * 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 a 'Update Subscritption Reminder' that goes off when the '1 year of free updates' subscription expires. * NeXuS now uses the same 'Launch with Single/Double Click' setting as the shelf. * Added a 'No Overlay on Subdocks' switch to the NeXuS appearance tab. This allows the skinner to make complex overlays for main docks while keeping sub-docks simple. * Sub-docks now close automatically when the user clicks on anything that isn't a dock, the shelf or a context menu. * Added new Wanda photo-realistic bitmaps so they look good all the way up to 128x128. * Added new Globe Email Checker bitmaps so they look good all the way up to 128x128. * WorkShelf will now create the default dock even if the user is already an existing Winstep user but is running the NeXuS version of WorkShelf for the first time. * Docks and shelf are now prevented from docking to the same screen edge. * The Dock Style Editor now also displays and previews normal NeXuS themes. * 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. * Docks now reserve and respect reserved screen space. * When undocking a dock, the dock now moves sligthly to provide some visual feedback about the operation. * Removed the options to set individual tile icon sizes. * Added support for the 'Always on Bottom' dock z-order setting. * Added keyboard navigation support for docks with the mag effect enabled. * 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 'Lock/Unlock Theme' option to the context menu of all the modules. * Added 'wmplayer.exe','tbrush.exe','powerpnt.exe','quemu.exe' to the default snapshot exclusion list. +++ * The Desktop Modules 'auto-arrange' function now tries to take into account any dock docked at the bottom or top of the screen edge so that the desktop modules are not overlapped by or overlap it. * The 'Hide/Show Desktop Icons' command in the shelf left mini-tab context menu now saves the current state in the 'Hide Desktop Icons at Startup'. * Added vertical and horizontal offsets for the mini-tab symbols in the Shelf Advanced Skinning dialog. * Added, with permission, a set of PNG icon files based on Treetog's Next OS Black icon theme to the \Winstep\Icons\Samples\ folder. * Some of the Internal Commands now use the Next OS Black icons. * Because of a backwards compatibility issue, the CPU meter load label always added the "%" symbol to the value. To prevent this, put the @ (at) character in the sufix field. * WorkShelf no longer attempts to draw frames around the icons on themes made before version 1.70 of WorkShelf (when this feature was first introduced and made the default). You can still force the theme to display frames around the icons by selecting this option again in the shelf 'appearance and sounds' context menu. * 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. * NextSTART and WorkShelf now share the Task mouse click actions. Changes: * Changed the Dock 'Screen Position' menu so it presents different options when the dock is docked or undocked. +++ * To move a floating dock around, you now must drag the control tile background, being careful not to click on the icon itself, which would initiate a drag & drop operation of the dock. +++ * To launch a dock item you must now click on the item icon, it is no longer enough to click on the tile. * Dragging the control icon of a dock into the recycler now pops up a stern warning about the dock and all its contents being deleted. +++ * Moved the Dock Style Editor and Control Icon Color options from the Appearence and Sounds sub-menu to the dock's main context menu. * The Dock Style Editor list of backgrounds and tiles is now sorted alphabetically. * When a sub-dock opens the sub-dock is now icon-aligned with the parent tile icon. * Increased the 'Add Item to Sub-Dock' quadrant for docks with magnified icons. * Changed the dock icon magnification algorithm so it works correctly with magnification sizes other than 128 pixels and improved it's smoothness a bit in the process. * Changed order of some of the items in the main context menu of docks and removed the 'Backup' and 'Restore' options because the menu was getting too long. +++ * Speeded up the icon bouncing effect and made the icon go down faster than it goes up, which improves the effect. +++ * Decreased a bit the time taken between rest and full dock magnification (and between full magnification and rest). +++ * WorkShelf now has a default silent period of 0 AM to 7 AM. * Now, when WorkShelf is run for the first time, only the Clock, CPU Meter and Weather desktop modules are shown by default. * Removed the 'Rotate icons on selection' shelf special effect from the special effects dialog, since this effect has not been implemented yet. +++ * The default Icon Browser path is now the ...\Winstep\Icons folder. * Added a 'Click and Hold' function, in which left clicking on a folder item, and holding for 1 second, opens the folder in a NextSTART menu. Fixes: * Delayed Saving for the dock was not being activated unless the user moused over the shelf first. This could cause delays in the manipulation of dock items. * Docks were appearing on the tasklist. * Item Separators were not being displayed properly on docks. * Increased the clickable area of the sub-dock indicator. * Fixed bug where dragging & dropping a shortcut file between Winstep applications caused customized icons to be replaced by the normal file icon. * Fixed SERIOUS bug that could cause dock corruption when deleting docks. * Items can now be dropped directly INTO the control tile icon and they are still inserted below it. * A proper tooltip, with instructions, is now displayed for the control tile of a dock. * When a sub-dock is open and you click on another tile to open another sub-dock, the first sub-dock now closes and the second opens, instead of the mouse click being ignored. +++ * It was possible to move a dock with sub-docks open. * A GDI+ handle was being leaked every time a new dock was created. * Bug with dock automatic repositioning when items were moved around if the dock or sub-dock was 'reversed'. * MAJOR bug in which deleting or inserting a shelf would corrupt all the docks. +++ * There was an extra menu item separator at the bottom of the context menu of dock tiles without child docks. * Running an application from a sub-dock would not close all the parent sub-docks automatically. * MAJOR bug in which deleting a dock could corrupt all docks. * Applying a new theme now updates docks themes unless the dock has been set to lock the current theme via the control tile context menu. +++ * The in-dock CPU Meter module was always being painted at the top of the dock. * The Magnify effect would 'forget' the left offset from margin for dock backgrounds. * The Dock Style Editor window was not showing up centered on screen. * Fixed problems with sub-dock repositioning when dragging & dropping. * Dock with the magnify effect on and very small icon sizes now display much improved magnified icon images. * Changing the color of the dock control icon did not have an immediate effect. +++ * Fixed sub-dock relative position to parent tile problems when dragging over the parent dock. * Dragging an item from a sub-dock and inserting it as a sub-dock of the parent dock would leave a ghost icon behind and always copy the item instead of moving it. * When applying transparency with the "Background only" box checked, sub-docks would open with the transparency applied to icons as well as the background. * The Dock's 'Apply to Background Only' transparency setting was not being saved properly, which caused this setting to be ignored when starting WorkShelf. * The Email Checker module on docks was not updating when new mail arrived or was retrieved from the mail server. * Changing the Style or colors of in-shelf modules would not update the style and/or colors of in-dock modules. * Clicking on a magnified dock icon on horizontal bottom docks would have no effect unless the click was within the dock tile. * Docks and sub-docks now act as one window, i.e.; if one comes forward so do all the others. * Sometimes when starting to drag a dock item and then aborting the drag operation with ESC while the mouse pointer was still over the dragged item would cause that item to be launched. * Text Size on in-dock modules was not being correctly re-sized when magnifying. * Changed the pop up position of dock context menus so the mouse pointer starts well within the menu, which prevents the dock from returning to normal size and immediately magnifying again. +++ * Fixed some Recycler icon size problems on magnified docks. * Fixed SERIOUS bug where moving an item from the shelf to the dock could cause the wrong item to be deleted from the shelf. * The icon bouncing effect was not re-drawing any sub-dock indicator. +++ * The Items Properties Dialog was showing folder items as either 'Item Separators' or as 'Dock PlaceHolder'. * On single monitor systems it was possible for a dock with a magnification effect to have the right edge 'cut off'. * A dock would stop auto-hiding if you opened a context menu and then dismissed the menu by clicking on the desktop or closing it directly. * Fixed SERIOUS bug where the 'Detach sub-dock' feature was broken and any detached sub-dock would be lost. * The in-Dock modules, apart from the clock and recycler, were not doing anything when clicked on. * Fixed problem with dock labels sometimes not fading out. * The 'Label' field was always blank when invoking the item Property Editor dialog. * URL dock items were not working when clicked on. * The Dock Tile context menu would not allow you to insert a new dock placeholder. * A Dock with an icon size shrunk automatically to fit on the screen did not revert to the previous icon size as it should when items were deleted from it. * When creating a 'NextSTART Hotspot' item in the Item Properties dialog, the hotspot number choosen always reset back to zero regardless of your choice. * A dragged task item from the tasks shelf would not function correctly when dragged into a regular shelf, and no icon would be displayed while dragging either. * A dock placeholder item would loose its context menu if associated to a sub-dock. * Image thumbnails in docks with the magnifying effect on now display a proper magnified image instead of a fuzzy scaled up version of the current dock's icon size. * Moving a dock with the magnify effect on was not working properly, the dock would end up being placed at the wrong spot once the user released the mouse button. * Fixed some tooltip positioning problems for magnifying docks with a sub-dock open. * Decreased the font size used for Text Effects when using smaller font sizes to prevent the text from over-running the allocated area. * In-dock net meters were not being updated. * Clicking on a in-shelf module on the Themes shelf would apply a random theme instead of executing the action associated to that module. * Accessing the Shelf Icon Preferences and Shelf Appearance Preferences tabs was corrupting the shelf layout. * Fixed problem with the Dock Style Editor showing PNG tiles. * A WorkShelf PNG Active Tab was using the bitmap tile settings of the inactive tabs. * Moving items around in a folder shelf or special shelf like 'My Desktop' could cause display glitches (blank items, etc...). * The dock bitmaps were not automatically rotating properly when using the dock to screen edge context menu options. +++ * Clicking the email module on a dock would NOT launch the email client. * In-dock analog clock and recycler icons did not scale properly when magnifying for icon sizes above 32x32 and below 48x48 pixels. * Dock water ripple effect settings were not being applied immediately. * Cached dock icons were not being reset when switching between a mouseover effect with no magnification and one with magnification (and vice-versa). * Some of the actions on the dock (changing magnification effect, rotating the dock, moving it into another screen quadrant, etc...) would cause the dock to 'jerk'. The dock is now momentarily hidden while the new settings are applied, so it doesn't seems to 'jerk' anymore. * WorkShelf was not copying all of the possible NeXuS bitmaps when saving a theme. * Docks with locked themes would lose the 'Extended Endcaps' setting when switching to a new theme. * Docks with locked themes would lose any existing overlay when WorkShelf was restarted. * Docks could lose their overlay and extended endcaps settings when a new theme was applied and then canceled. * Dragging a sub-dock item over a parent dock with a magnification effect would cause the source sub-dock to be mispositioned. * A sub-dock indicator could sometimes stay lit in the mouseover color even though the mouse pointer would no longer be over it. * The digital clock is now scaling up properly. * It was possible to display the wrong image when animating the email checker and/or Wanda. * It was possible for a in-shelf dock to lose its in-shelf status by editing its properties via the Dock Properties dialog. * Should have fixed some problems with the shelf and respecting reserved screen space. * A floating dock set to 'Collapse to Screen Edge when docked' would remain collapsed into the control icon if docked in this state. * Fixed some issues with the shelf not auto-collapsing after opening a context menu or auto-collapsing when it shouldn't (e.g.; rename dialog open). * Opening a context menu of an in-shelf dock and clicking on it would close the in-shelf dock. * An in-shelf dock with a magnify effect on would would re-magnify right after opening a context menu on one of its items. +++ * The Dock Style Editor Preview panel would retain the previous image if one of the sections (Tiles, Backgrounds or Themes) did not have any content. * Sub-docks with endcaps and less than 3 icons might not be positioned correctly initially. * Dropping an item over a 'new item place holder' blank tile, created when 'Shift on Dragover' is enabled, no longer allows the item to be inserted into a sub-dock. To insert items into sub-docks you must be over an actual item. * Changing the dock orientation using the Dock Properties dialog would cause NeXuS not to use the correct dock background bitmaps for the new orientation. * 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. * WorkShelf could freeze when upgrading from a previous version for the first time and starting up the whole Winstep Xtreme environment. * The Dock Style Preview window was not displaying extended dock endcaps. * Dropping an item into another dock's recycle bin did not reclaim the blank insertion tile in the target dock. * Fully transparent backgrounds no longer cause drag & drop dock operations to fail. * Fixed bug in which docks and shelves would stop auto-hiding after a drag & drop operation. * A dock with the magnify effect enabled could appear 'cropped' at the edges when initiating a drag & drop operation and the 'Shift Icons on Drag' effect was on. * The right mini-tab symbol was not updating itself when the shelf collapsed on PNG based themes. * Should have fixed problem where the right mini-tab gets 'squashed' depending on the total size of the shelf. Left and Right mini-tab bitmaps should always be 28 pixels wide. * The 'Get Weather' button in the Weather Settings dialog was always failing. * Fixed some problems which the subscription renewal code. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 442 - September 1st, 2006 - Public Beta 4 New Features: * The 'Internet Settings' dialog now also displays update information. * WorkShelf now performs a 'delayed' save every time shelf contents are added, deleted or modified. This prevents the annoying 'pause' that could occur while the shelf was being saved if you had lots of items in 'Regular' shelves. * Added support for the TEMPO (Possible Temporary weather changes') and VC (in the Vicinity) METAR directives. * New 'Fast User Switching' Internal Command (Win 2000 and above only). Fixes: * The sticky shelf timer is now reset every time the user uses the keyboard to navigate the shelf. * Pressing a shift key could sometimes result in a WorkShelf hotkey activating without the corresponding key being actually pressed. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 441 - June 30, 2006 - Public Beta 3 New Features: * WorkShelf is now able to use PNG task or Hotspot button bitmaps as the default background of desktop modules. * Added new option to the Misc.Options section of Shelf Icon Preferences to select wether folder items are displayed as a NextSTART menu or in a Explorer window when clicked on. * WorkShelf 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: * The shelf would collapse automatically when activating it through the keyboard even while you were navigating it. * VISTA: Showing the contents of the Recycle Bin returned an error. * The Net In and Net Out graphics in the Net Statistics panel were not being displayed. * VISTA: The Active Connections panel kept giving Access Violation errors because iphlpapi.dll no longer exports the AllocateAndGetTcpExTableFromStack function. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 438 - Jun 19, 2006 - 3rd Beta 3 Preview New Features: * The Email Checker systray icon now pops up a balloon tooltip to notify you of new mail (XP Only). * WorkShelf now selects the first item When activating a shelf through the keyboard, because otherwise you would not be able to keep on navigating that shelf contents using just the keyboard. Fixes: * WorkShelf was not displaying layered (per pixel alpha) windows under Windows 2000. * WorkShelf was using PixOS instead of Aero as the default theme under Windows 2000. * Camberra was listed as Gamberra on the Weather module locations list. * WorkShelf no longer crashes when displaying the Control Panel shelf 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. * The 'Empty Recycler' sound effect was playing before the confirmation dialog. * 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 WorkShelf 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 WorkShelf is re-started. * WorkShelf was not retrieving the user defined icons and snapshot exclusion list at startup as it should, which could cause it to 'forget' these settings. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 436 - May 31, 2006 - 2nd Private Beta 3 Preview New Features: * Added support for the NextSTART \subtheme folder when Exporting zip files. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 435 - May 26, 2006 - Private Beta 3 Preview New Features: * You can now set specific tasks to only appear in the tasks shelf when they have been minimized. Fixes: * Fixed some issues with certain UI elements not appearing enabled or disabled when they should in the User Defined Task Icons dialog. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 434 - May 02, 2006 - Public Beta 2 Emergency Update Fixes: * The date of a new release could not be obtained on non-English systems. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 433 - May 02, 2006 - Public Beta 2 New Features: * You can now use PNG files to customize icons in the tasks shelf. Note that if you have the tasks shelf set to display task snapshots and the associated window is minimized, the icon will NOT update until the window has been restored. * Drag & Dropping items in the same shelf or between different shelves is now much faster (the shelf now updates instantaneously and the double save + refresh that was happening when moving items in the same shelf has been eliminated). * Added a Back button to the WorkShelf Help panel. * WorkShelf now tries to use NextSTART's Hotspot button bitmap for the background of desktop modules not being skinned before it tries to use the Task bitmap. * WorkShelf weather module now displays the weather conditions in Central Park, NY City, USA, by default. * Decreased CPU load imposed by scrolling text items in the weather module. Fixes: * 3D buttons were being mis-positioned at the top. They now start at the body top offset minus 2 pixels. * Task context menu actions could potentially be applied to the wrong windows. * Scrolling the shelf while an icon was selected and zoomed in, could cause the zoomed in version to be painted at the wrong position. * WorkShelf's version of the Windows Open and Save common control dialogs could create problems with Stardock's Enhanced Dialog utility. * Loading a Sound Theme through the Theme Management tab in Preferences failed to correctly apply the default sounds. * Mini-tabs based on PNG files are now edge aligned with the shelf body. * The Desktop Wanda module would flash the 'magic pink' background every animation frame if it was set to use a non-per-pixel alpha transparent background bitmap. * The clock module captured into the NextSTART Startbar as an icon was using the colors from the desktop clock for the hours, minutes and second hands instead of the shelf colors as it should. * The Clock, Weather, Trash and Email modules, when captured into the NextSTART startbar as icons, could become 'clipped'. * The CPU Module's most active programs list now also works on non English systems. * The text effect color was still being rendered transparent on some systems. * WorkShelf was not un-hooking itself from the system wide Shell Hook, which could cause potential problems or even crashes. * Text artifacts on scrolling items in the desktop weather module due to the difference in size between GDI and GDI+ text. * The Theme Manager tab was not copying animation strip bimaps (*ani.png/bmp/jpg) when saving a theme. * If no Email accounts were defined or all the existing ones were disabled, WorkShelf would keep flashing the desktop email module forever. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 424 - April 25, 2006 - 4th private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * The Desktop Email Checker module now supports animations, which can be achieved by using a WsMailAni.png/bmp strip and specifying the number of frames and frame interval (in milliseconds) in the Email Module Advanced Skinning panel. * Under XP, Desktop modules captured into the NextSTART startbar now become layered windows in order to preserve bitmap alpha transparency. * The Desktop Recycler module now supports animations, which can be achieved by using a WsTrashAni.png/bmp strip and specifying the number of frames and frame interval (in milliseconds) in the Recycler Module Advanced Skinning panel. * You can now display the Recycler Icon in the Desktop Recycler Module. * Deleting a shelf item via the keyboard or a context menu now also plays the Recycler Delete sound. 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. * Problem with WorkShelf Desktop Modules not being captured properly into the NextSTART Startbar. * Hibernate Internal Command was executing a Standby instead. * Fixed glitches in the drawing of the 3D buttons around the icons. * 3D buttons did not scale well to vertical icon spacings other than the default. * It was possible, when changing themes, for icons belonging to a row that is not visible to appear at the bottom of the shelf. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 422 - April 13, 2006 - 3rd Private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * Added a Water Ripple Effect settings dialog where you can define the speed, distance traveled and size of ripple. * 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 a 'wsWandaOverlay.bmp/png' bitmap which can be used to overlay the desktop module's Wanda to make it look like it's inside an aquarium, behind a rock, etc... Changes: * Decreased the default distance travelled by the water ripple effect to half of what it was. * Changed the order in which Histograms, Bar Graphs and Multi-State images are drawn in meter desktop modules: Multi-State images are now drawn first, which enables the skinner to paint an Histogram or Bar Graph on top of it. Fixes: * Clicking the Advanced button in the Tasks section of Icon Preferences crashed WorkShelf. * Setting 'Normal Z-Order (Linked to Shelf)' from a desktop module's context menu was not working. * Fixed low-quality, blurred, text when ClearType was not enabled. * The ability to Right click and drag an item and then dropping it into WorkShelf was broken. Menu options would be ignored. * Thumbnails of video files were not being rendered properly on context menus with per pixel alpha themes. * Auto-Arrange Modules was engaging, re-arranging all the modules on the screen, even if you only changed the theme of a single module. * The 'Clear Fx' button wasn't clearing all the sound effects. * Module Histogram bitmaps, when used on per pixel alpha surfaces, were not being correctly aligned horizontally. * Some Module and Shelf bitmap files were still being locked by GDI+. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 418 - April 5, 2006 - 2nd Private Beta 2 Preview Changes: * Changed the thumbnail rendering code. It is now faster and does not fail on some thumbnails as the previous code did. Fixes: * GDIPlus.dll is no longer installed on XP systems since it is already part of the OS. * Wanda's tooltip - or any other balloon tooltip - would cause the shelf to come forward. * 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. * Text rendered on per-pixel-alpha transparent windows was transparent on XP Systems with ClearType disabled. * WorkShelf would crash on some systems when generating thumbnails. This also made it impossible to open the Icon Preferences tab in WorkShelf Preferences. * On some systems, uncollapsing the shelf caused the shelf body to become fully transparent. -------------------------- Version 2.0 build 405 - March 31, 2006 - Private Beta 2 Preview New Features: * The desktop modules and the shelf are now all independent of each other, i.e.; when you click on one the others no longer come forward as well. If you prefer the old method you can still have it by setting the Z-Order of each module to 'Normal, Linked to WorkShelf'. * Added 'Always On Bottom' z-order setting to desktop modules i.e.; modules can now be forced to always stay behind other windows. * Added a 'Apply to All' button in the Module tab of WorkShelf Preferences which applies the current settings to all the modules. * Added 'Empty Recycle Bin' and 'Drop Into Recycler' sound effects. * 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. * Added 'Flash Selected Icon' effect for when you click or drop something onto an icon. * Added 'Water Ripple' effect for when you click anywhere on the shelf. * Added a new Special Fx and Animations dialog to the Icon Preferences tab, from where you can individually turn on or off some of the special effects (like Icon Shift on Drag, Icon Zoom on Selection, Water Ripple Effect, etc...). * WorkShelf now displays the icons of virtual or file objects being dragged into it from Explorer windows instead of just displaying the little drag symbol. * WorkShelf now only enumerates running tasks when windows are created or destroyed, instead of every second. This should save a few cycles. * WorkShelf right click context menus now also display ower drawn context menus, such as 'Send To' and 'Open With...'. Since these type of menus are owner drawn, they will not be skinned. * Taking Task Snapshots is now much less agressive to the system than it was: snapshots are taken once and only refreshed when the window caption changes or a window is minimized and then restored. * WorkShelf now asks for confirmation before deleting a 'Regular' type shelf using the 'Delete Shelf' option in the tab's right click context menu. * Added Proxy support. When connected to the Internet via a LAN, WorkShelf now uses the Proxy settings specified in the Connections tab of Internet Explorer. * Fine tuned the task list polling algorithm, which is now only activated when windows are created, changed or destroyed. * Added Hotkeys to shelf selection and item execution. You can now specify a global hot key to open a specific shelf or to run a specific program. * Added 'Move' and 'Size' commands to the context menu of tasks. * Improved the algorithm used to calculate when to update the desktop RAM meter. The RAM Meter information is now only updated when strictly necessary for all cases, while still maintaining 100% accuracy. Changes: * Changed the layout of the Moduler Preferences window to make room for the new features. * 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. * Moved the 'Zoom Icon on Selection' effect to the Special Fx dialog in the same Preferences panel. * The Module list in the pull up menu of Module Preferences is now sorted in alphabetical order. * The Shelf types pull up menus in the Shelf Editor and Shelf Properties dialogs are now sorted in alphabetical order. * Changed the layout of the Item Properties dialog panel. Fixes: * In the email checker module, enabling ssl encryption, closing the settings windows, and then reopening the settings windows would show the ssl box unchecked. * Configuration Backup files (.wbk) larger than 32Kb might create a buffer overlflow situation on restore in which some settings would be left with their default values. * Workshelf task snapshot function will no longer wreck havoc with per pixel alpha layered windows, which enables you to keep applications using layered windows out of the snapshot exclusion list. * The 'Don't show this message again' option in the Ask to check for Updates dialog always showed up un-checked. * The RAM meter and Net Meter styles were being switched in the Module Preferences settings. * The security descriptor for the critical section mutex was nor properly initialized, which would cause a delay of up to 1 minute for WorkShelf to load on Win9x systems. * The Desktop meter modules were leaking GDI resources under 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 2.0 build 395 - March 13, 2006 - Public Beta 1 New Features: * GDI+ support added on systems that have the GDI+ library and are compatible with it. Backward compatibility is still maintained, however: new WorkShelf features based on GDI+ will simply not be available on systems without the GDI+ library (mainly Win95, which does not support GDI+). * Workshelf and WorkShelf modules now support per-pixel alpha transparency through the use of PNG files. Modules retain the old bitmap filenames, except that they now accept .png files as well as the old .bmp and .jpg formats. For per-pixel alpha transparency, WorkShelf requires the use of a new skinning method which uses the following filenames: WsFullBody.bmp/jpg/png WsFullTabA.bmp/jpg/png WsFullTabI.bmp/jpg/png WsFullTabmL.bmp/jpg/png WsFullTabmR.bmp/jpg/png With the new method, you no longer have to cut bitmaps up - WS will do this automatically for you in memory. All you have to do is specify the tile sections (top,bottom,left and right for WsFullBody and left and right for WFullTabA and WsFullTabI) in the Advanced Skinning panel. Workshelf will still work with the older bitmap formats, but per-pixel alpha transparency in WorkShelf is only supported if you use the new skinning method. * WorkShelf can now use PNG files for shelf icons. * Faster GDI+ stretch methods now used for the icon magnification effects rather than the slower original method. * Added optional 'shift' effect animation when dragging icons over the shelf. * New optional bitmaps to be used on the desktop Net Meter if you need independent In/Out images. wsNetbIn.bmp/jpg/png wsNetbOut.bmp/jpg/png wsNethIn.bmp/jpg/png wsNethOut.bmp/jpg/png wsNetMultiIn.bmp/jpg/png wsNetMultiOut.bmp/jpg/png * New filenames for Trash and Mail icons. This was necessary because the previous ico filenames shared the same filename with the desktop module backgrounds. Old .ico filenames are maintained for back compatibility reasons: wsMailES.ico/png WsMailFS.ico/png WsTrashES.ico/png WsTrashFS.ico/png * Optimization code to the desktop Net and RAM meters so that they do not repaint if the values have not changed in the mean time AND the Histogram function is not enabled. * New 'Auto Arrange Desktop Modules' option to automatically re-arrange desktop modules at the right side of the screen when switching themes. This option can be found on the Theme Options dialog of the Theme Management tab in Preferences. * Added the 'Shelf Invert' option to the shelf body context menu. Changes: * Wanda desktop module animation now uses layered windows for transparency instead of windows regions (Win2k and XP only). This is faster and prevents problems with tooltips not appearing on certain older applications. * The Desktop mail checker module now uses the same icons as the ones used for the in-shelf mail checker module. Fixes: * The horizontal text offset for active and inactive types was being taken into account to calculate total tab area width even when the text was centered in both active and inactive tabs (the horizontal offset is ignored in such a case). * Moving an icon in a shelf would create a copy of that same icon unless you pressed SHIFT. * Running Explorer-specific context menu options prevented WorkShelf from auto-collapsing. * Fixed bug in which moving a desktop module with the 'Opaque On Mouseover' option enabled would prevent it from returning to the previous transparency level. * The RAM Meter module 'RAM Meter Theme' right click context menu option was not applying the selected theme. * Bug where the X position of the desktop CPU meter multi-state image was always equal to the Y position. * The first Multi-State frame was being used for zero values. * Bug in which, when loading a theme, 'CPU' and '%' were always added as the Prefix and Sufix of Desktop Module CPU percentage if the skinner had set them both to be blank. * WorkShelf could freeze as well, because of the tasks window snapshot function, if another program froze. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 372 - December 5, 2005 - Official Release New Features: * Added a 'Show Recycler Properties' entry to the Recycler's context menu that displays the Windows Recycle Bin Properties panel. * Pressing SHIFT when dropping a file into WorkShelf now always makes sure that file is moved instead of copied. * The Active Connections window now remembers its size and the size of each header. As a fail-safe measure, pressing the SHIFT key while opening this window will reset all sizes to default. Changes: * If the Automatic Update Notification window is disabled but the auto update function enabled, then WorkShelf checks for updates every 24 hours instead of every week. * Fine tuned the grow/shrink icon code, which should now be a little bit faster. * WorkShelf is now set by default to run on Windows Startup, just like NextSTART. * A minimized Active Connections window no longer uses any negligible CPU time. Fixes: * The Explosion animation was not being displayed when files were being deleted by dragging them onto the Recycler. * Workshelf was deleting the incorrect item in a Regular Shelf if the item was dragged into a Recycler in another shelf. * Should have fixed the intermitent problems with WorkShelf overlapping the NextSTART Startbar or jumping to the wrong screen position when changing themes. * Some of the controls in the Tasklist Advanced dialog were not being enabled or disabled properly due to a documented MicroSoft bug in ActiveX controls. * Wanda no longer tries to display cookies in the middle of a full screen game. * Moving objects within Regular shelves was always copying the object instead of moving it, even when the CTRL key was not being pressed. This made it nearly impossible to re-arrange the contents of shelves. * When using application with large number of TCP/IP or UDP connections (such as P2P software) it was possible to have multiple connections highlighted at the same time. * Minimizing the Active Connections window would crash WorkShelf. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 350 - November 23, 2005 - Public Beta 6 New Features: * Added CTRL+Right Click context menu to tasks in Tasks shelf with the following options: Minimize Restore Close Minimize Similar Restore Similar Close Similar Minimize All Restore All Change Task Icon Add to/Remove from Snapshot Exclusion list. Changes: * Wanda animation is turned off by default on Win9x/NT4 systems so it doesn't use too much CPU resources. * The Wanda desktop module is repositioned at the left of the other screen modules if screen resolution is less than 1024x768. * Grow/Shrink selection method is disabled by default on Win9x/NT4 systems since it is very CPU intensive and it is assumed that the host machine is low end. Fixes: * Fixed problem where drag & drop outside of WorkShelf was not working properly with icon grow/shrink effect enabled. * The Preview button of WorkShelf Preferences was not applying changes to specific modules when the Module tab was open. * Workshelf was exiting anyway even when the user answered 'No' to the 'Exit WorkShelf' prompt. * The CPU hogs list had the CPU usage percentage truncated if the text was right justified and the program name too large to fit. * WorkShelf could overlap the NextSTART starbar when changing themes. * Fixed problem where the wsdefault.wbk file was not being deleted on un-instalation. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 343 - October 18, 2005 - Public Beta 5 Fixes: * Pressing Preview after changing the Task's user defined icon list or the Snapshot Exclusion list would lose the changes. * Using the common Windows dialogs to browse for files in the Task's User Defined Icons list or the Snapshot Exclusion list would crash WorkShelf. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 342 - October 18, 2005 New Features: * You can now customize task icons in the tasks shelf by dropping a *.ico file into a task. * Customizing a task's icon in NextSTART now automatically customizes the same task's icon in WorkShelf. Fixes: * Opening a drive in the Drives shelf would result in a 'The Parameter is Incorrect' message box being displayed. * On non-XP systems magnified icons would have a 'pink' halo around them. * The 'Don't Update Snapshot' option in the Advanced Task Options dialog was not working properly. * Exit, Log Out and Hybernate functions were broken. WorkShelf would exit but the required action was not performed. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 341 - October 4, 2005 - Public Beta 4 New Features: * Added an Advanced button in the Icons tab of WorkShelf Preferences where you can define a list of tasks to be excluded from having their snapshot taken. * The frame icon selection method switches back to 3D mode when there is no 3D frame around the icons. * Added 'Raised' option for the frame icon selection method. Note that for this option to have an effect, the 3D frame around icons must be turned off. * The grow/shrink effect is no longer limited to an icon at a time. Mouse over a series of icons and you get a much more natural wave like effect * Improved the quality of the growing icons when the grow & shrink effect is turned on by using an anti-aliasing algorithm. * Auto Update can now optionally check for beta versions. Fixes: * A hung application would hung WorkShelf as well if the option to take tasklist window snapshots was enabled. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 338 - September 15, 2005 - Public Beta 3 Changes: * Reduced the frequency in which task window snapshots are taken in order to reduce CPU load. Fixes: * Grow effect sizing problem on tasks shelf with tasks that did not provide window snapshots or when the snapshots function was disabled. * Size problems with customized in-shelf clock bitmaps. * The currently Active window no longer has the task snapshot updated since this can cause some subtle - and not so subtle - window painting problems. * Selecting a theme from the Themes tab would generate a hidden error that could crash WorkShelf with an Access Violation error if compiler optimizations were enabled. * The Email Checker module was not respecting the 'Wait for Connection' and 'Alternative Connection Detection' Internet settings. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 336 - September 12, 2005 - Public Beta 2 New Features: * Added a 'Zoom in effect on Icon Selection' option. When selected, a shelf icon grows a little bit and then shrinks back to original size when unselected. * Added a 'Zoom in on Windows Snapshots' option to zoom the snapshot of a task window into a full blown 128x128 image. * Added a 'Tab Alignment' sub-menu to the tab's context menu. * Added 'Show Tasks as Icons' or 'Show Window Snapshots' option to the Task's Shelf context menu. * Added new context menu entries to the Shelves context menu. * Explosion effect when you drag a shelf object into the Recycle bin and the object is visible on the shelf when you drop it. * Added a 'New Folder' context menu entry for shelves pointing to folders. * Added an option (XP ONLY) to view tasks as window snapshots instead of task icons. * Added a 'Tabs Position' section to the Shelf Settings tab in Preferences. * New 'Icon Settings' Preferences tab. Moved shelf icon related settings from the Shelf Settings tab to the new Icon Settings tab. * Added a Preview section to the new Icon Settings tab. Changes to icon related settings are immediately previewed here. * Added an option to show icons in a Tasks shelf as application rather than window icons when the icon size is 48x48 or larger. This circunvents a Windows limitation where 48x48 or larger tasklist icons are stretched up versions of 32x32 icons. * The desktop recycler module now also asks for confirmation before deleting files or objects (if 'Ask for Confirmation' is enabled in the Recycler module Settings). * Pressing the SHIFT key while dropping a file into the Recycle bin now permanently deletes the file (does not send to Recycler) * Added Auto Complete to all edit boxes that requested filenames. * Added a Preview button to the Advanced Skinning Settings of all the desktop modules when accessing these dialogs through the module's context menu. Changes: * Renamed 'Use Windows File Browser' to 'Use NeXT style File Browser' and made WorkShelf use the Windows Common File dialog by default. * Moved some settings around within the Shelf Settings tab. * Removed the 'Show Launch Errors' option which was obsolete. * Moved the 'Show Icon Tooltips' option from the Global to the Icon Settings tab in Preferences and renamed it 'Show Object Tooltips'. Fixes: * Tabs with a justification other than full width could, in certain themes, take up more space than necessary. * Automatic shelf switch could select the wrong shelf or none at all if tabs justification was not set to full width. * Left clicking on a task icon in the Tasks shelf would not minimize the window as it should if the window was already in the foreground. * If a shelf being previewed in Preferences was smaller than the preview window the image would appear to jump up and down. * Bug where dragging a shelf object very fast could prevent the correct icon from being shown while dragging the object. * If MouseOver activation was enabled, it would uncollapse WorkShelf even if you were pointing to a mini-tab. This would, more often than not, prevent you from clicking on the mini tabs without causing the shelf to un-collapse automatically. * Bug where Restoring a backup of WorkShelf would make it leak an undetermined amount of icon handles. * Fixed some issues with the Respect Reserved Screen space option. * Possible icon rendering problems when the shelf was inverted. * Minor popup location problems for the Wanda cookie tooltip. * Shelf could be manually resized when collapsed. * Could not drag shortcuts to items that no longer existed. * Context menus were not closing automatically when executing a shell action. * Context menus could sometimes terminate with an item separator instead of a valid context menu option. * Folder items in Regular shelves did not get the 'Make Shelf from Folder' and 'Browse in NextSTART' context menu entries. * The Net Out meter was not being refreshed when attached to the NextSTART startbar as an icon. -------------------------- Version 1.90 build 324 - August 30, 2005 - Public Beta 1 Release New Features: * The default clock and recycler module icons now scale up above 48x48. * WorkShelf now automatically updates its icons when you change a file association. * Added Initialization Mutexes so NextSTART and WorkShelf do not initialize at the same time, which could spell trouble under certain conditions. * Added support for NextSTART's ability to captured WorkShelf desktop modules as icons into the Startbar. * Added "Attach to NextSTART' and 'Detach From NextSTART" context menu entries for desktop modules to make it easy to add or remove desktop modules from the NextSTART Startbar. * Improved WorkShelf's ability to deal with Reserved Screen area changes. * You can now select a theme in the Theme Management tab of WorkShelf 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! * New 'Show Themes' shelf type. This shelf shows all currently available WorkShelf themes and displays each theme's preview screenshot as the icon for easy recognition. * Added an option to save fortune cookies retrieved from the Internet into a local 'Online Cookies' file. Maximum allowed size for this file is 150 Kb, once it reaches this limit no more cookies are added to it. * Added a 'Test' button in Wanda Settings to test the online cookie retrieval. * Pressing the SHIFT key while deleting a file from a Show Folder shelf now permanently deletes the file (does not send to Recycler) * Browse in NextSTART context menu entry for folder type items. Note that NextSTART must be running for this to work. * 'Opaque on Mouseover' option for semi-transparent desktop modules. Makes a semi-transparent desktop module fade to opaque when the mouse pointer is over it and fade back to the previous transparency level when the mouse pointer leaves it. * Added option in Global Preferences panel to control how many Documents are displayed in the Recent Documents shelf (XP only). The default is 15. * The Recent Documents shelf under XP no longer displays hundreds of files, but the last 15 used documents as it should. * Added Backup and Restore buttons to the Global Preferences panel of WorkShelf. * Added 'Show Icon Frame' option to the Shelf Settings Preferences Panel. * Added Internal Command 'Show Tip of the Day'. Changes: * Rewrote routines to draw the clock and recycler in-shelf icons. * WorkShelf now starts docked to the bottom screen edge and reserves screen space by default. * The Weather module now automatically retrieves the weather for the first time once you choose a location (i.e. Interval is now set to Every Hour by default). * The Atomic Clock feature is now enabled by default. * Removed the 'Glow when retrieving cookies from the Internet' option in Wanda settings which was not being used. * Renamed 'Show/Hide Buttons' in the Shelf context menu to 'Show/Hide Icon Frames' Fixes: * The Wanda in-shelf module was not being temporarily disabled when collapsing the shelf, which could cause some painting problems during the shelf's collapse animation. * WorkShelf prevented NextSTART from releasing a module's position in the Startbar when the module was closed. * Wanda balloon tooltip positioning issues when Wanda was located at the bottom of the screen. * WorkShelf no longer re-initializes its internal icon cache as often as it used to (i.e.; sometimes unnecessarily). * Wanda's cookie balloon tip would not appear or appear in the wrong place if Wanda was attached to the NextSTART startbar. * Changes to the Wanda show cookie interval did not take effect until the previous interval had elapsed. * Certain XP Icons with Alpha shaddows, when dragged, showed an ugly pink color around the edges. * WorkShelf now flushes the internal Icon Cache when the icon size is changed. * Fixed an error in the thumbnail generator that could cause some thumbnails not to be rendered. * Trying to open WorkShelf Preferences from the systray button could crash WorkShelf if a modal window was currently open. * Aborting a file delete in a Show Folder shelf type was temporarily unselecting and hidding the file's icon. * The 'Tip of the Day' dialog could be resized. * Trying to change a theme through the Desktop Weather Module context menu would apply the selected theme to everything instead of just the Weather module. -------------------------- Version 1.80 build 305 - June 26, 2005 - Official Release New Features: * WorkShelf now permits simultaneous internet connections for all modules and Internet functions. * The Email Checker module can now work over SSL connections. This also means the Email Checker can be used with Gmail accounts if you enable POP3 on that account. * The Email Checker module now supports IMAP mail servers. * The Email Checker tooltip now provides individual information about each of the mail servers being polled when you are using the module to monitor more than one email account. * WorkShelf now uses it's own private clipboard format in drag & drop operations of WorkShelf objects. This means WorkShelf drag & drop data cannot be confused by other applications as drag & drop of straight text anymore. * The 'Current Network Connections' window of the Net Meter module is now resizable. * Icons are now cached on NT/Win2000/XP systems. This means that shelves now open instantly after you have accessed them once. * Shelf icons and thumbnails of the currently open shelf that are not in view are never-the-less rendered on the background so that they are ready to be displayed when the user scrolls the shelf. * If system icons change, WorkShelf now automatically refreshes the currently open shelf so that any icon changes can be reflected. * New 'Make Shelf from Folder' right click context menu option. Right click on a folder in a Shelf and you will get an option to create a new shelf displaying the contents of that folder. This new shelf will also open automatically. * You can now specify which server port number to use for email server connections performed by the Email Checker module. * Added a 'Check for Updates' item to Info sub-menu of the Shelf context menu. Fixes: * Fixed bug in the Icon Caching algorithm which would not update an item's icon when this was changed using that item's Properties dialog or by dropping an ico file onto it. -------------------------- Version 1.71 build 302 - March 31, 2005 - Maintenance Update. Changes: * When a new version is available, Web Update now opens the Winstep Full Pak page instead if NextSTART is also detected on the system. Fixes: * The desktop RAM Meter was using the y coordinate instead of the x coordinate for multi-state images. * Multi-state images did not work unless the Histogram was enabled as well. * Net Meter bitmap images were not being applied. * The Recycler Module was not properly changing between Empty and Full states. * The shelf no longer automatically uncollapses itself after a screen resolution change. -------------------------- Version 1.70 build 301 - March 10, 2005 - Official Release New Features: * Added a Most Active Programs History dialog to the CPU meter - lists the top most active programs in the last 128 seconds and the percentage of CPU used by them. * Net Meter Module with selectable Interface to monitor and complete Net Statistics (TCP,IP,UDP,ICMP) plus list of currently active connections (similar to the netstat DOS command). The Net Meter Module works under Win98/ME/W2k/XP and NT4 SP4 - Win95 does not suport this module. Net Meter advanced skinning bitmap name is wsNet.bmp. * RAM Meter Module. RAM Meter advanced skinning bitmap name is wsRAM.bmp. * The context menu of the desktop CPU Meter and the new Meter modules now allows the module style to be changed if advanced skinning is disabled. * Clock hands are now anti-aliased. * The colors of the in-shelf clock hands can now be set in the Clock Settings dialog. * Workshelf now accepts virtual shell items (such as the objects in Control Panel) to be dropped into it. If such a virtual object is dropped into a folder type shelf, a shortcut is created into it in the folder. * Icon labels are now highlighted as well as the icon when the mouse pointer hovers over them. * Image and Video files can now be previewed as thumbnails. * The shelf now automatically scrolls if you hold the mouse pointer over a scroll button for over 1 second. * When dragging an item you can now scroll the shelf by holding the mouse pointer over one of the scroll buttons. * Tabs can now be full shelf width or dynamic width, in which case they can be left or right justified or centered. * Wanda Fish module. Wanda swims mindlessly in a shelf or on the desktop until you click on her, at which point she will share a bit of her wisdom with you. Wanda has optional access to an online database of over 50,000 'fortune cookies'. You can also add your own cookie files. * Added the ability to set WorkShelf's icon size through the left mini-tab context menu. * New balloon tooltips! * Shelf item tooltips now present as much information about files, folders and virtual objects as the tooltips provided by Explorer. * New 'Cookie Popup' sound effect for when a Wanda cookie is delivered. * WorkShelf can now automatically check for updates over the Internet. * Right Clicking on a tab now also provides access to the Shelf Editor, where you can re-arrange the shelf's order. * Added a 'Tip of the Day'. * WorkShelf now also asks for confirmation before deleting shelf objects, unless you turn this feature off in the Recycler settings. * You can now drag & drop objects from Regular shelves into Explorer windows. * Added support for URLs. You can now drag & drop an URL from Internet Explorer windows into WorkShelf. * The non-advanced skinning desktop net meter module can now be switched between horizontal and vertical configuration. * Added bitmap graph support for Meter modules with advanced skinning (wsCPUb.bmp,wsCPUh.bmp,wsNetb.bmp,wsNeth.bmp, wsRAMb.bmp and wsRAMh.bmp). The 'b' stands for Bar and the 'h' for Histogram. * Added Multi-State image support to desktop meters (for things like Gauges, etc...). Filenames are wsCPUMulti.bmp, wsNetMulti.bmp and WsRAMMulti.bmp. Just create a single bitmap with as many state images as you want and tell WS the x and y position plus the number of frames. * You can now copy URLs from WorkShelf to Explorer windows. * Optimized Wanda desktop module display routines for faster execution on slower systems. * Added visual percentage indication to the Active and Inactive text maximum text widths in the Advanced tabs skinning dialog. Changes: * METAR information in the desktop module now only scrolls if it is too long to fit on the allocated space. * Default Shelf icon size under XP is now 48x48. * The Themes, Sound Schemes and Voices items in the left mini-tab right-click context menu have been moved into a 'Appearence and Sounds' sub-menu. * Renamed the 'Disable Edge Bump' option to 'Disable Edge Bump Activation' and moved it to the Shelf auto activation section. * Moved the icon tooltips option to Global Preferences tab. * Because you can now drag & drop file objects from regular shelves to Explorer windows, it is no longer possible to delete shelf objects by dragging them off the shelf. You must either drag the object to the in-shelf recycler or delete it via the keyboard (DEL key) or the object's right click context menu. * The 'Location' field of the Metar Module now only displays the city name, since it was considered to be enough and takes up less valuable space. * Improved scrolling text algorithm in the Weather module, it was consuming too many CPU cycles. * WorkShelf no longer automatically collapses the shelf (if this feature is turned on) when an object is being dragged from it. * Changed and optimized shelf drawing code. * The shelf preview in the Shelf Skinning tab of Preferences now always displays 32x32 icons so a good preview is possible. * Scroll arrows are no longer allowed to overlap the new shelf buttons. * Thumbnails now only begin to get rendered when the shelf is fully un-collapsed to prevent jerky uncollapse animation. Fixes: * Should have corrected a problem where file sizes over 2GB could sometimes be displayed as negative numbers (Again!) * Resource Leak with the Round Selection method of selecting icons. * Bug where dragging a shelf object over itself or another object would get it deleted from the shelf. * On specific conditions, certain fonts in desktop modules might fail to display properly, even when available on the system, and Arial would be used instead. * Bug where selecting the Wanda module in Module Preferences and then another module would crash WorkShelf. * Bug where dragging a file item from a regular shelf to an Explorer window would move or copy the actual file instead of a shortcut to it. * Changing Scroll Buttons style was not being reflected on the Shelf Preview image. * Couple of painting bugs with inverted shelves and Canceling a new theme with the shelf collapsed. * The 'Hide Systray Icon' command in the Wanda Systray context menu was not working. * Fixed problem displaying memory values with the RAM Meter and systems that had over 4 GB of total virtual memory. * Dragging the Preferences window scrollbar when WS was not registered did nothing. * Bug where balloon tooltip text could show up misplaced if the tooltip had no title. * The 'Browse' button in the Wanda Advs Skinning dialog was not working. * The mouseover icon for the left mini-tab was not being displayed. * Items in the desktop tab were not being deleted when dragged into the Recycler icon. * Refresh problems with some of the in-shelf modules. * Initiating a drag & drop operation with a shelf item and then canceling with with ESC with the mouse pointer over another item could cause that item to be executed. -------------------------- Version 1.6 build 276 - August 20, 2004 - Official Release. New Features: * If the 'Respect Reserve Screen Area' is enabled WorkShelf now positions itself properly when docked and the size of the NextSTART reserved screen area changes (for instance, when the size of the NextSTART startbar changes and the Startbar's 'Reserve Screen Space' options is enabled). * Whenever an item is deleted from Workshelf an 'explosion' animation is displayed. Fixes: * A bug in a specific version of shell32.dll could cause the Recycle bin module to always report zero files in the Recycler,a work around as been provided. * The WorkShelf tray icon was not being added to the systray after an Explorer crash. * WorkShelf was not running properly under NT4/Win95 because of the multi-monitor code. * The trash module displayed the size of files in the Recycle Bin as zero on systems that did not support the SHQueryRecycleBin API call. -------------------------- Version 1.5 build 269 - April 12, 2004 - Official Release. New Features: * Items in *Regular* shelves can now be deleted by dragging them away from the shelf and then releasing the mouse button - this only works with Regular shelves though, because the Windows Desktop is itself a drag & drop target and it is a legit action to drag files from folder type shelves into the Desktop. * Added maximum width option for the top CPU Hogs text in the CPU Meter Advanced Skinning panel. * Added 'Show CPU Meter Caption' to CPU Meter advanced skinning panel. * The Email Checker module now accepts arguments in the Email Client filename, provided that the actual filename is enclosed in quotes and the arguments are provided after the quotes; e.g.; "C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\mozilla.exe" -mail * To help diagnose Weather server connection problems, the dialog in the Weather Settings panel that reports a connection failure now also displays the failure reason. Changes: * Customized icons for in-shelf modules should now hold all the possible icon sizes (or at least 16x16,32x32 and 48x48) in a single icon file. Old icon file format remains supported for backward compatibility but will no longer be listed in the documentation as an option. Customized icons for the in-shelf recycle bin module are: wstrashe.ico wstrashf.ico Optional icons (Recycle Bin animation): wstrash1.ico wstrash2.ico wstrash3.ico wstrash4.ico wstrashd.ico Customized icons for the in-shelf clock module are: wsclocka.ico wsclockd.ico Customized icons for the in-shelf email module are: wsmaile.ico wsmailf.ico * The leading zero on the CPU load of the CPU hogs has been removed. * The desktop CPU Meter now automatically adds "%" to the current CPU load, unless the skinner already uses the symbol in the suffix. * Most skinners forgot to add post and leading spaces to suffixes and prefixes on the text of desktop objects, so WorkShelf now automatically adds a space if necessary. * Text on the desktop Weather module now scrolls pixel by pixel instead of character by character, which makes scrolling much smoother. Fixes: * The scrollbar in WorkShelf Preferences was not being properly resized and made it very difficult to access the Register tab. * Weather Observation hour was being added the daylight savings bias twice. * The size of the weather module icon being dragged was not correct for icon sizes larger than 48x48. * The color of the graph in the CPU Meter systray icon depended on the color of the in-shelf CPU meter module. * Folder type shelves were not being watched for changes, which meant the shelf would not automatically refresh itself whenever a file or folder was added/removed/renamed. * WorkShelf was allowing folders to be moved or copyed into themselves, which could result in a recursive operation. * When dropping a file on the in-shelf recycle bin, the round selection was not being painted behind the recycler. * A custom in-shelf Recycler icon would make the shelf refresh itself before having all content painted properly, causing the shelf body to 'flicker'. * With custom recycle bin icons WorkShelf would mix the built in recycler icons with the custom ones when animating the recycle bin. * Painting problems with the Email Checker in-shelf module and the round selection style. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 266 - March 15, 2004 - Official Release. New Features: * When WorkShelf runs for the first time it now applies the default theme's wallpaper. * WorkShelf now uses the new Nature Sound pak by default. * WorkShelf frees RAM more agressively (NT/W2k/XP). * WorkShelf now re-inserts all tray icons into the systray after an Explorer crash. * Desktop modules no longer temporarilly 'jump' out of place when inside a reserved screen area and the size of this area changes. * Added a Find button to WorkShelf's Help page. Changes: * The METAR data file has now been moved to the \Weather\ sub-folder and the Weather icons have been moved out of the executable and into \Weather\Icons1\ and \Weather\Icons2\ * Moved wszip.dll, wsunzip.dll and region.dll to the Winstep folder. * The multi-monitor list is now only refreshed when there is a system display change notification. * Improved the way settings are retrieved from the Registry, which improves the startup time a little bit. Fixes: * Clicking on the Email Checker icon would not reset the module to 0 pending messages if there was no Email Client defined. * Fixed Resource leak in Win9x/ME with the CPU Tray icon. * WorkShelf would crash on Win9x/ME systems when trying to display the tooltip of the in-shelf or desktop CPU Meters. * After opening and closing WorkShelf Preferences, a previously collapsed shelf will remain collapsed instead of quickly uncollapsing and collapsing as it did previously. * With the shelf collapsed, double clicking the left mini-tab would invoke WS Preferences as it should, but it would also uncollapse the shelf. * Some of the Control Panel applets IC icons would display the default WorkShelf icon instead of the applet's icon. * Fixed problem where the shelf could appear 'cropped' at startup if it was docked to the same edge as the Windows startbar. * Power Off Monitor internal command was not working. * The silent period for clock and new email announcements was being ignored. * Fixed Weather icons still displaying the alpha channel on non-XP systems. * Fixed Z-Order problems that still remained with the shelf and desktop modules. * The CPU Hog list was still inacurate if one of the hogs was a proccess with multiple instances. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 254 - February 25, 2004 - Public Beta 2 Fixes: * Z-Order problems with Always On Top desktop modules. * Added Weather icon versions without alpha-channel for non-XP systems. * Switch tabs on mouseover was not working properly when WS was inverted. * If the Recycler Desktop module had been captured into the NextSTART Starbar, the CPU Meter desktop module could not be moved. * Fixed problems with the built-in NeXT-style list control. * Opening the Appearence Preferences tab and then clicking on the shelf would make it change places. * The list of CPU Hogs would become non-accurate as processes were added and removed from it. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 251 - February 20, 2004 - Public Beta 1 New Features: * The shelf can now be docked inverted at the bottom. * The Email Checker desktop module can now display one of the two built in animated icons even when using the advanced skinning settings. * The WorkShelf uninstaller now asks if you wish to clear Workshelf settings and delete all files (eg; Themes folder) before proceding with un-installation. * The WorkShelf installer now permits you to launch WorkShelf right after installation. * Added two new entries to the left mini-tab context menu: Sounds (Lets you select and apply Sound themes) Voices (Lets you select and apply different voices) * The Shelf can now be docked to the top of the screen in inverted or normal form (where the tabs stay fixed at the top). * The left mini-tab context menu now displays 'Dock to Top' and 'Dock to Bottom'. * Clicking on the CPU Meter Systray icon (W2k/XP only) now displays a balloon tooltip with the current CPU hog. * The desktop CPU Meter can now display the current Top x CPU hogs. Fixes: * The systray Weather icon was leaking GDI resources. * The Shelf was not properly reserving the screen space when being being inverted from one screen edge to the other. * Problem dragging icons from the shelf when Reserve Screen Space was enabled and the shelf was docked. * XP Weather icons in the shelf would gradually lose their alpha channel as they were selected. * Fixed problems with changing the Reserved Settings and applying them. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 245 - February 17, 2004 - Private Beta 6 New Features: * The Shelf should no longer be moved out of of it's place by Windows when NextSTART's reserved screen area is changed. * Pressing F1 in WorkShelf now brings up WorkShelf Help. *The built-in NeXT style File Browser now saves the current icon setting and last used path between sessions. *The EMail Checker now respects the Silent Period, the global 'Disable All Sounds' and the Module 'Enable Sounds' settings. *The shelf can now reserve screen space when docked. The space reserved is equivalent to the shelf collapsed height. *The Shelf can now respect reserved screen areas when docked. This is very useful to prevent WS from docking behind things like the Windows taskbar, NextSTART Startbar, etc... *Added lots of Sound effects for specific WS events to the Global Preferences tab. Currently available events are: Collapse WorkShelf Expand WorkShelf Switch Tabs Mouse Over Select Item Execute Item Scroll Up or Down Open Preferences Clock Chime Clock Tick Email Chime *Added an Animation section to Global Preferences. Animation Speed can now be set and the collapse/expand animation can be turned off. *Added a new Shelf Preferences tab to WS Preferences. All shelf related options that were in the Global Preferences tab were moved to it. The Shelf Skinning tab was moved one place down. *Clicking on the Weather icon on the systray pops up a balloon tooltip showing more weather information (W2k/XP only). Changes: * Clock Voice and Sound folders have now been moved to the Global Preferences tab as well as the Silent Period. Voice settings now apply to any module that uses voices. The Sound folder is obsolete and has been replaced by the new Sound Effects section in Global Preferences. * The Email checker can now EITHER speak the number of email messages OR sound a chime. * Renamed 'Automatic Tab Selection' to 'Switch Shelves on Mouseover'. This option now works regardless of WorkShelf being collapsed or not, however if 'Enable Mouse Over Activation' is disabled, WS will not switch tabs when collapsed. *Internet connection related settings were moved to the Global Preferences tab. *Speech and Notification settings (like the Silent Period where WS is prevented from making time/new mail announcements or playing chimes, etc...) were moved to the Global Preferences tab. Fixes: *The Windows Commond Dialog File Browser was not correctly displaying multi-file type associations (eg; "*.wav;*.mid") *Leaving the mouse pointer inside the shelf while the collapse animation was playing and with activate on mouseover enabled could lead to strange things happening. *The Collapse animation could leave artifacts on screen on certain circumstances. *The Recycler icon was not showing the proper Recycler status when WorkShelf started. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 239 - February 11, 2004 - Private Beta 5 Changes: * Improved the Weather Module Advanced Skinning dialog. * Slowed the scrolling rate of weather items. * Improved Recycle Bin Management. Fixes: * The icon of an in-shelf weather module being dragged was not visible while the drag operation took place. * The round rectangle icon selector was erasing the in-shelf weather module. * Persistent Objects (Show in All Shelves modules) could still be deleted through their context menu - this would crash WS. * The 32x32 version of the in-shelf digital clock was not showing the minutes leading zero. * The 'Always on top' option of the Email Checker and Weather desktop module context menus was not changing to reflect the current z-order of the module. * WS was sending a malformed HTTP GET command, to get the Weather information, that would be discarded by some Proxy servers. * Some 48x48 icons were still not being displayed properly. * The Email Checker bitmaps were not being copied when saving a new theme. * When saving an existing theme to a new folder, module bitmaps and definitions were not being copied. * Weather Module Advanced Skinning Pressure setting was not being saved or applied. * The Recycler Size can now handle values greater than 2 GB. * The background of scrolling items of the weather module was not being properly erased. * The Email Checker and Weather Module bitmaps were not being copied to the new folder when the theme was saved. * After saving a theme to a new folder, the Email Checker bitmap path was not updated to reflect the changes. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 237 - February 9, 2004 - Private Beta 4 New Features: * Added 48x48 icon support for *.ICL (Icon Library) files under XP. * New 'Item Separator' - shows a blank space between icons in a shelf. Although it is not highlighted, this special item can be deleted and dragged as normal. * Weather Module with optional systray component: Advanced Skinning Bitmap: wsWeather.bmp - Weather module bitmap background. * Files and Folders can now be dragged from Regular shelf types into Folder-type shelves (e.g. Desktop and Startup tabs). A shortcut pointing to the source file is created in the target folder. * Added an option to show or hide the desktop icons to the shelf's left mini-tab context menu. * Added Backup and Restore options to the Shelf's left mini-tab context menu. Changed: * Checking the Atomic time servers or polling the email servers using the context menu option of the in-shelf modules no longer hangs Workshelf until the task is completed. * CPU Meter Systray icons are now build dinamicly, instead of being individual icons in the resource file. Fixes: * Some issues with Alpha Transparency and the shelf collapse animation. * The Shelf Body right click context menu was only available on Regular and Desktop shelves. * WS should now retrieve the correct 48x48 icon in systems using customized shell icons. * MSI shortcuts are now resolved properly. * Fonts used in the POP3 email checker module were not being saved. * WorkShelf might still remain in memory after exiting through the main shelf menu. * Clicking on the WS systray icon and selecting 'Show Preferences' would crash WorkShelf if a modal window was currently on display. * It was impossible to get rid of the CPU Meter systray icon if there was no CPU Meter module on the desktop or on the currently open shelf. * When using Windows File Dialogs, the Restore option would keep prompting the user for a backup filename. * WorkShelf could crash on exit if the CPU meter was enabled. * Context menus could sometimes not go away when running certain options. * WorkShelf shelves could become corrupt when deleting shelves. * WorkShelf would behave and look strange just after a restore. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 223 - January 26, 2004 - Private Beta 3 New Features: * The Recycle Bin Desktop module can now display the number of files in the recycler and the space used by them in the disk. * The Desktop shelf now always displays two persistent objects: Hide/Show Desktop Icons and Display Properties. * Concurrent requests to speak the time or the number of pending emails messages are now queued instead of 'choking' the speech processor. * POP3 eMail Checker Module, multi-account and with optional systray component. Advanced Skinning Bitmap: wsMailE.bmp - Default/No messages bitmap. wsMailF.bmp - Messages Exist bitmap. eMail Checker Voice files: NewMail.wav YouHave.wav NewMessages.wav No.wav * WS now properly fetches the 48x48 icon version (if it exists) of .exe and .dll files. Changes: * When the Atomic Clock connection fails WorkShelf no longer displays an error message - the error is reported on the clock's tooltip information instead. * Better management of Systray icons. * Method used to poll the Recycle Bin. Fixes: * The context menu of the systray modules was not disappearing as it should when the user clicked outside it. * The 'Suffix' option in the CPU Meter Advs Skinning dialog did not allow more than 3 characters. * WS no longer complains unnecessarily when you add a new tab and then change the shelf type. * In the Themes tab, WS would not clear the Author and Theme information boxes if there were no themes for the selected item. * The CPU Meter module was not automatically installing fonts when a theme was loaded from the Themes tab. * When executing a context menu item, any part of the menu covering the shelf would remain visible until the context menu command finished executing. * The CPU utilization logger could sometimes report a negative value, resulting on the graph being drawn outside the grid. * New items were being positioned improperly on the shelf if they were added through the New option in the shelf's context menu and the shelf had some modules displayed in it through the 'Show in all shelves' setting. * The Clock and CPU meter context menus of the in-shelf modules was showing 'Delete' and 'Properties' even for modules only displayed because the 'Show in all shelves' option was on. -------------------------- Version 1.4 build 216 - January 16, 2004 - Private Beta 2 New Features: * WS now fetches items from the Start Menu into the Main tab when run for the first time. * A small 'Busy' dialog appears when WS is applying settings or initializing. * The shelf now animates smoothly when collapsing and uncollapsing. * CPU Meter module, with optional systray component. Advanced Skinning Bitmap: wsCPU.bmp * The 'Show In All Shelves' module feature has been implemented. * Pressing F2 over a shelf item will now pop up the rename dialog box for that item. * Dragging a file into the same folder-type shelf will now automatically rename that file to 'Copy of...' Fixes: * The DEL key was only working on regular shelves. * Selecting and unselecting in-shelf modules would sometimes cause strange visual effects (like the clock going back a couple of secs). * If a file system error occured while dropping an item to and from a shelf, the 'drag' icon would continue to follow the mouse pointer. * When loading a new theme through WorkShelf Preferences, context menus did not use the new settings until Ok was pressed. -------------------------- Version 1.3 build 208 - December 24, 2003 - Maintenance Update Fixes: * In multi-user systems the wallpaper could change between log ons. -------------------------- Version 1.3 build 207 - December 9, 2003 - Official Release New Features: * Added 'No Base when Floating' option to the Global Preferences tab. This allows WorkShelf to show a shelf base when docked but not when undocked and floating on the desktop. * Added 'Windows Browser' option to Global Preferences tab. The user can now choose between using WorkShelf's built-in file browser or the standard Windows open file dialogs. * New Internal Commands: Hybernate Standby Mode Quick Exit WorkShelf Show Volume Control Rebuild Icon Cache -------------------------- Version 1.2 build 205 - October 4, 2002 - Official Release New Features: * When loading a theme that does not have settings for one (or both) of the desktop modules, WorkShelf now uses the non-advanced skinning form instead of retaining the previous theme's skin for that module. * Added new 'Flash check' option in the clock module Preferences. When enabled it flashes the word 'check' in the digital time of the desktop clock module when retrieving the time from the Internet Time servers. * Added Cancel buttons to the clock and recycler bin Preferences and to the advanced skinning dialogs of the shelf, clock and recycler. Bug Fixes: * Workshelf might not signal a change in the trash can status when the Windows Recycler changed from empty to full state. * WorkShelf is multi-user aware, but if set to auto-run it would run on start-up for all users. * Workshelf could sometimes be fooled into thinking the user was still running a full screen game and refuse to activate with an edge bump. Moving the mouse over the shelf or a desktop module now cures the problem. * The shelf Preview box in the Appearance Preferences tab should now display the active and at least one inactive shelf tab. -------------------------- Version 1.2 build 199 - September 27, 2002 - Beta 2 Release. New Features: * WorkShelf no longer automatically resizes the shelf nor moves the desktop modules when playing full screen games that change screen resolution. * A docked shelf can now span multiple monitors. * WorkShelf can now control Winamp 2.x. 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 Bug Fixes: * WorkShelf could crop the shelf width if the right edge was outside the current monitor instead of snapping it into full view. * Fixed problems dragging the shelf into secondary monitors. * WorkShelf could automatically collapse/uncollapsed while being dragged or resized. * WorkShelf was not clearing the last selected icon when the mouse cursor left the shelf. * NextSTART was not immediately capturing WorkShelf desktop modules if the modules were only enabled after startup. * WorkShelf's activation area was not expanding to the tabs when the shelf was inverted and it had a base size other than 0. -------------------------- Version 1.2 build 189 - September 23, 2002 - Beta 1 Release New Features: * WorkShelf now signals NextSTART when it loads into memory. This enables NextSTART to capture the desktop modules into the Startbar immediately if WorkShelf is run AFTER NextSTART. Bug Fixes: * WorkShelf should now recognize when monitors are added and removed from the system while it's running. -------------------------- Version 1.2 build 177 New Features: * WorkShelf is now FULLY multi-monitor compatible. * Added text effects to tabs and shelf icon text, as well as to the desktop clock module date and digital time text. * Lists now respond to the typing of a letter and automatically scroll to the next item whose first character matches that letter. * When saving and loading themes WorkShelf now displays the 'Busy' hourglass so it does not appear hung while performing these functions. * When saving a theme with 'save fonts' enabled, WorkShelf 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 * 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). * WorkShelf desktop modules can now be captured into NextSTART's Startbar. * Shelf body bitmaps are now cached in memory, painting the Shelf should be a bit faster as the result. * In W2k/XP systems, icons being dragged are now semi-transparent. Bug fixes: * WorkShelf was using Arial for all the context menus. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 176 - January 23, 2002 - Official Release Fixed: A handful of systems were crashing with error 5 when accessing the Version Info panel. Fixed: Collapsed tasks shelf was not immediately refreshing the task list when uncollapsing. Added: Alpha 'Glow Effect'option for the desktop clock, which can now be made to 'glow'while connecting to the atomic time servers on the internet. This feature is only available under W2k/XP. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 173 - January 18, 2002 - Beta Preview 9 Fixed: Broken 'Recent Documents' shelf under Windows 2000. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 172 - January 16, 2002 - Beta Preview 8 Added: After an Explorer crash, and once Explorer restarts, WS automatically re-hides the desktop icons,if that option was previously enabled, and re-inserts its tray icon into the newly created systray. Added: WS now supports ALT shift while left clicking to emulate middle mouse clicks on tasks in the tasklist tab, as well as CTRL+ALT+middle click to terminate all related tasks (eg; close all IE windows simultaneously) Added: 'Get More Themes' button to Themes tab of WS Preferences - opens an IE window pointing to the Themes page on the Winstep web site. Fixed: When exiting WorkShelf, the process now terminates immediately even if in the middle of getting atomic time server information. Fixed: On Japanese versions of Windows, object names could sometimes lack the very first character because of the method used to sort shelf contents. Fixed: WorkShelf's task tab could sometimes pick up user defined icons that had already been deleted in NextSTART's Tasklist & Systray Preferences tab. Fixed: Workshelf's 'Send to Bottom' and 'Always on Bottom' options weren't working properly. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 161 - January 14, 2002 - Beta Preview 7 Added: The 'Properties' entry in the context menu of objects in a regular shelf always showed the properties for that object in relation to WorkShelf, not Explorer. Explorer-related 'Properties' for items in regular shelves that do have such an option now show up as 'File Properties'. Added: 'Don't Show Hidden Files' option to 'Show Any Folder' type shelves. Added: 'Silent Period' feature, an hour range in which the speaking clock is forced to stay silent. Useful so other people in the house don't complain about the clock speaking the time in the middle of the night. Fixed: The pathname to the folder associated to a 'Show Any Folder' shelf was not being shown in the Shelf Editor or in the Shelf Properties dialogs. Fixed: The 'Quick Launch Tab' no longer displays hidden files (like Desktop.ini) Fixed: Potential fatal problem with adding and removing shelves using the Shelf Editor. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 159 - January 6, 2002 - Beta Preview 6 Changed: The Font Browser dialog is no longer loaded on program startup and kept in memory - this should result in lower resource consumption while not affecting the speed at which the dialog pops up, since a faster, API-based font enumeration method is used instead. Fixed: The desktop recycler can now also delete NextSTART items and items from regular shelves. Fixed: Workshelf would display the wrong shelf contents when collapsed and drag & dropping an object to a shelf other than the active one. Fixed: Item Icon sometimes not following the mouse cursor properly in drag and drop operations. Fixed: Potential Problem displaying the Recent Documents shelf under XP. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 156 - December 21, 2001 - Beta Preview 5 Added: The shelf can now be moved around when floating by dragging on the right mini-tab as well. Added: Hotkey in Global Preferences tab to invoke WS Preferences with the keyboard. Added: 'Clear Recent Documents' Internal Command. Fixed: Dragging an item over a tab that was not the currently active one when the shelf was collapsed, would make WS uncollapse that shelf only partially. Fixed: The Recent Documents shelf type would always be empty under WinXP. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 152 - December 11, 2001 - Beta Preview 4 Added: The shelf and desktop modules now automatically revert to their proper screen location if they are shifted when NextSTART reserves screen space. Fixed: WS would crash if running the Restore and Backup internal commands while the sticky shelf option was enabled and associated to a timer. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 151 - December 4, 2001 - Beta Preview 3 Added: 'Click-Through' option for desktop modules. This allows users to click through the clock or recycler desktop modules to the application that lies beneath. This feature is only available for W2k/XP users and alpha-transparency must be set to something other than 'None' for it to work. Be aware that if you enable this option ALL mouse events will be passed through to the application beneath. This means that you cannot drag the module, right click it, get a mouse over tooltip or bring it to the foreground (so it's always a good idea to set the module to be 'Always On Top'). Added: Optional 'Sticky Shelf' into Global Preferences tab. Users can now define a sticky shelf which is automatically switched into after a specified number of seconds have elapsed or just after launching a program through WS. This is useful if, say, you want the tasks tab to be visible most of the time without having to worry about clicking on it. Changed: Alpha Transparency in modules is now a per-user option, not a theme option. Changed: Moved the module settings button to the top of the Alpha Transparency slider box - prevents it from being confused as settings for Alpha Transparency only. Changed: Removed the graphical method in the Global Preferences tab of specifying if a shelf should be docked or inverted and replaced it with 2 check boxes. Changed: Default Recycler bin style has been changed to 'Recycle Bin'. Fixed: The option to prevent WorkShelf from showing launch errors was broken. Fixed: WS wasn't saving the inverted bitmaps. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 150 - December 1, 2001 - Beta Preview 2 Fixed: Dragging files into sub-folders was not working properly. Fixed: Dragging folders into folders in the shelf was not working properly. -------------------------- Version 1.1 build 149 - December 1, 2001 - Beta Preview 1 Added: Bitmap options for inverted shelves. Skinners can now make bitmaps that are used when the shelf is inverted by adding an 'F' to the end of the bitmap name, over-riding the automatic invertion performed by WorkShelf. Added: The tasklist shelf now uses the same user defined icon settings as NextSTART. Added: When right-click dragging an item to a shelf, you now get a context menu that allows you to choose between moving, copying, or creating a shortcut in the target folder/shelf. Fixed: It was only possible to move or drop icons into the first icon row. Fixed: When dropping files into a folder on a *regular* shelf, the files would NOT be copied nor moved into the folder. This operation would only work if moving files into folders not on regular shelves (e.g. the desktop shelf, etc...). Fixed: WS would always perform a COPY operation when dropping files into folders on non-regular shelves even if the SHIFT key (signaling a move operation) was being pressed. Fixed: Dropping files into *shortcuts* to folders on special shelves was not working. -------------------------- Version 1.0 build 147 - November 24, 2001 - Maintenance Release Fixed: Desktop icons would flicker everytime the shelf was uncollapsed or resized. Fixed: If WS was set to collapse automatically and the user switched tabs while WS was collapsed, the number of icon rows displayed would revert back to 1 regardless of the Minimum Icon Row setting. -------------------------- Version 1.0 build 146 - November 22, 2001 - Official Release Added: Options to Left/Right Justify or Center time and date in the clock module Advanced Skinning settings. X pos is always used as an offset. Added: 'Show Seconds' option to Digital Clock advanced Skinning settings. Added: 'Invert'command to Shelf main menu, used to flip the dock upside down without having to go to Preferences. Added: Clock's spoken Military Time format is now working. Added: 'Disable Edge Bump' option to the Global Preferences tab. Changed: When dragging a tab up and down to resize the shelf vertically, a minimum of 1 icon row is now always visible. Shelf can only be collapsed by clicking on the collapse button. Fixed: Bug where a theme like OS2 Warp would assume the transparent areas of the previously loaded theme. Fixed: Folder type shelves and the new Quick Launch shelf were not accepting dropped files. Fixed: Under certain conditions a in-shelf module could be displayed overlapping the tab area when the shelf was collapsed and inverted. Fixed: Trying to drag a folder from the shelf to an Explorer window would fail with a 'cannot copy file or folder' error. Fixed: The tabs area would not be displayed right in some themes (like BeOS classic) if the shelf was upside down. Fixed: Left and Right mini-tab mouse overs were not working properly when the shelf was inverted. Fixed: The screen edge that must be bumped to uncollapse WS is now relative to the orientation of the shelf (top screen edge if shelf is inverted, bottom edge otherwise). -------------------------- Version 1.0 build 144 - 16th November 2001 - Beta Release Added: The Atomic Clock now automatically uses the last successful time server first after the very first poll. This way no time is wasted polling dead or temporarilly unavailable time servers after the first time check. Time checking algorithms have also been enhanced, so that the time should now be 100% correct and the most optimal server used at all times. Added: WS can now be docked at the top as well (top-down orientation). Added: New 'Quick Launch' shelf type. Changed: The Icon Settings Preferences tab has been removed. Changed: Options to place the Shelf on a vertical orientation have been removed. Changed: Method used to launch applications - Windows should now automatically open the Launch With dialog if trying to run an unknown file extension. Fixed: Problem launching shortcuts on some XP systems. Fixed: Improved the 32x32 NeXT-style recycle bin icons. Fixed: Resource leak everytime WS failed to connect to an Atomic Clock server. Fixed: The recycle bin is no longer polled every 3 seconds to find out when it switches from full to empty and vice-versa so that the icon can be updated. Apparently this could cause high CPU usage if the Recycle Bin had thousands of items in it. With the new method, the Recycle Bin is only scanned when necessary. -------------------------- Version 0.70 build 139 - 24th July 2001 - Maintenance Release Fixed: WorkShelf should no longer become temporarily irresponsive if there is something wrong with the Internet connection while checking the atomic time. Fixed: The Register button on the shareware nag screen was disabled. -------------------------- Version 0.70 build 138 - 6 July 2001 - Official Release Added: Clicking on the version number in the About tab now makes the Version Information dialog pop up. Fixed: The Version Information dialog was still showing info related to the old draw.dll instead of the new region.dll. -------------------------- Version 0.70 build 133 - 28 June 2001 Added: Register button to the shareware nag dialog. Changed: Its now much faster when switching to tabs with lots of icons. Fixed: Workshelf was not saving the module settings when saving themes - this would result in missing *.wsc,*.wsv,*.wss and *.wsr configuration files unless you saved the modules individually. Fixed: WorkShelf tooltips no longer display a blank entry in the normal Windows taskbar. Fixed: MAJOR resource leak. Executing an option using WS's context menus was leaking a lot of GDI handles. -------------------------- Version 0.70 build 131 - 28 May 2001 - Beta Release Added: 'Show Container'context menu entry for files and shortcut items. Changed: WorkShelf context menus now share code with NextSTART itself, so feature additions to the later now automatically reflect in WorkShelf. -------------------------- Version 0.65 build 129 - 8 May 2001 - Maintenance Release Added: If Winsock returns an error when connecting to the atomic clock servers, WS now also displays the actual error message. Changed: When re-installing WorkShelf from the full version, selecting 'Yes to All' or 'No to All' will automatically install or skip the instalation of ALL default themes, instead of prompting the same question for each theme. Fixed: WS could crash when re-sizing it below its base. -------------------------- Version 0.65 build 128 - 21 Feb 2001 Added: Two new Internal Commands, 'Backup WS Settings' and 'Restore WS Settings'. The backup command will take a snap-shot of all current settings (from shelf structure to current theme). Added: Context menus in WS now basically offer the same functionality of the Explorer equivalents. Changed: When unzipping themes, WorkShelf no longer issues a warning that a theme comes with font files that might have to be installed first if the option to automatically install fonts is enabled. Fixed: When saving a Shelf theme, WS now also saves the module definition files if the bitmap folders of the modules point to the same directory where the shelf bitmaps are. -------------------------- Version 0.61 build 126 - 1 Feb 2001 - Winstep Full Pak Release 2 Added: Show Recyle contents type of tab. Items can be undeleted directly from this tab, and contents are refreshed automatically. Fixed: The My Documents tab is now working properly. Fixed: The recycle bin object on the desktop tab is now correctly identified even on non-English versions of Windows. -------------------------- Version 0.60 build 123 - 27 Jan 2001 Added: New Shelf Types: Drives Shelf - Contents of My Computer Startup Shelf - Contents of the Start Menu's Startup group SendTo Shelf - Contents of Sendto; drag & drop file to send. Printers Shelf - Displays available Printers. Network Connections Shelf - Contents of Network Neighboorhood Templates Shelf - Contents of Templates folder. My Documents Shelf - Contents of My Documents folder. Show Folder Shelf - Shows contents of specified folder. Added: You can now drag special items (like Printers, etc...) in non-regular shelves to regular shelf types. Added: Dragging a file into the Startup shelf or into the Sendto shelf will automatically make a shortcut to that file in the shelf instead of copying the file itself. Added: The Startup shelf now shows startup elements for both the current user and all users. Fixed: WS now shows the correct icon for items such as folders instead of the default system icons (eg; yellow folder). Fixed: Control Panel Shelf now displays all the control panel items. Fixed: Desktop shelf now displays all the desktop items. Changed: In the unzip confirmation dialog, changed 'Cancel' to 'No to All'. -------------------------- Version 0.57 build 121 - 17 Jan 2001 Added: Mouse Wheel support to the shelf. Added: The mouse wheel can now be used in list boxes and when browsing for files. Changed: The installer should now refuse to install or uninstall the application if the program is still running. Changed: Zip32 and Unzip32 dlls have now been renamed to wszip.dll and wsunzip.dll - this should avoid any further version conflicts with other applications using the same DLLs. Fixed: When using the Icon Browser to scroll up and down a DLL or EXE file with a large amount of icons, you wouldn't be able to go back to the first icon row without restarting the browser again. Fixed: Pressing the *Enter* key after renaming a shelf item could make the key press 'leak' into the actual shelf and launch that item. -------------------------- Version 0.56 build 119 - 15 Dec 2000 - Winstep Full Pak Release Added: Two new icons to the default Workspace tab: Preferences and Help. Changed: Theme loaded by default. Changed: The Preview button has been moved next to the OK button. A lot of people were hitting Cancel or Restore by mistake when they really intended to hit Preview. Fixed: WS was not saving the Inactive tab font nor the clock fonts. Fixed: When loading a clock sound theme, the theme info in the Save and Export boxes was not being properly updated. Fixed: When renaming an object, you can now just press Enter to dismiss the Rename dialog box - instead of having to click on the Ok button as happened so far. Fixed: WorkShelf was interfering with the launch of screen resolution changing DirectX games. -------------------------- Version 0.56 build 115 - 13 Dec 2000 Added: 'Row' option that allows you to specify how many rows show by default when the shelf is un-collapsed. Added: WS now doesn't automatically collapse the shelf if you explicitly uncollapse it by clicking on the right mini-tab. This allows you to add items to it from other windows without having the shelf constantly auto-collapse. Once you're finished, manually collapsing the shelf by clicking on the right mini-tab will re-enable auto-collapse. Added: 'Full Width when docked' option, enabled by default. WorkShelf now automatically extends to the full screen width when docked unless this option is disabled. The undocked width is still preserved, however. Added: New 'NextSTART hotspot' object type. The user can now add an item to the shelf which activates a specified NextSTART hotspot when clicked on. Changed: Started using new Setup program. Changed: The 'Install Fonts' check box in the themes tab has been moved to Theme Options and is now enabled by default, so WorkShelf automatically installs all fonts required by a theme as long as they have been provided by the theme author. Changed: WorkShelf is now undocked by default, is 640 pixels wide and pops up 64 pixels above the screen bottom. This prevents the user who just installed WS and is not running NextSTART from having the Windows taskbar overlapping the bottom of the shelf. Changed: The atomic clock feature is now disabled by default, since some people seemed to be having problems with this. Fixed: The titlebar of the WorkShelf help browser window displayed the NextSTART icon. Fixed: Item tooltip no longer pops up when dragging an object. Fixed: Accidentaly dragging a recycler icon a few pixels would make the recycler delete itself. Fixed: Workshelf could crash when shutting down or logging out of Windows through it. -------------------------- Version 0.55 build 114 - 1 Dec 2000 - Public Beta Release 1 Added: The icon version of the desktop modules can now also use the customized icons. Fixed: Register button was not working properly. Fixed: The show trash can timer was enabled from the start of the program by mistake, which could cause a 401 error when unzipping themes during first run. Fixed: When loading a WS theme via the Appearences sub-menu, WS was not tiling/centering/stretching the wallpaper correctly. Fixed: WS would display the WS icon for items with no icon path. It now automatically displays the program's icon instead. Fixed: WS was not correctly using the current NS theme for its context menus when theme integration was enabled for both programs and the theme was applied using a NS themes menu. Fixed: When changing a theme for both NS and WS via WS Theme tab, WS's context menus theme would not update properly. Fixed: Opening a vbmodal form with an open context menu could result in WS crashing with error 402. -------------------------- Version 0.55 build 103 - 30 Nov 2000 - WinStep EXE Update Bundle II Added: Workshelf regular items can now also be deleted by dragging them into the in-shelf recycler module. Deletion is, however, irreversible. Fixed: WS would display a corrupted icon when dragging the in-shelf recycler with icon sizes <=32. Fixed: If an item's icon path is wrong or the file no longer exists, WS no longer displays no icon - instead it displays the WS icon as a place marker. Fixed: When drag & dropping a shortcut file, WS no longer points to the shortcut but rather to the actual file. Fixed: When editing a shelf item in the Properties Editor, WS was corrupting the Working Directory attribute. -------------------------- Version 0.55 build 102 - 29 Nov 2000 Added: WorkShelf, when set to use the current NextSTART theme for its default menus, now correctly works with NextSTART versions like 2.23 and above that store settings in the Windows registry. -------------------------- Version 0.55 build 101 - 27 Nov 2000 Fixed: Very serious bug that could crash WS and corrupt the tab contents when deleting a tab. Fixed: A docked shelf should now resize and position itself properly if the user changes the screen resolution. Fixed: The desktop modules should now automatically re-appear on screen if the user changes the screen resolution and that change would place them outside the viewable area. Fixed: The Recycle bin module should now work properly even on NT4 systems that do not have the IE4 shell32 update installed. Fixed: 'Show splitter line' option in WS was not being saved as part of a theme. Fixed: WS now works properly with multi-byte character sets like Chinese. Fixed: Applying a module theme would also change the main theme in NextSTART. -------------------------- Version 0.52 build 97 - 21 Nov 2000 - Winstep EXE Update Bundle Fixed: Shareware nag screen problem. -------------------------- Version 0.52 build 96 - 21 Nov 2000 Added: Winstep Theme Integration option. This option is enabled by default and can be accessed by clicking on the Options button in the Themes tab. If it is turned on, loading a theme in NS automatically applies it to WS if the theme has common theme files. It also makes WS broadcast theme changes to NS, so if the same option is enabled there then NS will also automatically apply a new theme loaded in WS. Added: Dock/Undock function to the shelf's main context menu. Added: Registration ability, time-out checks and shareware nag screen. Fixed: Desktop Objects would sometimes hide behind the shelf even if they were always on top. -------------------------- Version 0.52 build 88 - 19 Nov 2000 Fixed: Dragging an item from the shelf to some other other application (like NextSTART) would sometimes not work. Fixed: WS would not accept a drag & dropped .ico file as a replacement icon if the original filename was in upper-case. Fixed: Shelf keyboard usage was functioning sporadically. -------------------------- Version 0.52 build 87 - 17 Nov 2000 - Pre-Beta 1 Added: Registration tab. Added: Context menus are now 'always on top' to prevent always on top objects from overlapping and obscuring them. Changed: The 'Mouse Over Activation' setting of a collapsed shelf now works regardless of auto-collapse or collapse method. Fixed: When right-clicking on a item in the shelf the item's tooltip could also pop-up and interfere with menu operation. Fixed: The Empty Recycle Bin action was not obeying the Confirm Deletion, Show Progress and Play Sounds recycle bin module settings. Fixed: Problem that could cause the background of the mini-tab icons to become corrupted. Fixed: Moving a shelf when collapsed by dragging the left mini-tab was not working. Fixed: Mini-tab mouseovers were not working on collapsed shelves with no shelf bases. Removed: 'Collapse to nothing' option. -------------------------- Version 0.52 build 86 - 9 Nov 2000 Fixed: Scroll up and down Arrow mouse-overs where not working properly. Fixed: Scroll up and down arrows would no longer work if the shelf was floating. Fixed: Emptying the recycle bin would display an empty recycler in the shelf momentarily but then would revert back to a full recycler icon. -------------------------- Version 0.51 build 85 - 7 Nov 2000 - Alpha Release 8 update. Added: When in Floating mode, WS can now be moved by clicking and dragging on any empty space of the shelf body. Added: Double-clicking the desktop clock module now opens Control Panel's Time and Date preferences. Added: Alpha Transparency to desktop modules. The Alpha Transparency value only works on W2k systems and is part of a module's theme. It can be used to achieve semi-transparent effects like glass. Added: Double clicking on any slider now makes it assume the default value. Fixed: If the Atomic Clock servers ever return an invalid time, then WS now automatically attempts the next server in the list instead of applying the invalid time format. Fixed: The desktop trash can module was not automatically reseting its position to a visible area of the screen if set off-screen by a resolution change. Fixed: WS was not saving the 'Ws-PrefsM.ico" onto a new theme. Fixed: Changing an item's path would not change the same item's start path. Fixed: Changing the exe path to an item with a custom icon would automatically change the custom icon as well. Fixed: WS will no longer crash with error 453 on NT4 or Win95 systems. Recycle bin module will loose some of its functionality for now, however. Fixed: Closing a context menu directly would not restore the shelf's auto-collapse ability. -------------------------- Version 0.50 build 84 - 3 Nov 2000 - Alpha Release 8 Fixed: Problem with tooltips for desktop modules displaying a bit off-screen if the module was too close to the left edge of the screen. Fixed: WS would squish module custom icons if icon size was larger than 32x32. -------------------------- Version 0.50 build 83 - 3 Nov 2000 Fixed: Painting problem when dragging objects to the recycle bin because of the icon selector blob. Fixed: Dragging and dropping a non-file object into the recycle bin would make it animate continuously. Fixed: Focus grabbing problem with the desktop modules. Fixed: Beeping sound every time the in-shelf recycle bin was painted. Fixed: The recycle bin icon was not being selected normaly with the 'blob' style of icon selector. -------------------------- Version 0.50 build 82 - 3 Nov 2000 Added: Clock tooltip now includes the time. Added: Skinning abilities to in-shelf recycle bin. You can now use the following icons: WsTrashE64.ico - Empty Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrashF64.ico - Full Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrashD64.ico - Deposit Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrash164.ico - Frame1 Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrash264.ico - Frame2 Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrash364.ico - Frame3 Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrash464.ico - Frame4 Trash Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsTrashE32.ico - Empty Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrashF32.ico - Full Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrashD32.ico - Deposit Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrash132.ico - Frame1 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrash232.ico - Frame2 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrash332.ico - Frame3 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrash432.ico - Frame4 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=32 WsTrashE16.ico - Empty Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrashF16.ico - Full Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrashD16.ico - Deposit Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrash116.ico - Frame1 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrash216.ico - Frame2 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrash316.ico - Frame3 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 WsTrash416.ico - Frame4 Trash Icon used for icon sizes=16 Added: Skinning abilities to in-shelf clock. You can now use the following icons: WsClockA64.ico - Analog Clock Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsClockD64.ico - Digital Clock Icon used for icon sizes>=48 WsClockA32.ico - Analog Clock Icon used for icon size=32 WsClockD32.ico - Digital Clock Icon used for icon size=32 WsClockA16.ico - Analog Clock Icon used for icon size=16 WsClockD16.ico - Digital Clock Icon used for icon size=16 Added: 'Show On Desktop' option to the context menu of the in-shelf modules. Added: Several items to Desktop Recycler context menu: Z-Order, Advanced Skinning, Close Recycler, Lock Position. Added: Desktop modules not using advanced skinning now have a tile background. WS first tries to use 'wstile.bmp". If that bitmap does not exist then it tries NextSTART's 'tasks.bmp', and if that doesn't exist either then it uses its own default 64x64 tile. Changed: Atomic clock code. It now has more time servers and should be a bit more reliable since it takes into account Internet delays. It also uses port 37 instead of port 13. Fixed: The on-the-shelf recycler was not able to delete folders. Fixed: Problems with the Recycler icon on the shelf when dragging an item and then not confirming deletion. Changed: Renamed 'Switch Control Tabs Function' to 'Switch Mini-Tabs function' -------------------------- Version 0.50 build 81 - 2 Nov 2000 Added: Style sub-menu to in-shelf clock context menu to change between digital and analog on the fly. Added: Recycler Module. Recycler Desktop bitmaps are wsTrashE.bmp/jpg - Empty Trash Can. wsTrashF.bmp/jpg - Full Trash Can. Added: Option to 'Activate Tab On Mouse Over' to the Global Settings tab. You can now use this feature when auto collapse is enabled or only the screen edge bump if you don't like it. Added: Option to 'Switch Control Tabs Function' to the Global settings tab. Which mini-tab does what is now user definable and WS switches icons automatically as well. Added: Double clicking the vertical icon spacing slider now resets it to the default value. Added: Icon spacing items in the Global settings tab now display the actual value above the slider. Added: Option in WS Systray menu to disable the bottom screen edge bump function. Removed: Tab overflow options. Fixed: 32x32 version of in-shelf digital clock now displays the time. Fixed: Vertical Tile/Stretch options for section 5 of the shelf body ADVS bitmaps were not working properly. -------------------------- Version 0.49 build 78 - 30 Sep 2000 - - Alpha Release 7 Added: In-shelf clock tooltip. Added: Right-click context menu to in-shelf clocks. Fixed: WS should no longer crash even if it is shrunk horizontally more than the current theme's bitmaps would support. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 77 - 23 Sep 2000 Added: Clock modules can now be manually inserted into the regular tabs of the shelf itself. Added: Alternative option to detect an internet connection for getting the time from the Atomic Clock servers. This should be used if people are unable to connect or are having problems with the normal method ( ie; WS clock never connects or thinks the user is always connected ). Changed: Took 7 pixels off the gap between the top of the shelf and the icons. Fixed: If a RAS connection failed, any attempt to connect again would result in a 'Port busy' error. Fixed: In Advanced Skinning themes WS was drawing a frame around the shelf body. Fixed: WS was not saving the WsTabML and WsTabMR bitmaps when saving a theme. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 75 - 20 Sep 2000 Added: Independent mini-tab bitmaps: wsTabML.bmp/jpg - Left mini-tab bitmap. wsTabMR.bmp/jpg - Right mini-tab bitmap. WS will only use independent mini-tab bitmaps if these files exist. If wsTabMR does not exist but the left mini tab bitmap does, then WS will use the same bitmap for both tabs. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 74 - 19 Sep 2000 Added: The shelf can now be made floatable and dragged anywhere on the screen. Fixed: With auto-uncollapse on, it was easy to put the mouse pointer over the shelf, and, just as the user was about to click on a tab, the shelf would uncollapse and the user ended up clicking on an icon instead. WS now waits 1/4 of a second after un-collapsing before accepting mouse clicks. Fixed: If the clock was dragged too fast, the clock might stop following the mouse pointer. Fixed: The clock tooltip would sometimes not disappear when the mouse pointer left the clock area. Fixed: When dropping an item into a shelf, WS now retains the original filename case instead of automatically converting it to mixed-case. Fixed: Hovering the mouse over a collapsed shelf no longer automatically un-collapses it if any of the mouse buttons is being pressed. This prevents the shelf from automatically uncollapsing when selecting text & scrolling in another application, for instance. Fixed: If for some reason the connection to all the atomic time servers timed out while connected to the internet, WS would pop up a 'Connection to Atomic Clock Servers Failed!" dialog box continuously. It now waits 10 minutes before trying again. Fixed: With a connection to the internet active, the atomic clock would make it virtually impossible to manually change the time. Fixed: The digital NeXT style clock was display 12:xx AM as 00:xx AM. Fixed: Digital NeXT style clock could overlay the AM/PM symbol when displaying the time, and character spacing for the digit '1' was wrong, both in the time and in the date display. Fixed: Icon tooltips could sometimes appear partially off-screen. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 73 - 11 Sep 2000 Added: In the shelf context menu, selection one of the themes in the Appearence sub-menu will now also load any module themes, voice/sound paks that also exist in that theme's directory. To prevent module themes from being changed, you must first lock the relevant modules by clicking in the 'Options' button. Fixed: Problems with the Modules tab that could make WS crash. Fixed: (?) Should have improved resource problems under Win9x. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 72 - 11 Sep 2000 Added: Options that allow the locking of wallpaper and module themes to the Themes Preferences tab. This way a WS theme can be loaded that only affects unlocked modules, and only changes the current wallpaper if that option is unlocked. Added: In the Themes tab, selecting 'Workshelf' in the pull up menu and loading a theme will now also load any module themes, voice/sound paks that also exist in that theme's directory. To prevent module themes from being changed, you must first lock the relevant modules by clicking in the 'Options' button. Added: Prevented multiple Atomic server connection requests from stacking up while a connection attempt is in progress. Added: If Advanced Skinning is not selected for the desktop clock, it now shows either the default NeXT style analog or digital clocks. Added: The clock's tooltip now shows by how many seconds the time was adjusted on the last atomic clock check. Added: Option in clock's context menu to lock/unlock the clock in place. Added: Voice and Sound options to the clock's context menu. Added: Clock Settings & Clock Advs Skinning Settings to the clock's context menu. Changed: Re-arranged the themes tabs so that the sections are the same as in NextSTART. Fixed: Painting problem with the left and right mini-tab icons. Fixed: A change to a lower screen size, even if temporary, that might make the clock display off-screen would make it automatically reset its position to the top left screen corner. Fixed: The right mini-tab collapse icon (wshidec.ico) was not being drawn properly if the shelf didn't have a base defined. Fixed: Problem if a connection to one of the Atomic Clock servers timed out. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 68 - 1 Sep 2000 - Alpha Release 6 Fixed: The Clock Date Font description in Advanced Skinning was being displayed in the Clock Digital Font box instead. Fixed: The clock font was not not being checked, and WS would crash if it wasn't installed. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 67 Added: Appearence item to clock's context menu, enabling clock theme changing on the fly. Added: Always on Top item to clock's context menu. Fixed: Clock context menu title was wrong. Fixed: The 24 Hour format option did not affect the displayed digital time. -------------------------- Version 0.40 build 66 Added: In the themes tab the user has now the option to use, for WS's context menus, the integrated NS/WS theme, the current NS theme or the default WS menu theme. Added: Speaking, fully skinnable Atomic Clock module: wsclock.bmp - Clock Bitmap. wschime.wav - Clock Chime wave file. wsclick.wav - Clock ticking sound wave file. Added: Modules tab. Added: Clock Module Context menu. Added: Setting to Global Settings tab for automatic tab selection on Mouseover. Changed: Logout, Restart and Shutdown Windows options have been moved to its own sub-menu. Changed: Icon horizontal spacing range was increased from 1-48 to 1-80 pixels. Fixed: WS was not saving the arrow icons and some of the collapse shelf icons to a theme. Fixed: The 'Appearance' sub-menu was not correctly applying the theme's bitmaps. Fixed: WS was not displaying the name of the theme's author until the theme was actually loaded. Fixed: When using custom icons for the scroll arrows, the scroll down arrow would sometimes display the wrong icon type when it shouldn't. Fixed: Opening a context menu and then clicking somewhere else to close it would not restore the auto-collapse settings. Fixed: Help and Show Preferences internal commands were not working. Fixed: Shelf would not resize properly when collapsed and a tab other than the current one is clicked on, if using an advanced skinning shelf body with a tall bottom section (the size of the bottom section would not be accounted for) -------------------------- Version 0.32 build 62 - 8 Aug 2000 - Alpha Release 5 Changed: WS theme files now have the *.WSW extension. Any old *.wst files containing Workshelf themes must now be copied so that their extension becomes *.wsw. Fixed: Icon Tooltip now disappears if visible and the user changes the currently selected icon using the keyboard navigation keys. -------------------------- Version 0.31 build 61 - 8 Aug 2000 Added: 'Default Menu Theme' option. If selected WS will always show context menus using the default theme instead of using the current NextSTART theme. Added: Workshelf Systray Icon. Enabled by default and can be disabled in the Global Settings tab. Added: 'Log Out', 'Restart Windows' and 'Shutdown Windows' commands to the main Workshelf menu. Added: Double-Clicking on the Horizontal Icon Spacing slider control handle will restore the default horizontal spacing. Added: Second set of pre-defined scroll arrow styles. Changed: Algorithm used to calculate horizontal icon spacing. Icons can now be brought even closer together. Fixed: Under specific conditions it was possible to crash WS with an Invalid Procedure Call error when collapsing the shelf and using Advanced Skinning for the body. Fixed: The shelf would jump to strange screen positions if it was maximized by double-clicking on a tab when there were more icons than could fit in a fully expanded shelf. Fixed: Ugly cosmetic problem when uncollapsing a shelf by clicking on a tab other than the currently active one. Fixed: Changing properties or renaming an icon in a multi-icon row tab would make WS revert back to the first icon row. Same when drag & dropping an icon into a row other than the first. -------------------------- Version 0.31 build 60 - 7 Aug 2000 Fixed: Error '50003 Unexpected' that occured on some systems when opening the modules, Icon and Register preference tabs. -------------------------- Version 0.31 build 59 - 7 Aug 2000 Added: User Defined icons for left and right mini-tab icons: wsPrefs.ico - Left mini-tab icon wsPrefsM.ico - Left mini-tab icon on Mouse over. wsHide.ico - Right mini-tab icon wsHideM.ico - Right mini-tab icon on Mouse over. wsHideC.ico - Right mini-tab icon when shelf collapsed. wsHideCM.ico - Right mini-tab icon on Mouse over when shelf collapsed. Added: User Defined icons for Scroll Arrows: wsUpArrow.ico - Scroll Up Arrow wsUpArrowM.ico - Scroll up Arrow on Mouse Over. wsUpArrowP.ico - Scroll up Arrow Pressed down. wsDnArrow.ico - Scroll Down Arrow wsDnArrowM.ico - Scroll Down Arrow on Mouse Over. wsDnArrowP.ico - Scroll Down Arrow Pressed down. if the Mouse Over or Pressed icons do not exist, WS will use the normal state bitmap. Added: Keyboard navigation of the shelf - Arrow keys to move, Enter to execute, ALT-Enter to open Properties and Del to delete. Added: Pressing Shift while right-clicking on the left mini-tab brings up the Shelf Editor window. Added: Pressing Shift while right-clicking on a tab brings up the Properties window for that tab. Added: Pressing Shift while right-clicking on a shelf item brings up the Properties window for that object. Added: Pressing Shift while right-clicking on an empty spot on the shelf body brings up the New Item dialog. Added: Context menu for the empty parts on the shelf body: New item and Propeties. Changed: When using the Browse button in Item Properties, the label and icon path fields now change automatically to reflect the new item. -------------------------- Version 0.31 build 57 - 4 Aug 2000 Added: Context menus now get their themes from NextSTART *if* NextSTART is installed and currently running. Added: WorkShelf now features right-click context menus for the Workshelf itself, Tabs and Objects. Changed: Right clicking on the left mini-tab, on a tab or on an icon now pops-up the associated context menus. Fixed: After running an item, the icon tooltip would sometimes stay floating on the screen. Fixed: You can now only run one instance of WS. Fixed: Un-Collapsing the shelf by clicking on a tab would not restore the un-collapsed alpha blending settings. -------------------------- Version 0.31 build 56 - 1 Aug 2000 - Alpha Release 4 Added: If Cancel is pressed on the Preferences screen, the shelf now reverts to its previously collapsed state. Added: If you select Hide Desktop Icons, desktop icons are now hidden automatically when you press Preview or Ok. Restarting WS is no longer needed. Fixed: The OK button is now the default button in all the item and shelf property dialog boxes. Fixed: The correct sizing limits where not being enforced when resizing the shelf using its left edge. Fixed: Painting issues with Advs transparent shelf bodies and collapsing. Fixed: If the collapse to frames option was selected, WS would hide the shelf base as well. Fixed: Scroll Arrow position issues on shelves with an absolute minimum height. Fixed: The Advanced Skinning tab title options where not being properly saved to the registry. Fixed: If the splitter line was not being used, a shelf with a base would collapse to tabs only. -------------------------- Version 0.30 build 55 - 31 Jul 2000 - Alpha Release 3 Fixed: Tab drawing problems on themes with AdvS shelf bodies and no Advs tabs. -------------------------- Version 0.30 build 54 - 31 Jul 2000 Fixed: Transparency issues when resizing a shelf with no transparent parts. Fixed: On some AdvS themes, collapsing the shelf to tabs even with no shelf base would still show a little bit of the shelf body. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 53 - 31 Jul 2000 Added: Greatly improved performance on Advs themes. Added: Icon tooltips. Added: Yes to All option when Unzipping a theme over a previously existing one. Added: Advanced Skinning options for accurate positioning of the tab's titles. Changed: The 'Version Info' window is no longer Modal. Fixed: Preview was not working if an Advs theme had no bitmap transparency. Fixed: Workshelf would report an error if the user tried to create a new folder in Workshelf's file or folder browser. Fixed: When using a shelf base and single click to launch icons, clicking on the base of a collapsed tab would display and launch the icon that would be 'underneath' that position. Fixed: Resizing the shelf horizontally now makes sure there are at least 40 pixels available to display each tab. Fixed: Minor display issues with tabs using Advanced Skinning. Fixed: Several sizing issues with the left and right mini-tabs. Fixed: Clicking on the shelf base could display a 'ghost' icon if an item was selected just before the shelf auto-collapsing. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 52 - 29 Jul 2000 Added: Auto-Install themes capability to WS. Added: The Prefs and Auto Collapse icons on the edges of the shelf are now automatically replaced if the bitmaps folder holds replacement 16x16 icons, i.e. wsprefs.ico and wshide.ico. Added: Themes tab. Changed: Removed the User Defined Scroll Arrow style button. WS will now automatically use the user defined icons if they are present in the bitmaps folder. Changed: Removed shelf base advanced settings and re-arranged the Appearences tab. Fixed: When using alternated icon label positioning, the text of the leftmost icon could become cut off at the left, and the text of the rightmost icon could run into the scroll arrows and shelf frame. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 51 - 28 Jul 2000 Added: Advanced Skinning Options - WS can now be fully customizable. Changed: Moved icon size from the Appearences to the Global tab. Fixed: Adding a new tab by dragging the icon in the left tab stuff was not saving changes. Fixed: Icon selection blob was still square under the Active Tasks tab. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 47 - 27 Jul 2000 - 2nd Alpha Preview Added: Solid Icon selection blob is now a rounded corner rectangle. Fixed: Painting issues with collapsed tabs, shelf bases and scroll arrows. Fixed: WS was not permiting items with no icons to be selected ( and therefore couldn't be deleted either ). -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 46 - 25 July 2000 Changed: When WS is collapsed and there is a base area, it now collapses a bit above the base area to give it the right look. Fixed: Scroll Arrows were being painted over the reserved shelf base area if the icon size was too small. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 45 - 24 July 2000 Added: Option to have a reserved area at the base of the shelf. This area can be used to place always on top NS tasklist icons and the systray. Added: 'Show Shelf Base Splitter Line' option. If selected a 3D line is drawn between the reserved base area and the actual shelf area. Fixed: WS icon no longer appears on the the taskbar or tasklist. Fixed: WS was not saving nor using the Program Arguments part of the items in the shelf. Fixed: Issues with multi-line icon labels and display on alternated lines. Fixed: WS RAS connections tab would crash on systems without RAS installed. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 44 - 23 July 2000, 1st Alpha Preview Added: The cursor now changes to a sizing arrow when over the lateral edges of the shelf, to indicate that the shelf can be resized horizontaly. Added: Beta time limit code. Fixed: WS now does not allow the width of the shelf to be less than 200 pixels. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 43 Added: When dragging a shelf item, the item's icon is now displayed under the mouse pointer. Added: Right-Clicking on the Prefs icon opens up a Shelf Editor window, where you can add new tabs, and re-arrange or delete them. Added: A new tab can also be added by dragging the prefs tab over a tab handle. Added: Start collapsed option to Global tab. Added: Hide Desktop Icons option to Global tab. Added: Always on Bottom option to Global tab. Added: When Launch with Single click is enabled, an item can be selected or dragged instead of launched by pressing either CTRL or SHIFT while clicking. Added: New 'Auto-Collapse on Launch' option. This makes the shelf auto-collapse when a program item is run. Added: Workshelf now accepts compatible items dragged from NextSTART. Fixed: On a tab with too many items to be displayed, a scroll arrow would briefly appear on top of the collapse icon when un-collapsing the tab. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 42 Added: Vertical and Horizontal icon spacing. Added: Choice of Nš of icon label lines. Added: The shelf left and right sides can now be set. Added: Tab Properties, accessible by right clicking on the tab. Fixed: When changing an items properties the tab would auto hide if set to automatically do so - this was not correct and could cause image corruption when the shelf un-collapsed. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 40 - 21 Jul 2000 Fixed: Changing an item Properties corrupted its type and prevented that item from running. -------------------------- Version 0.0 build 39 - 21 Jul 2000 Added: To change an item's icon, on a regular tab, it is now as simple as dropping an *.ico file over it. Added: Dropping a document over an application icon on a regular tab will now open the document using that application. Added: Right clicking on an icon on a Desktop tab or on a Regular tab now opens up that item's properties window.