Go ahead, flame me. I've been trying for several hours now to figure out what litestep even is, and nothing is even vaguely informative. I have a suspicion that it's a desktop enhancement for MS Windows(tm)...

I signed up for this site because I was getting desperate for information. Unfortunately, now that I'm here, I still have only the vaguest inkling of what this project is about, much less why I would want to download and use whatever it is.

Despite my opening statement, this is not intended as flamebait. It is a quest for information. I have seen the word "litestep" around a few times, I've heard people say that it's cool, but I am hesitant to dive into it because I can't even tell what it is.

The forums that I came across before I found this (apparently official) homepage were headed by topics such as "Why is litestep dying?" I have 3 words in response:

NO AVAILABLE INFORMATION

As a do-it-yourself example, plug "litestep" into google, and see how much information you can come up with on it. No, really, go ahead. Now think about the results you get in the terms of someone who doesn't have a decade of thinking/living/breathing litestep. Can you decipher any useful information, aside from "Install this, it's the coolest thing since sliced bread" or "This is a litestep theme, download it now because I am uber-leet"?

Now, to give a corresponding viewpoint... plug "ThemeXP" into google. Or "Beryl", or "Compiz"... reams and reams of paper could be wasted just printing out the results pages. In addition, the linked items tend to be informative. To top it all off, there are literally hundreds of links to howtos, newbie guides, pictures, instructional videos, forums, you name it. People are interested in desktop enhancement suites.

I had to register on this site to get a link to the wiki that told me, in essence, that litestep is basically an AfterSTEP clone. Great! What's AfterSTEP? The other things I found were mostly links to pages that were missing, defunct, unmaintained, uninformative, and/or self-praising.

You guys, in my opinion, are worse than the linux geeks from a decade ago. I feel like I'm peeking through the window of a decrepit mansion, peering at some obscure ritual performed by an elitist society hell-bent on doing... something.

I don't even know what it is that you're doing, because I can't find any information on the project that actually tells me what the project IS.

So go ahead, bring on the flames. Tell me what a loser I am, show me how elite you can be. At least I'll have a clue whether anyone is even developing this thing any more.

Loser.

I'm 1337

No Problem. Just read all the sticky posts around here (all of them, please), install LiteStep, DO NOT reboot, read all the docs that were included in your chosen distribution, reboot, find out what it is, fiddle around several hours to find why it works most of the time, read some more docs, ask a few questions on the forum, get beaten up, and presto: there you'll be, knowing what it is all about.

While I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, I think the following text variant is available on most litestep websites:

"Litestep replaces the standard Windows shell"

If you do not know what a replacement shell is, you could probably find that information on wikipedia. Beyond that, it is all about visuals, which this particular litestep website is full of.

So, in any case, what are you offering to help do, so that this problem that you perceived is fixed?

There might not be an abundance of docs and descriptions around, but your attitude sucks. Also, I just got into litestep a couple of years ago. I realised that shell-replacement possibilities existed, I googled around to find the best one, found litestep with no worries. I installed it, and I saw what it did... I wanted to change it, so I read the docs that came with it. I got stuck, I found this forum, I posted. New modules/possibilities become available, so you read up on those...

Put it this way, whilst finding exactly what I was looking for was a little bit of an effort, all the info I needed was out there. And to be honest, as Litestep is quite complex I can imagine this serves windle off a few gigantic cock ups.

You cant be told in a sentance what it is and how it works, just install it and tinker around with it. Or don't. I'm suprised you could be bothered to sign up to a forum and post about it, when you couldn't just be bothered to install it.

p0ck3t5, I find your attitude and sentiments a little strange to say the least.



Now, I don't know what kind of home-brewn hillbilly google you've been using, but running search for "litestep" in my google yields a multitude of hits. Almost all the sites listed have more or less thorough explanations of what LiteStep is and does.

If you don't understand what is being said, well that's a whole different matter, but there is absolutely no way that you can convince me that there is "NO AVAILABLE INFORMATION". There's plenty of available info, and it's not praticularly hard to find. And as for not understanding... well, just ask away. That's what forums are for after all.



AfterSTEP is a window manager for Unix/Linux, which is in turn based on the interface of the old NeXT workstations from the late eighties/early nineties. This info can also be gleaned from the first page of hits when you google "AfterSTEP".



Like I said, the info is there. If you really understand nothing of what is being said, well, maybe you aren't ready for LS yet. But please, feel free to ask any questions you have here. I would like to know what it is that you don't get.

West is 1337, too.

Wow. I am simply amazed. I expected to have no replies, or at least nothing for a week or two.

Hats off to the community. I'm a little upset by the snide comments, when I truly was looking for information, not asinine comments, but the information was also forthcoming, and that's awesome.

I appreciate everyone's constructive input, and I apologize for my blatant rudeness in my initial post. Having done a little more research in the meantime, I think I'm going to stick with my Ubuntu system for eyecandy, but i'll be downloading this and installing it to play with on my XP Home machine (not sure if I want to risk upsetting the applecart on the XP PRo 64 system).

The screenshots I have found are awe-inspiring, in many cases, and I'm definitely looking forward to skinning my menus, and seeing what other tweaks are available. As for experience with shell replacements, I ran mIRC as my shell on my Windows 3.1 machine, oh so many years ago... The scripting available at the time made mIRC much more effective as a shell than progman could ever have hoped to be. LiteStep is apparently the same idea, taken to a new level (not to mention not being a subfeature of a program intended for completely different purposes). I'm looking forward to learning its capabilities and limits.

Again, thanks for all the constructive replies, and please accept my apologies for not digging deeply enough in my initial quest for answers.

As an aside, I still think the front page of this site could use a little more info on it.

Not to be an *** or anything...but write it up and send it to me. If I like it, it will get posted. Include some of the history as it is included now but include whatever else you want. If you want more screenshots on the front page we can add them. But as for links to downloads and whatnot we are not permitted to put them there as expressed in the other thread.

*sigh* Still waitin on that email.

uhm... write *what* up and send it to you? you want me to author your front page for you? Sure thing, send me a proposed fee schedule.

Not to be an *** or anything, but this is the kind of snide remarks that I expected in the first place.

Screenshots are not what I was referring to when I said "the front page of this site could use a little more info on it." I was referring to something that actually says what LiteStep is... something along the lines of "LiteStep is a replacement shell for Windows(tm) Operating Systems that allows you to customize the background, menus, window decorations, and other items to improve the look and feel of your computing experience."

This would allow people to have some clue as to what goes on here, rather than forcing them to sign up before they even get a taste. Screenshots, great. I'm not saying to remove those. Just give the people who came here with nothing more than a friend/colleague saying "LiteStep is great, you should check it out" a little something more than "Sign up here for LiteStep", ya know?

I came here with nothing more than a name, and was forced to sign up before I could get more than that from this site. Admittedly, there are other sites out there with information, but I came here, to the *home* of LiteStep... and was confronted at the door with a palm to the face, and a shouted "MEMBERS ONLY, JOIN OR LEAVE".

Forgive my ignorance, but this is not the friendly atmosphere I would expect a community-driven idea to thrive in. Perhaps a brief explanation of *why* someone must sign up to view the forums and download stuff would not be amiss. Something akin to "Forgive our apparent arrogant elitism, it's not what it seems. We have to restrict access to anything more than the front page to members, in order to comply with the contract with our web host. Here's some brief info and a screen shot or two to whet your appetite. When you're ready, sign up and see what we can do with LiteStep, and learn how to do it yourself."

To keep this post from getting any more monstrous in size, I'm going to cut it off now. Sorry for wasting your bandwidth with my huge text.

Oh, and another thing. LiteStep is *way* too complex for the average user. I looked at the fact that I would need to download and install 5 different packages, using a combimnation of included readme files, forum posts, and my skills in finding information on the web (and I'm apparently sadly lacking in that department) to experience LiteStep, and decided to stick with Ubuntu Linux instead of modifying my Windows installation to the point of uselessness. In case you're curious, Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux, based on the Debian distribution, that does a pretty good job of bring Windows' usability to the Linux desktop. Typically, everything "just works" "right out of the box". For more information about this "desktop replacement", check out http://www.ubuntu.com

* This is an example of useful information, and the Ubuntu website is fairly easy to navigate as well.

** I am not affiliated with the production, maintenance, or distribution of Ubuntu, or any flavour of Linux.

I don't think the LS community has quite the resources at its disposal that the Ubuntu folks have, and we probably never will. There are things that we could do better with the resources we have, no doubt about it, but in the end it always comes down to finding people with the time and the talents to get it done. For some reason it seems like the people with the talents generally don't have a lot of free time. They're often using them to be, say, gainfully employed?

Ubuntu is nice, no doubt about it. I installed it on a laptop (dual booting with XP) and had no problems whatsoever - my wireless card worked, graphics drivers were fine, etc. I'm sure that if we could get their development and marketing people to work the same magic on LS we'd have a [new and updated and] polished installer and all sorts of cool stuff. The "critical mass" necessary to coordinate an effort like that just doesn't exist right now in the LS community, in part because so many people with the necessary skills have switched to using Linux distros (or Mac's) instead of using Windows. Those of us who use LS typically have the skills and know-how to make it work with the existing tools, antiquated as some of them may be, but don't have the time to devote to seeing a new product (installer, etc.) all the way through to completion. Stuff gets done, it just gets done... more slowly, in fits and starts. We're OK with that. =)

Someday we'll have LOSI and OTS3 packaged and ready for prime time. It's already useable by those who know how LS works, but it could use more "n00b-polishing", to be sure. In the meantime, we carry on with what we've got. Works better than the Explorer shell any day!

I love the people that bitch but don't want to contribute.

p0ck3t5 :: The point was that it is people like yourself that complain and aren't willing to do anything about it that are a problem with LS. You come by to complain without really caring about the outcome.

As for getting paid for rewriting the two paragraphs on the front page...I will double what I get paid for the site for you to do it.

Whoa, steallar reasoning there. You excpect us to provide you with stuff without cost, but you, when asked to contribute, expect to be paid?

Word.

No, West, I do not expect to be paid for contributing. Reading comprehension for the win.

DeViLbOi, you and xcal might should take a look at the rest of my post, too, instead of trolling right off the bat. It has some details as to what I think is missing from the front page. I'm not a user, I'm sure as hell not going to contribute. My quick quip of "Sure thing, send me a proposed fee schedule" was in response to DeViLbOi's whining about "his" website's lack of content and/or userbase.

Oh, and in case you missed this part, I'll say it again: It's not my place to contribute. Why would I *want* to contribute? I'm not even a user. As xcal put it, I'm a "Loser." Speaking of which... xcal, can you give me a link to a post of yours that *wasn't* asinine, or had more than one sentence? Or maybe one wherein you actually read more than the first sentence of someone's post before going off half-cocked?

West, I appreciate your comments. You seem to be a regular contributor to the forums, and you have good information in your replies. I'm going to stop there, before I mention your spelling, as mine isn't perfect either... and I won't harp on your obvious lack of reading comprehension, despite the blatantly obvious signs that you either didn't read my post, or didn't understand it. If you would like to try again, just scroll up, and read it again. If you want it handed to you, assuming you bothered to read this far, see below (the section labelled "to the rest of you".

Boreas, you also have a very good post. On topic (if we even have one, here), not a flame or troll, and it has good information.

To the rest of you: *I* am not the problem with your development cycle. If you trolls and flamers are too *** lazy to be bothered doing anything more than ripping off other people's hard work, sticking a fancy logo over the original artist/coder's name, and calling it your own (and you know who you are), then you are a worse waste of space and air than this "p0ck3t5" character who keeps posting to the forums of a product he doesn't even use.

BTW, just to make sure I cheese *everyone* off... there's a reason no one sticks to LiteStep... aside from the usability, features, and functionality (and/or lack thereof) that I posted about earlier, it's a really slick and nifty interface enhancement... for a dying operating system. Just five years ago, linux was some uber-geek super-fly ninja-spy operating system, staying under the mainstream radar because you had to have a degree in order to use it. More and more people are turning to linux as a free (as in beer) operating system, nowadays... And many of them that sling code are staying for the free (as in speech) operating system. LiteStep has *NOTHING* on Compiz-Fusion. Google Video and YouTube are your best friends when seeking eye-candy for your desktop.

In closing... Unless and until you guys can stop poking each other with shard sticks and scaring away new users, you're going to be wondering why LiteStep is dying until it finally folds for good, and you end up one of 5 or 6 diehard fanboys in their mummy's basement, wondering where all the cool folks went. Assuming you're not wondering already.

Nuf sed.

oh, and xanmolbjerg - my attitude sucks because I wanted to know what something was before I ran 5 unidentified executables on my system? Wow, your mom's computer repair shop must love you.

p0ck3t5: Oh, I read your post(s) all right. No problem with reading comprehension either. Problem is you're not making any sense. While some of your complaints are valid -- this site could use a more informative front page, for one -- you're whining endlessly about something that doesn't interest you, somehting you obviously don't know the first thing about. Thus I'm not able to take anything you say seriously.

You say you're not a user. In fact, you don't even seem interested in using LS. You even openly admit that you don't know much about it, which was why you started this thread in the first place. Yet you consider yourself capable of telling us what the problem with LS is, why it's dying (which it isn't), how the community works etc. Furthermore, you have some nerve calling people here trolls when all along you have been just begging for someone to bite your head off. In fact, you seem to jump at the first possible chance to take a stab at anyone posting here, helpful or not. I was willing to help at first, but I can see that you're nothing more than an unusually eloquent troll, so I'm not going to waste my time with that. Go back to Ubuntu and stay there. Goodbye and good riddance.



WTF?



Pray tell, which exact executables were those?

West:

First and foremost: Thank you. This time, there is no doubt in my mind that you actually read my post. I am honored, actually, that you even seem to agree with my initial complaint about the lack of information on your front page.

You're right, you know. I'm not a user. The only reason I keep contributing to this forum is that I keep getting these emails saying that I've been lambasted again, someone has poked another sharp stick in my direction. I wish I could honestly say that I expect you guys will eventually do something with some of the excellent ideas I've seen *just in this thread*... but I'm not holding my breath.

The bit about the trolls, flamers, and/or ripoff artists... that was flavor text. I figured that in any community of artists, *someone*, some talentless hack, will rip someone else's stuff off. I mean, it happens so often on the winamp plugins pages that there's an automated response system. It was a shot in the dark, and my only actual trolling so far. I'm gonna miss these artful dialogues....

The 5 unidentified executables I was referring to in response to xanmolbjerg's post were the ones I started with... various and sundry pieces of LiteStep that I was told via readme files, instructions (if you can call them that), and forum postings that I would need in order to install LiteStep. I never actually got around to installing them, because I was fairly certain that something would break, and I'd end up reinstalling my XP drive, when I *just* got it reasonably tweaked out again after the last crash (I just can't keep my fingers away from the code)... My point (which was evidently missed) was that in order to discover what LiteStep is/does, I was told to "just install it"... which sounds suspiciously like "just run this attachment", and so I made a comment about xanmolbjerg's intelligence, or lack thereof.

Again, I would like to thank you for the complement (not many people tell me I'm eloquent)... although I don't actually consider myself a troll. (then again, who does, eh?)

My only regret is that I only stirred up someone who was apparently already active in this development community... none of the dead weight even noticed... unless you count xcal ;)

As xcal put it, I'm a "Loser."

That was actually an off-the-cuff remark because you asked for it at the end of your post.

Speaking of which... xcal, can you give me a link to a post of yours that *wasn't* asinine, or had more than one sentence? Or maybe one wherein you actually read more than the first sentence of someone's post before going off half-cocked?"

I got bored looking really fast, so here's only a few recent ones.

http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=6269
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=6263
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=6249
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=6250
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=2&id=6268
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=3&id=6258
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=3&id=6251
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=3&id=6231

My question to you is, why are you still here?

xcal: Evidently, i like the abuse. Oh, and I particularly like this quote, blatantly ripped off from one of the posts you directed me to see as an example of your eloquence - "Me too". Yes, that's the whole thing.

As West said, I'm apparently a troll.

Or maybe, just maybe, I want someone to convince me that I should be a part of this. Maybe I'd like to see some Google and/or YouTube video of someone's LiteStep-enhanced Windows User Experience(tm). Maybe I'd like to get something other than abuse, but I'm simply not capable of taking the leap of faith that is evidently required. I don't want to risk trashing my system for the brief thrill of adding graphics and effects to my desktop with software that is so incredibly complex to use that even its hardcore fanboy userbase manages to totally screw up, sometimes.

To put it simply, I don't want to install unknown software that *obviously* has the potential to totally screw up my system without having a *** good reason... and "try it, you'll like it" just ins't enough any more.

In case you're wondering, the answer is no. I haven't bothered doing any more research than you think I did. I came into this with the attitude of a ten-year-old, and I'm going to keep it that way. If a ten-year-old can't use an electronic product, then it's not fit to take up disk space. Every electronic product I have ever seen that came with (or advertising *could* have come with) the claim that it's "so simple, even a ten-year-old child could do it!" was typically, truthfully, able to be used by a ten-year-old child. The 35-year-old owner of said merchandise may have been clueless, but his boy could fix it up in no time. "No prob, pops!"

Those ten-year-olds are something else. They can program a VCR (if they even know what one is, nowadays), they can set your alarm clock, they'll effortlessly fill your ipod with music, make their own myspace page, make a myspace page for you, run scripts from friends that turn their computers into remote-conmtrolled zombies... ok, I draw the line right there.

But seriously, I think you're right. LiteStep may not be for me.
I like stuff that works. I like stuff that works correctly. The first time. Out of the box. Every time. Is that to much to ask? Am I crazy for expecting a software product to perform as advertised? Then again, I still haven't yet seen you guys do a decent job of telling anyone what it even is, much less tout its worth. Describing LiteStep as "a replacement shell for Windows" is about as enlightening as describing the sun as "a bright thing".

Oh, look, I found a YouTube video of LiteStep in action!
LINK
Love this guy's take on it - "All of the configuration is in textfiles, it's kind of hard to use" - oh, and let's not forget - "make sure to back up all your data before installing, it's not very user-friendly".
Nor are its fans.

Yes...because this link here doesn't show it well enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mlkMJyuLEo

As a matter of fact, you're absolutely correct. Your link doesn't show that i searched for "litestep", this was the 6th item in the list, and none of the other hits had anything at all to do with LiteStep.

So we, as the LS community, are now responsible for what appears on YouTube.

Oh, and I particularly like this quote, blatantly ripped off from one of the posts you directed me to see as an example of your eloquence - "Me too". Yes, that's the whole thing.

Actually, that wasn't the whole thing. That was my second post in that thread. You're trying to make me out to be something I'm not.

p0ck3t5: OK. So let's try this again. Maybe I was a little too quick to write you off as someone who's just out to pick a fight (I still think it seems like you are... but maybe you're just trying to cause a little commotion in this sleepy forum... or maybe, like you say, you just like the abuse).

Just one thing though: don't jump to conclusions about people here -- myself included -- because of their seemingly rude remarks in this thread. You're the one who came in here with an attitude, what were you expecting? If you do decide to jump in and give LS a shot, you will eventually be asking a lot of questions. So it's maybe not wise to offend every experienced user you encounter.

Anyway, I'm going to try and respond to some of the things you say in a friendly and (hopefully) informative manner.



I don't get this. What do you base this on? Let me tell you, there is no way in hell that LS can trash your system. Worst case scenario: some theme -- most likely an old one -- refuses to run, and leaves you sitting there with an empty desktop. In which case you might have to resort to using the Task Manager (or the Ctrl+Alt+F1 "emergency" menu) to revert to the default theme. After that you should be good to go again. If someone told you that LS can trash your system, they lied.



I think you're exaggerating, but OK, for the sake of argument. What is it about LS usage that a normal reasonably computer-savvy kid won't get? Installation should be fairly straightforward, but since the only installer we have ATM is a few years old, how to upgrade the core files might need some explaining. Installing and using themes -- nothing strange there either. You download, you double-click, you try your new theme. Aside from that... what? LS configuration, well, that's a whole different thing. The config bit is kind of complex. But I don't see why a new user should be trying to create themes the first thing they do anyway. That's like opening a 3D modelling program for the first time and expecting to make ILM-quality sfx right off the bat. Learn some basics first, then move on to the advanced stuff. And the basics are basic enough for a ten-year-old to grasp. Unless momma dropped him on his head.



Where was it advertised that LS performs flawlessly all the time? I think you might be asking a bit too much of a fairly small community-driven OSS project. LS has problems, it always has and it always will. Not the same problems, of course, but there is no such thing as bug-free software. No offense meant here but... you don't strike me as a particularly experienced computer user. And that's fine, we've all been there. But you have some naive ideas about software. Especially software whose version number, if you hadn't noticed, begins with a zero. LiteStep is, AFAIK, in perpetual beta stage. It's constantly in development.

Finally -- and this is directed at everyone reading -- I wasn't aware that LS installation was, or could be percieved as, problematic. Simply because I haven't had a reason to install it in a long while. But to my knowledge all you will need is Omar's installer and a fresh build. Possibly you might also need to point NLM to some additional site, like ls-universe, but I'm not sure if this is necessary. Are more steps needed these days?

Please do read this wall'o'text, as it explains a few things about me, and why I'm not the troll I seem to be.

First, a word of thanks for the many responses to this thread, many of them with good information, and little "flaming", despite provocation.

Now, on to my responses, in order...

DeViLbOi: Yes. You, as the fanbase, ARE responsible for what's on YouTube. Or rather, what's not there, at the moment. You should have video out there of why someone should choose to put LS on their system. You should be competing for developers. Beryl/Compiz' userbase are skyrocketing right now, because there is an absolute *crapload* of video out there that shows off how they work, what they do, and just general wow factor. Vista appears to have a good following, as well. People have decided they *like* eyecandy.

As for the Ubuntu website, etc... Well, I wouldn't expect that you would have the same layout (which is probably a good thing), but the quality of content is achievable, at least in part. Howtos are fairly easy to make, requiring mainly a basic familiarity with the subject matter, and some time. When I get myself together enough to feel comfortable installing LiteStep (and unpack one of my non-production machines to do it on), I'll be more than happy to help with documentation. As may have been mentioned earlier, your installation instructions leave a bit to be desired.

xcal: I apologize. I was trying to rattle your cage a little, and the majority of the posts that I have seen from you, other than in this particular thread, are informative, if a bit terse in many cases. I will look forward to reading your posts in the future when I am troubleshooting my new LS install, once I get off my lazy derriere and install it... right after I finish moving into my new home. Moving is the dominating force in my life right now, and everything is hectic because of it. Give me a couple weeks, and things should be back to an even keel.
Oh, yeah... and I *did* ask for it, didn't I?

West: No, your initial impression is probably accurate. I think I *was* looking for a fight. At the very least, I was trying to be a spoon, if not an outright troll. Jumping to conclusions, taking things out of context, and in general being a jerk. I wanted to provoke a response, see what kind of fanbase LiteStep has, and thus determine what level of support I could expect to receive when I run into problems. And believe me, I *will* run into problems. My parents used to joke that given a pair of toothpicks, my brother and I could destroy an anvil. The upshot of this is that the knowledge caused by accidental (or purposeful) destruction helps to safeguard against the same issues in the future. I am an IT professional, my brother owns his own construction company. We've broken a few anvils along the way, but we make better hammers now because of it.

On the other hand... the being scared of trashing my system comes from the several warnings sprinkled throughout the LS websites that indicates that LS is not for the technically inept, and some outright warnings that it can "crash your system" if installed improperly, or just from normal use. I can't point at anything specific, and am relying solely on my (admittedly suspect) memory for this impression, and am willing to take this with a grain of salt because of that fact.

My ten-year-old rant was precisely that, a rant.

As for the comments about installation being intimidating, they are accurate. My perception, from what I have read on this site, is that installation is troublesome and potentially problematic. From what I gleaned from this website's downloads section, I have to first download and install the basic package (omar, I believe?), then get several upgrade packages, and finally, I will need to select, download, and install a theme. It reads as if I am going to be performing open-heart surgery on my computer... and I'm a Windows(tm) technician with over 20 years experience with PCs, starting with a TI-99/4a when I was a kid, and moving all the way up to administering literally dozens of municipal networks today. I triple boot XP Home, XP PRo/64, and Ubuntu Desktop 7.04 - I'm a Linux noob, but I'm certified on Windows(tm).

Speaking as an IT professional, I would recommend someone give your product a miss at this time, based on documentation availability and apparent ease of use... unless they were a hobbyist interested in the scene, or wanting a good coding toy/project. This is easily (hah! as if anything is ever easy) remedied by improving documentation and simplifying the download and installation process.

To everyone: Thanks for putting up with my button-pushing. It has been an enlightening experience all round, I'm sure. I do intend to install and play with LiteStep, and I am *certain* that I will require assistance at some point. What I have gotten from this exchange is that tempers can flare here (only mildly, and that's impressive for a forum), but if someone is persistant, the community supports them. I'm looking forward to the good-natured ribbing I'll receive when my posts wander into the support forums.

Please take my words to heart about your front page, I meant them. More information (not pictures, words!) is vital. Please also consider giving LiteStep some fanboy presence on the video sites - it's the global commons, if you see what I mean. If you haven't the foggiest notion how to capture video of your desktop, you might look into FRAPS, a free video capture program (ok, shareware, but still. No skin off your wallet).

If someone would take the installer in hand, get it up-to-date, make it simple, point, click, reboot... It would make a lot of people less frightened of LS. There are literally millions of people out there who want the eyecandy, and most of them are in the "it should 'just work'" category. For some of them, the urge to tinker will run rampant. I'm in that latter category. I've been breaking computers and other electronics for over 20 years now.

I can *usually* put them right again after ;)

I read West's last post a I said "yeah, he is right, what's the big deal about setting up LS"

Actually setting up LS is really easy. The strange thing is this: It is so from MY point of view, and from the point of view of anyone who already knows how to do it.

If you don't know yet know how to do it you are faced with an almost impossible task of working through irrelevant bugs, lots of documentation and lots of hacking of your own. Once you have gotten across the desert you will just *Shrug* and wonder where all those weird noob-complaints come from.

jc999: my point exactly. The documentation available is comprehensible to you, because you've "been there, done that". Like I stated in my initial post in this thread, I'm sure it works fine for you guys who have been playing with LS for long enough to have a reasonable idea how to get it to behave how you want it to, you have a good collection of bookmarks, you know where to post a query to get a prompt (and hopefull accurate) response, you've been doing this for a while.

To an outsider, a new user, a curious bystander? It's a train wreck.

I'd love to help with that, and intend to submit some howtos once I get my stuff together in my new place. This move is somewhat abrupt, as I had a place "fall in my lap" when I really wasn't actively looking anymore, and had given up on getting out of the money pit my rented house was turning into. I look forward to being a valuable (or at least tolerated) member of the community, once I can begin contributing something other than first impressions.

I think we know, as a community, what is wrong with litestep, and what could be done. There's simply not enough willing manpower to develop it into a BugFree (...) simplistic and easy-to-use installation.

To be honest, the installation IS simplistic as well, maybe aside from laboriously selecting different default programs.. Would wizards for everything help? Or is that going in the face of what LS stands for...

Because of the scope of possibilities, it can't be THAT simple. Also, I haven't ever (I think), run into a bug with the "core" of Litestep, only modules which are created by independant interested parties..

The only difficult things about litestep in my opinion is creating your own theme and learning to use a new one.


Litestep could definately use more work, but you take what you can get. Litestep is a fantastic incomplete tool, and it is marketed as such. It isn't being released on the basis that everyone alive should install it...

xanmolbjerg:

I think that some clear documentation would be extremely helpful, and would have short-circuited a lot of my complaints from the outset. As to the installer, you'll find that people are much more willing to jump through hoops if they have a well laid-out "roadmap" telling them which hoops they have to jump through, why they have to jump, and whether the color of the hoop has any meaning.

I don't think we need wizards, I think a plain and simple guide would suffice. Step-by-step instructions on how to achieve a given install, and maybe a brief description of what some of the alternatives to the way the example was done would be. I'll do what I can once I have my "destructible" box back on the workbench... and the workbench in my new abode.

If we all agree that LiteStep needs some work, then we should do something about it. It's not going to finish itself. :)

See...here is the strange part of the little M$ world you don't seem to understand. That whole vista ooh and ahhh that you see and the pretty little Aero windows and handy little sidebar. That came from LS. Those programmers that worked on that...yea...they came from LS too. We understand our place in the windows world. We are not front runners, we are not here to take over the world. We are computer geeks that are unhappy with the way things are and are happy to change them. However, the computer geeks that have been around for a while have real lives and real jobs. None of us, with the exception of one person, get paid for anything we do for LS. We do what we can in our spare time. We don't need 15 million users, we are quite happy with the 300,000 geeks we have. Now, if someone comes along and wants to do something and support the community in some way we will take it without question. Hence why I asked you to rewrite the front page that you had such an issue with.



There is just one problem with all of this. It requires the time and energy of someone that is skilled enough to put that information forth. For a good 3 years now I have been without a programmer. There are tons of features we want to add to the site, and a working docs section would be in that list, however; nobody can help us get there. So once again, get off your fuckin' high horse and help out or get the hell out of dodge.

DeViLbOi: I'll answer these in reverse order, if you don't mind. I do intend to help - I even said so in the paragraph you quoted. I'll write something up for the front page for you, if you'd like. It may take me a while; like I said earlier in this thread, I'm in the middle of a move. I'll try and have something for you by this weekend, but no promises. Be patient, I too have a "real job".

So many people have claimed that Vista stole their ideas that I don't care who's right. The whole "desktop war" thing is a waste of time, in my opinion... as someone elsewhere said, there's a reason they all look alike; It's the best way to do things. My main interest in LiteStep so far (I still haven't had a chance to check out everything it can do) is the menu available by right-clicking on the desktop - that's long been one of my favorite things about the linux interface that never made it to the Windows platform.

As for the YouTube thing, and not caring whether people like LiteStep... well, without enthusiasts, where are you going to find another programmer?

Keep in mind that I am done with my "attacking" phase, as I have ascertained that this project actually is still under development (as opposed to the dead project i was afraid it might have been), and has a few people who seem anxious to help out. If there's a list somewhere of things that need doing, please point it out. If there's not, let's start one. I want to help.

TANSTAAFL

ps - I'm no uber coder, but I do have a smattering of html skills, and I use notepad, not some WYSIWTF editor.

pps - I noticed in a thread on another site (West's sig, IIRC) that lua scripting is involved in at least a portion of LS - might we gain from recruiting some WoW addicts? It seems to me that someone who would be willing to dedicate large chunks of their time to customizing their game interface, adding features and functionality, and then maintaining that same code through massive upheavals in the game interface (Patch 2.0, for instance, threw the scripting/modding community on its head) might be useful in doing essentially the same thing to their desktop interface... and WoW scripting is in lua. Just a thought.

a note about my "attacking" phase, and the hostile and ignorant tone in my previous postings:

I came on really strong in my initial posts, and it was intentional. I was attempting to be a spoon - you know, stir some stuff up. I was impressed with the lucid and informative (if understandably somewhat hostile) responses. I am not normally a complete and total asshat, I promise - or at least, I don't think I am. Now that I've gotten some (remarkable!) responses, I'm more than willing to settle down into a less combative tone... if you'll let me.

I really do want to help.

My point was not about M$ stealing stuff from us. It was that we are that innovative test bed where things get designed and tested by geeks. I always took it as a big honor that M$ cared enough about what we were doing to come and get our programmers. Anywho...we are that group of Windows users that push the envelope.

I have always felt that not only the LS community was elitest, but it drew that elitest person in. Those are the people that can take things to the next level, those are the people that can understand. I really don't think that LS needs that 10 year old that can't program a VCR. Instead, we are those 10 year old kids that took it apart to find out why it had to be done in such a retarded manner.