This thread will be the home of the "The Gathering" -theme from now on. If you've never heard of it, see
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=1503
There will (hopefully) be a meeting in IRC tonight at 20:00GMT. This is mostly directed to the guys on the team but everybody is of course welcome. If this meeting goes as planed there will be a summery of it here afterwords.
So #litestep on freenode.net at 20:00GMT tonight, friday.
Meeting took place. Here's what was decided.
As decided before the theme will consist of seven section; shortcuts, VWM, WinAmp controll and so on. These sections can be toggled and will automatically reposition themselves. The "bar" they form can be positioned by the top or by the bottom of the screen.
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03:08:22 #Litestep
I got green light for the graphics with some minor additions. More color variants needed. A preview of the various color combinations will be uploaded to my profile. It shows the Player/LSxCommand section.
It was also decided that we would try to make the sections draggable using shortcut3. A config panel will be constructed for the theme so most settings will be found there and not in the theme popup. Egonz and LS-Universe are working on that code now.
The theme will be constructed according to both OTS 1.0 and OTS 2.0. The theme will automatically choose the right mode (is this possible? Ok we will try at least).
That's it for now. Stay tuned for updates.
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Wow, a whole forum. This is incredible :)
grr. i hate missing meetings. having played with sc3, its still very incomplete and i can't get a hold of mickem any more.( which is bad we used to talk all the time cause) maybe it cause i bugged him about bugs too much :( anyway just so you know the config dialog doesn't save center, right or negitve(sp?) numbers if a remember correcting.
and zorder and parents and a lots of other stuff too. its brilliant in ideas, but they are not full impleamented :)
I'm interested in contributing graphics, if availability exists. I'll have to pass on coding, though (you guys have seen my themes, week coding).
I too would be interested in helping with graphics, if the need exists. Please let me know. Thanks in advance...
Well I think I have things under control with the main graphics, but I would really appreciate any and all help with the popup and maybe a wallpaper if we are going to include one. But that might have to wait until the main graphics are done. Shouldn't be long...
If you guys need a special module for this theme, let me know.
I'm going to introduce myself now... hello I'm the coder of the theme *lol*
my question to all is, which features do want me to include?
the thoughts for now were:
- dynamical elements (each can be shown or hidden *vwm, amp, ...)
- passwort protection (only the guy with it can change settings)
- OTS1 and OTS2 Support
- perhaps, if the graphical artists create empty shortcuts, you can add own apps by pressing the button, und use this without recycle (change app rightclick on the shortcut)
- different layout styles (in every corner and every side)
- dynamical texturizing of the background bar (colorizable or image)
- perhaps if the gfx artists release also the PS file, easy texturizing all elements of the theme
- a whole settings interface for easy changing
*- perhaps!!!!!! dragable elements (without lsbox), but this is not a finished idea*
well thats all for now..... if there are any other ideas, please tell me and I'll show if it is possible :)
ls-universe I have some ideas but I would like to keep them private for now. Find me on IRC or lemmie know if I can IM you somewhere.
what about skinz? are we going to include different skinz with the theme? like winamp, stylexp, shellwm, trillian etc?
@ls-universe: yup, i think were going to add most of the things your list has :)
i can help u so u don't have to do all those things by yourself. like i could do the control panel (that would inculde the dynamical texturizing cause it would need only two e-vars:P ).
btw gothsecret was willing to do the draggable elements stuff as i understood. he would use shortcut3 for that.
anyways we should meet on irc sometime. would today (25.08) 18.00GMT @ #litestep be ok?
Egonz: I am GothsSecret *lol*
Let me know when you will need graphics for the popup, etc...just send anything you want matched, also, any size limit for the wall? Thanks again.
If you are GothsSecret lord help us all. :p
???????
/me looks helpfull around
everything sounds great universe. one comment/question about the shortcuts though. since everyone will want different shortcuts, how about setting up a place with four available shortcut spots, which will automatically use the destination file's icon as the shortcut icon? instead of having you guys set up a web shortcut icon, an e-mail shortcut icon, a file manager shorcut icon, etc, and people using the shortcuts for Counter-Strike, Quake3, and Trillian. And of course, having the entire shortcut box/panel/whatever be toggable (able to be turned off or on). if you need a better explanation, feel free to icq me (my number's in my profile), or find me on #litestep, and I'll try to describe it better.
I'll do a splash screen if you want. and maybe shellwm skin too.
http://www.litestep.net/?section=5&action=details&id=2018
the splash design should be up soon. waiting approval
note is not official. and any input and comments are welcome
Deuce, here's an idea. I like your suggestion. But how about we do both. Lets have a shortcut panel as planed with the usual "evar" shortcuts, shutdown etc. But also with four or five custom shortcut entries defaulted to something, but alterable by the user the way you described.
@ verbalshadow: if it is a very small Splash srceen (not larger than knoppix splash) it is ok. bigger is not everytime better ;)
Maduin or anyone else interested in helping. I would like to request the following:
I would like the !Amp_Pause bang of dynAmp to NOT toggle between Play and pause. If this is possible I guess it's quite simple to alter the code. But since I'm no coder I need help with this.
//Thanx in advance...
Milk: what do you mean. on pause you can just even pause the track or play it when it's paused.
what else do you want to have. It is no problem to write a script which made a "new" bang.
i remeber a module like windoze's quicklaunch. maybe we could use that for the customizeable shortcuts :)
The controlls for play and pause will be shared (won't be room for them otherwise, redraw the graphics). If they are used in conjuction with WinAmp's own controlls they might get out of sync. I think the simples would be that !mp_Pause did nothing but pause and then if a toggle was needed there could be another one like !Amp_PlayPause or something to actually toggle the state.
!Amp_PlayPause can be used in geekamp.dll
or if dynamp.dll:
leftclick: !amp_play
rightclick: !amp_pause
so no extra script is needet :)
But then the button wouldnt change icon from play to pause.. This can ofcourse be worked around by sharing play and stop instead, but that feels a little strange.
New preview of the Player section in my profile, once approved. Made it more crisp & clear, added some colors and redraw the buttons.
You should suggest the change to Vendicator first. If he can't or doesn't want to do it, then I will. I just don't want to modify someone else's module behind their back.
ok, no problem, I undestand what you mean.
it is realy a hard script. we've to load a not seeing label which reads out if amp is running a track and than changing the shourtcut (perhaps). it sould work and so we could perhaps detect it like I did with one.dll (this only detects in winamp is running, not playing)
I've mailed Vendicator, with no reply so far.
A new screenshot of some more sections can be found in my profile. Only two more sections left now...
*shouts happy* I need some work :D
oh, if you're finished with the images, send me the wallpapers in one piece. I'll cut them out by myself :)
Well, baad news.
I just took a look at the OTS2 theming guide and so it is NOT possible to create a dialoge which asks you which ots you want to use, cause OTS and OTS use different main .rc files (OTS = Step.rc : OTS2 = Theme.rc)
but if I think right now, we can do both (insert a step.rc with OTS and a theme.rc with OTS2), cause OTS will only use the step.rc an ignore the theme.rc, the same with OTS2...
Am I right Omar????? :)
ok I just asked on OTS forum if it's right and tnl told me that it IS right :D
Umm... just create a proper .thm file for your theme. OTS1 allows you to specify the name of your file in there, so just make it "theme.rc" and it works on both setups.
I'll work on getting slices into the .psd's so you'll have the images done so far in no time. Cutting isn't that good in the view of updating the graphics from time to time, and some stuff need layer handling so making screenies would be a drag.
The buttons will be named NameOfButton.n/o/p.png depending on Normal/Over/Pressed (those are the output settings I have now so I'll use those).
One question; how will the taskbar autosizeing work with draggable sections. If the ections would form a simple bar then it would resize to the current screen width minus the other sections widths. Will it have a fixed width if dragged away? Not neccesary for me to know but I'm curious. Would be nice if it had the width it had docked but the user could dragg it's width like a normal window.
ilmcuts is right about .thm file... but OTS2 differ from OTS1 by the way of loading modules. OTS2 uses NetLoadModule, and if your theme is based under .24.7, NetLoadModule will make it crash :(
I haven't read the docs completly but I think it also says that the standard is't carved in stone. So we could use ordinary loadmodule lines instead of using netloadmodule. It's a compromise, and the only drawback I can see is that users would have to DL more dll's.
Smurth: That is a bug which will be fixed. It has nothing to do with OTS2 compatibility.
ilmcuts: of course; it can't be a bug due to a directories structure. It was just a warning because you can't see this information easily on the OTS2 forum...
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but it would be nice to have a button which would hide the ENTIRE shell, as well as resize the desktop to the full screen. Of course, you would then need a small button in the corner to restore the bar/sections as they were before the shell was hidden.
@Liquid
if youre using the Beta Build, why using a !hideall script if you could hide all modules instead with a hotkey?
@Milk
dragable elements and taskbar, I'll think it over how it could work right, but I sure *....* that I get an answer.
The most important thing for me is to get the images so I can start (and finish one day *gg*) coding. the most things come into my mind while I'm coding, but I'll keep you updated what I'm exactly doing in there :)
School has just started for for this term so developement might get a little slow here but the images are coming, eventually.
ls-universe: Personally, I'm not that big in to hotkeys. Sure, I appreciate their ease of use, but I tend to prefer the use of the mouse. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but according to OTS2 aren't all hotkeys supposed to be held in the personal.rc? If so, wouldn't that make it a bit sketchy to distribute the theme with this functionality built in? I personally feel that having this functionality standard to the theme would be a great asset, as sometimes people may wish to use a more minimal interface for specific tasks (ie: Popup 'only'), and would prefer not to have to switch themes.
all personal hotkeys are in personal.rc
I theme can have its own hotkeys the way i understand it.
verbaleshadow: I suppose, but you could run into problems if the user already has the same hotkey assigned to something else in their persoanl.rc
What happened to this thread? Is it dying so quickly?
- mrb
Things are being worked on. LS-Universe has some of the images and are working on the code as we speak. As for the remaining graphics, real life keeps tapping on my door all the time. I will try to get things done as soon as possible but expect to see some delays on that.
Milk: Thanks for the update! I'm glad to hear that development is still in progress as I am eagerly awaiting the product of this collaborartion.
As a side note, my computer reeently freaked out (something to do with installing a SB Live! and then a Turtle Beach Montego A3D Xtreme (yes, old cards, I know)), and I had to reformat (due to stress ;). I lost my theme which I had adaapted through my frustration, and I am now awaiting this "Gathering" theme before I reinstall Litestep as my main shell.
Keep at'er, and good luck!!!!
Well now, the coding stuff seems to be finished, some small things has to be done for now.
We went again new ways, and we hope that you would like it also as we do.
I'm just waiting for Milk's last missing images (don't hurry Milk) and than I'll make the last finish and test it out hard (cause the code is hard, and mistakes could be in there)
Time is in short supply at the moment. The images for the taskbar are nearing completion but the systray/clock and the program shortcuts need to be done. I will try as hard as I can to get them done but it might take time.
Once approved there will be a preview of all the sections in silver style in my profile. What needs to be done now is to finish the rest of the styles and add the shortcut menu itself. Kind of like a startmenu I guess, there will be one menu with the usuall evar shortcuts, shutdown etc. Then there will be a theme setup menu accessable through the small button.
LS-Universe, I didn't get that sample you sent working properly. Those switching arrows only appeard on two occasions. Also a small question, wasn't win9x support cut in lsbox3? We decided early that the theme must run on any (windows) OS, so I'm just curious. We could of course have different setups depending on OS. Anyway I'll leave the coding to you. As soon as those final images are ready you'll get em.
yup, 3.0 doesn't work in 9x. i've tested it. :(
whaaat.... god§@!*?‡%#......
ok, so'll make a none moveable version for 9x and a moveable for the others (no problem *sweats*).....
Milk: I'm going to sent you the latest working version (the side and bottom version is not working, we taked care that that the moving script works correctly)
So now the preview is up. There is the question about how the task tiles will look when there are more than say 4 or 5 of them. The thing is that the preview is for a width of 1024. Most people can run higher resolutions than that. Also the taskbar can be placed alone without the other sections or with those sections somewhere else. This reasures that the tiles will look good on a screen with resolution 1024 or even less.
looks nice, but anit the tasks to high? shuld'nt we use 2 lines, or much mor better, let the user decide which tasks they want to use, a big single line or a small tasks in 2 lines :)
the taskbar width will grow and shrink on any other resolution, this is normal, even with or without elements. and there is also another layout, the side with tasks.dll, the tasks direction form top to bottom or bottom to top
The entire bar is to small for two lines, it's the same problem as with two lines for the systray The icons can be squeezed in there but the bevels can't. With this design there is the effect that since the icon is still 16x16 the content of the task tile will be obvious even when the width is small.
I'll have to work on the vertical task tiles, but the horizontal comes first.
Status report!
Images for the taskbar and tray(nearly) are now finished. Added after the preview was uploaded is a special minimzed task tile. Left to do is to complete all styles for the tray, and to make all the images for the shortcuts.
Is this thing done yet?
Where can I see a screen shot of the theme?
Can I download it?
All the links on this page are not relative to the theme.. I think..
no it is not done yet
a VERY early screenshot with only one bar can be seen in Milk's profile
no you can't ;)
I think it would be cool if we got the major installer creators to put the gathering theme in their installer. just a thought.
I don't think so, cause most new user start working on themes on their first theme, now it is simpicity, but Gathering is too hard codet and even we cannot work on the script again, cause we don't know how it works, it just works *lol*. so it will be too hard to give a hint on changing things. This Theme cannot be rescripted or something like that, it is impossible!!!!
what we can do is a lite version of the theme, without moving, resizing, and any other jokes like that, just a non-moveable version, but not the full one.
When we release the theme, you can take look into the script.rc's (yes, there are more files), than you'll see what I mean :)
I will for personaly create a lite version when the images are done, because I don't have a need for movable sections and things like that. So as soon as the images are done...
Please when you code this up. that you make it so it will not always be on top. It is a pain when you try to play a game and it jumps out to the desktop.
I agree with Rocks. Its easy to make things not on top but if the code is as bad as you say it is then i dont want to spend alot of time sorting through it hunting for ontop switches :)
if you're using the beta you can hide all modules without using any script ;)
so it doesn't matter if any theme is on top or not ;)
changes text:
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Added !HideModules and !ShowModules to hide or show all module windows. !ToggleModules is also available.
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(for a hotkey and if you're too lazy there is another setting which did it automaticly:)
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If "LSAutoHideModules" is specified LS tries to atomatically hide all module windows if a full-screen app is detected. Once the full-screen app exits !ShowModules is called.