Hi all!
I'm new to light step. Have been using it for the last 3 days now, and falling in love with it. I'd love to learn how to develop my own modules, and feel I will eventually get there, however I have a couple of request, questions.

I'm currently using the austerity theme that comes with LiteStep. It's the most complete theme I could find. It just needs a couple of things for me to absolutely fall in love with it.
Request #1:
I'd like to setup a hotspot to replace the one already at the bottom right of the screen. I don't use the task bar. I'd like to have my system tray pop up when the mouse hits the hot spot, and have full functionality as if the bar was enabled.

Request #2:
I've been trying to figure this out, but all I want a favorites menu to appear in my right click pop up menu allong with "litestep", "program", etc...


Questions
What code language is litestep written in. And is it safe to assume that all modules are written in same language?
Like I said, i'm going to learn all this, but need some help.

Thanks again.

Language: as far as the program? I think it's C++. Modules have been in various languages.
However, forget about the module coding for now. Theming does not require anything of the sort. The configuration files are plain old text files (all OTS2 themes will start out with a theme.rc in the theme's main folder). Remember that documentation is your friend, and so is LSXCommand. Also, just download other themes to mess with, as Austerity is not simple by any means.
Freedom would be a good one to start with. If you can spare the brain power and time, there is quite a bit of functionality available right now, especially with xLabel.

Austerity is a very complex theme and definitely not easy for a newbie to modify. Try getting a simpler theme and play around with it.

The contents of your popup are however not theme dependent, as they are defined in one of your personal config files. The file you need to edit is litstep\profiles\username\personal\popup.rc. Read the docs for the popup2 module found in your litestep\modules\docs folder and try to edit your popup to fit your needs.

Also, read a lot of documentation. Here are a few good places to start out:

o-t-s.sf.net
I recommend you read everything on that site. It explains all about the theme structure, how modules are loaded, etc.

http://lsfaq.shellfront.org/ might also be a nice place.

http://www.shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=272
A step by step tutorial on creating a simple LS theme.

your litestep\modules\docs\ dir contains all the module specific documentation for each module you have downloaded via NetLoadModule.

http://www.residualvisuals.com
Some themeing tuts.

Hope this helps, good luck! :)

WOW!!! Looks like I got my work cut out for me.

Thanks guys!

The popup system try, can that be scripted or does it have to be developed with something like VC++?

A popup system tray using Systray2 SHOULD be possible without scripting if you use xPopup and it's module hooking.

You should just be able to show and hide the system tray when you move over the hotspot. Just set the hotspot command to !systraytoggle. You'll need to do some other re-arranging to keep it from looking funny, I suppose. As far as including your favorites in the menu, do you mean a folder of favorite shortcuts, or "the" favorites folder associated with IE? For the latter, just include the followng line in your popup.rc file:

*Popup "Favorites" "!DynamicFolder:$Favorites$"

You can use a hardcoded pathname instead of $favorites$ to get another folder in there; $favorites$ gets translated by the LS core into the location of your personal favorites folder. There are quite a few "special" folders defined that way - see the docs for more examples.

Thanks Boreas. Exactly what I was looing for. I know I wouldn't have gotten there eventually, but sooner is better.
Thanks everyone!

Boreas, looks like the:
*Popup "Favorites" "!DynamicFolder:$Favorites$"

Doesn't work when inserted into the Popup.rc file. But does work when put in the themepopup.rc file. I can live with that.
Thanks again,

Hmmmm, it works fine for me, as does $desktop$, $quicklaunch$, $programs$, etc. Are you sure you didn't have a syntax error somewhere in the popup.rc file?

esilva, make sure you inserted that line in your personal popup.rc, theone in your litestep\profiles\user\personal dir.