I remember when I first got Litestep three years ago, it was neat and cool and buggy but quite visual. Either OTS did not exist or I didn't know of it, but themes were made with hand and the litestep root dir cloggered with extra modules.

Of course there were thousands of skins aveilable even then, but I never went that way, after getting one simple theme to copy and learn from, I did just that and now I've practically used just one theme during these years - my own.

For years allowed it to have just a bit more functionality than taskbar, just a tiny bit to keep it more usable. Probably only the Hotkeys made it worth toying with, but after I got back from the army and had little to do, I started experimenting. Now my monster of a theme uses more than fifteen different modules and litestep.exe hogs 5 megs of ram. I have screen edge shortcuts, hotkeys for everything, VWM miniwindows that appear under the cursor, virtual screens where the right programs automatically open, hotkeys for volume presets, adjustable transparencies, five kilobytes od scripting, and I don't know how I ever got by without all this.

I've also noticed that I have a quite big bias against using any other module. I've tried Noir and one other one which both look like computer screens from scifi movies, but both lacked some functionality I can't get by with. Namely the modules replace the space of each other, and the taskbar remains painfully small under all that round-cornered eye candy and processor temperature labels (which are totally useless anyway, who makes his comp. run so hot that he'd have to see it all the time). I've also tried minimalist themes, but they seem to go too far and computer usablity suffers from the lack of information. So... nowadays other peoples themes only operate as sources of innovation, I ocassionally download something and see if they have UI features I haven't even thought about, and if they do, I implement them myself.

So, I'm asking you what did you do back then? Or can you use other peoples themes?
Just curious.

I only started running LS a few months ago so technically I'm still a newbie. The first thing I did after installing it was download 2 of the most popular themes. I used each for a couple of days. Whilst they look both looked amazing, I found neither very usable.

I soon changed back to Simplicity and used it for a month or more before the panel switcher became too annoying and I decided it was time to create a theme for myself.

Since then that theme is finished and have started on my next theme. I only try other themes to see what other people are doing and I don't often use them for more than 15 minutes. I don't expect I will ever use a theme created by someone else. My themes do exactly what I want.

I've just crossed a hard listeping year :)
I began to search something nice and quickly went on huge minimalisme (I seem to have a personal meaning about minimalisme)

I wanted to make a theme that show the wallpaper but is full of features. I like to have everything integrated with Litestep, everything under my hand.

I can drop files or rightclick->litestep to do the right action at the right moment. My Winamp front-end deals with drag'n'drop. The uptime/time/[info] label deal with:
- jpg set as wallpaper - right-click on label to !popupfiles->save as
- mp3, mpc, ogg decoding to wav
- wav encoding to mp3, ogg
I can make new shortcuts by droping exe or lnk files, add icons to the systray, entries to !popup (exe, lnk, folders)... everything can be easily removed

I can easily add windows positionning (on desktops, on screen) and resizing rules, etc...

But the most is to try to give litestep the ability to add stuff by himself. Build some favorites popup or thing like this...

I downloaded and checked out Glaze to see how newbie you really are DrWorm.

My judgement is: not at all.

Great work with the theme, it has almost all the functionality mine has, some that I wouldn't want (winamp controls) and a pretty DAMN cool interface to twiddle with the theme options I would have painful time making, no matter how much of an old timer I think I am (the relevant word is is 'think'). Actually your scripts.rc was so neat and clean that I begun to feel ashamed of myself... Mine looks like it was made by a 5-year old retard who saw a compiler for the first.

The fact that your theme remembers its options is also class A functionality, which I don't currently have implemented. I think I'll have work to do today.

I can't even remember when I started using LS for the first time. Feels like ten years ago but that's of course not the case. And yeah I remember all those old pre-OTS themes. I remember that the default theme had a WHARF??!! How about that?!
I also remembered that I downloaded Darkzone, but it was buggy as hell (for me) so I did a very own version of it. And here I am now working on a new version of darkzone to be released soon.
Of all the themes available I have never found a single one that I like better than my own. Now I'm not saying that my themes are any better than others, they're probably not, but there's something speciall with a very own theme that makes you like it more than any other. Litestep is a strange phenomena...

yup, i remember the wharf too :D
quite funky it was...

I've only been using ls for about 1 1/2 years now. however, unlike a lot of users, I only use themes created by other people. mainly because I have no imagination, and can't think of a good (hell, even mediocre) design for a theme. however, I have been modding all the themes I use, to "personalize" them, so to speak. They're definitely not my own, they're just more useable for me.

Rediscovered LiteStep 'bout 4 months back. Had tried to use TurtleSoupII a few years ago (was caught by the eye-candy), but was using WinMe, so everything froze all the time. After recently upgrading to 2000Pro, decided to give LS a try again with the express intent of making themes, but actually enjoyed the default theme (Simplicity). I've experimented with various design/interface concepts since, and obviously have a long way to go. My main premise is efficiency with eyecandy (I'm one of those rare-ones that actually likes to see the theme, because I never see the app-covered wallpaper).

Everything I've released has had flaws, but users have been good to me, emailing hints, suggestions, critiques, etc... (thanks all!!!). But, y'know, like MILK said, I tend to prefer my own themes, and I think that's the way every user should be; after all, that is the ultimate premise behind LiteStep. It's been a worthwhile, progressive endeavor, and I hope to continually learn more as further experimentation occurs.

myself, i started using litestep back in may, i haerd about it long ago, maybe a year or so ago, but i wasnt as knowledgable as i am now, so i held off, i used omars installer and had simplicity for most of may, while still trying a few kool looking themes.

but always came back to simplicity, probably within the first few days of using simplicity theme i began editing it here n there.

july has been probably my high point of editing litestep.
i downloaded DrWorms Glaze 1.1, and i loved the wallpaper, but i still liked the way my simplicity looked, but i thought i could utilize the wallpaper and move stuff around.

i got rid of that panel switcher, ive stayed with desktopfolders still even though its old n what not, but it does what i want so thats a plus, moved my winamp stuff around... basically, i did everything i wanted to do.

there've been a few hiccups with my date/time labels and other small anyonaces, but that should change. ive got the itch to create my own from scratch so ive been working on a template for the past couple days.

anyways, thats my experiance with litestep - this could be a motivation for me to learn some programming in the future. but who knows. all i know is litesteps made my experiance with windows a lot more creative in the past couple months