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Winstep News

Winstep Xtreme v11.6 Released!

July 6, 2011

An integrated workspace environment, Winstep Xtreme is a powerful suite of applications that merge incredible usability and performance with breathtaking eye candy.

Winstep Xtreme runs on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and Windows 7.

Combine different dock mouse over effects with the Magnify effect...

Version 11.6 is a maintenance release that fixes all the reported issues with v11.5 and corrects a couple of wrong decisions made on v11.5: edge bump to activate the dock being disabled by default and generic icons being displayed on the dock if rendering icons took longer than 400 ms.

Built-in support for animated icons...

What's New? Highlighted Features (v11.5 + v11.6):

• Dock mouse over effects can now be combined with the Magnify effect.
• Added System Tray icon customization.
• New Teleport and Push dock mouse over effects.
• New Gauge style for the CPU, Net and RAM meters.
• Replaced legacy module images with new high resolution versions.
• Added built-in support for animated icons.
• Docks and the taskbar now un-hide automatically when a running application needs attention.
• Added ability to align a docked Shelf by dragging it.
• Added independent vertical and horizontal icon spacing settings.
• Added independent transparency settings for dock background and icons.
• Categorized the Internal Commands.
• Major re-organization of the User Interface to make it more intuitive.
• Improved Drag & Drop support.
• Improved multi-monitor support.
• ... and much more! Please see complete change logs below...

WorkShelf v11.6 complete change log:

• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Hungarian language file.
• Updated Polish language file.
• Added 'Show this dock when the mouse pointer bumps screen edge' setting to the Behavior tab of the Dock Properties dialog. When this setting is on, the dock will come forward when the associated edge is bumped but focus will be automatically given back to the window that previously had it if the user mouses away without clicking on it.
• Dock resizing and drag & drop of items into and from the dock is now much smoother.
• Added 'Disable/Enable Auto-Hide' option to the Shelf's left mini-tab context menu.
• Cleaned up unused bitmaps in the resource file.
• Context menus now use the menu sub-theme, if available, rather than the primary theme.
• The Shelf now automatically selects appropriate tab position (top or bottom of the Shelf) when you dock it to the top or the bottom of the screen.
• Systray customization with the Tray Manager might not always apply customized icons.
• It was not possible to select an individual tray icon in grouped mode using the Zoom effect.
• Grouped tray icons would suddenly appear 'blurred' when magnified and the group icon updated itself.
• Docks no longer 'lazy render' icons, only sub-docks and the delay has been increased from 400 ms to 900 ms.
• Very large strips of animated icons no longer appear blank in the dock on 32 bit systems.
• The Water mouseover effect could appear a little bit cropped at the bottom for top docks.
• Fixed label overlapping dock icons for non-magnifying docks at the top of the screen when the 'Do not flip background...' setting was enabled.
• only 'Regular' Shelf tabs are now locked when you enable the global 'Lock Icons' setting, so you can still drop stuff into non-regular (e.g.; file system) tabs.
• Fixed error that could *potentially* crash the application if a file belonging to the group of files that display thumbnails no longer existed.
• Fixed potential problem when dropping files into an empty dock with the 'Lock Icons' setting enabled.
• It was not possible to duplicate a dock item via drag & drop if dropping the item right next to the source item.
• Disabling a dock in the Docks & Shelves tab in Preferences was not releasing the memory used by animated icons on the disabled dock.
• Disabling and then Enabling the Shelf in the Docks & Shelves tab in Preferences could crash the application.
• Older Shelf themes were not displaying correctly.
• If the dock popup delay on mouseover was set to 0 ms it was almost impossible to get to the System Tray hidden icons dialog after clicking the system tray expand button.
• Added fail safe code to prevent situations where mouse click actions on running application items were all set to 'None'.

WorkShelf v11.5 complete change log:

• Updated the German language file.
• Updated Polish language file.
• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated Farsi 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.
• Docks now un-hide or un-collapse automatically if displaying a list of running tasks and one or more of the tasks start flashing to call attention.
• Sub-docks will not open after a maximum of 500 ms even if not all icons have been retrieved from slow medium.
• Removed '@ Sign' Email Checker style, replaced it with default 'Envelope' style.
• Removed Cartoon Fish style, replaced it with 'Fortune Cookie' style.
• Removed the online cookie section from Wanda, since the only available fortune cookie server at the University of Upsala has been down for nearly two years and isn't likely to come back online again.
• Removed the SSL option from the Email Checker settings since servers no longer support SSL v2.
• Internal Commands in the Insert New Item menu are now shown categorized into Application, Desktop, Media, Disk, Misc, System and Shutdown sub-menus.
• Added new 'Push' mouse over effect.
• Groupped system tray icons in magnifying docks are now as sharp as the original icons when the dock item is not being magnified.
• Replaced 'Bar Graph' Net, RAM and CPU meter styles with 'Gauge' style featuring a 'smooth meter' setting in the Performance Settings dialog.
• Added setting to increase the system tray refresh rate from once per second to 16 times per second to the Performance Settings dialog in the Advanced tab of Preferences.
• Added new 'Teleport' mouse over effect.
• Added system tray icon customization, including customization of animated and multi-state icons.
• Re-organized UI in order to place settings where they logically belong instead of forced-separated into global and per-instance settings.
• The Update Manager now displays a 'What's New' link whenever such information is available.
• Added 'Repeat mouseover effect when launching an application' setting to the effects tab of the Shelf Properties dialog. Disabling this setting disables any effect when launching an application from the Shelf.
• Added the ability to Align a non-full screen width docked Shelf.
• Added ability to change the alignment of a docked, non-full screen width, Shelf by dragging it.
• Shelf Icon Spacing and Shelf Transparency now have their own dialogs with preview.
• Added new high resolution images for the digital clock module and the NeXT style recycler.
• Only document files can now be dragged into a shortcut in order to open it with the associated executable.
• Applications are no longer 'ignored' if dragged straight into an icon, now being instead added to the dock.Previously the effect would be the same as launching the target shortcut with that application as an argument (which would simply result in launching the target shortcut), like it happens when you drop a document into a shortcut in the dock in order to open that document in that application.
• Added 'Allow attaching sub-docks to existing application shortcuts' setting to the sub-Docks dialog in the Behavior tab of the Dock Properties dialog. This setting is OFF by default.
• Full right-click context menu options can now be specified to appear in the following cases: Never, Always, Only in the Shelf, Only in non-Regular Shelf tabs.
• The balloon tooltip can now be specified to appear in the following cases: Never, Always, Only for Modules, Only for Modules and Documents.
• Decreased the size of the Wind mouseover effect on docks, which was too big.
• Added 'Keep Desktop Modules visible when pressing WIN+D (Show Desktop)' setting to the General tab of Preferences.
• Monitors in multiple monitor systems are now sorted left to right (i.e.; first monitor is the leftmost monitor and the last monitor the rightmost).The primary monitor also has '(Primary Monitor)' added to the description.
• You can now customize tray icons by dropping a PNG, ICO or TIF icon into the tray item on a dock or Shelf.
• When set not to display any lines of text next to the icons, the Shelf will now display a dock-style label on mouseover above itself.
• Added new 'Safely Remove Hardware' internal command.
• Added pressed states for the left and right Shelf mini-tab controls.
• Added new 'Show physical network adapters only' setting to the Network Meter module, which is now enabled by default.
• Re-organized Net Metter Settings panel.
• Added built-in support for animated icons (i.e.; single PNG strips holding all the frames of an animation). Animated icons are recognized automatically and animation delay settings, etc, can be set in the Dock Entry Properties dialog.
• The Weather system tray icon is now a full 128x128 image.
• Re-Organized the Modules tab in Preferences.
• Font size in UI command buttons is now automatically reduce if the localized text does not fit.
• The Tray Customization dialog now displays tray icons in collapsible groups.
• Dock items no longer accept customization by dropping a PNG, ICO or TIF file if icons are locked.
• Animated icon settings are now reset to default (50 ms, etc...) when you change the icon.
• You can now customize the Shelf system tray expand button in the Systray tab.
• Animated icons are now globally cached in memory - having the same animated icon in several docks does not increase memory usage, and there is no longer a performance penalty when a dock flushes it's icon cache.
• Shelf items no longer accept customization by dropping a PNG, ICO or TIF file if icons are locked.
• Docks now accept the control icon of 'empty' docks (e.g.; a dock showing the system tray but with no actual shortcuts on it) to be dragged into another dock in order to turn it into a sub-dock.
• Added wsFullTabOverlayA.png and wsFullTabOverlayI.png tab overlay bitmaps.
• 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.
• Dock item separators were wrongly assuming the opacity of the dock background.
• Fixed bug in beta 1 that prevented icons from flashing to call attention in the dock.
• There wasn't enough padding for the dock Zoom effect, which would cause the icon to appear cropped when using a large magnitude for the effect.
• The System Tray Expand button on the Systray tab of the Shelf was displaying an empty tooltip.
• It was possible to accidentaly drag a shortcut to itself instead of launching it, which would launch the shortcut but also cause it to disappear from a dock.
• Changing the Style of the clock module would cause the Shelf to pop up.
• Fixed issue with sub-dock automatic positioning when dragging an item over the parent dock.
• Sub-dock opening animation was appearing in the wrong place.
• Fixed serious bug that could cause a crash when opening a sub-dock with one of the Dock Properties window open and the bouncing blue error still on-screen.
• Fixed the date localization used for the clock and 'Lack Checked:" strings.
• System tray customization settings were not being saved properly.
• 3rd party dock themes were not being applied properly when loaded from the right click menu.
• The dock was sometimes leaving icon 'leftovers' at the left or top when de-magnifying.
• Fixed re-positioning issue after dragging a floating dock.
• Documents that got their icons turned into thumbnails in the Shelf would leave 'leftovers' of the previous image when moused over.
• The Shelf scroll buttons and mini-tab indicators also get colorized now and obey the Shelf transparency settings.
• Fixed dock tooltip positioning.
• Dragging an item over the Shelf could cause image corruption in animated icons.
• Fixed problem with the dock displaing the wrong right-click context menu with the zoom mouse over effect unless the icon was clicked dead center.
• Changes to customized tray icons that were restored to the original icon were not being saved.
• After Beta 1 a dock with the Zoom mouseover effect could crash the application.
• The 'Delete' button in the Themes tab in Preferences was deleting the wrong theme folder.
• Fixed memory leak with the new Gauge style meters.
• Setting a clock background image manually would lock the clock hand colors to red and black.
• It was possible for some modules to keep operating on the background even if removed from all visible docks and the Shelf, if the host dock or the Shelf were disabled.
• Fixed problem with tray icon IDs changing from session to session.
• Zooming icons on the Tasks tab of the Shelf could leave remnants over nearby icons.
• Fixed bug that could crash the application when deleting a dock from a right click context menu.
• Animated icon settings were not being preserved when moving items via drag & drop.
• Fixed bug that could crash the application when deleting the last tab of a Shelf.
• The Desktop clock module in old themes could display an incorrect time.
• The analog clock module preview in the Dock Contents tab was not displaying the correct color for the seconds hand.
• Selecting the first NIC Adapter from the 'Interface to Monitor' right click menu of the Net module was not working.
• Fixed bug that would cause a silent hung on exit if no docks were displaying the tray.
• Fixed issue where particle effects could sometimes leave leftovers on the edges of magnifying docks.
• The 'Apply Transparency to Shelf Background Only (icons remain opaque)' setting in the Shelf transparency dialog wasn't doing anything.
• The 'Make tab from Folder' dock context menu option was not working.
• Leading spaces on the name used for the license key woul cause the license verification to fail.
• Animated icons in the dock set to animate continuously now continue animating smoothly even when playing the magnify animation.
• Fixed a couple of graphic glitches on the Shelf.
• Restore Settings was opening 'ghost' versions of each dock.
• Changing the Weather location in Preferences was not immediately updating the Weather information.

NextSTART v11.6 complete change log:

• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Hungarian language file.
• Updated Polish language file.
• Context menus now use the sub-theme, if available, rather than the primary theme.
• Detached sub-menus now automatically display the primary theme.
• Frames and gradients on tasklist buttons of older, non-bitmap themes, were not appearing.

NextSTART v11.5 complete change log:

• Updated Polish language file.
• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated Farsi language file.
• Updated Dutch language file.
• Added system tray icon customization.
• The Update Manager now displays a 'What's New' link whenever such information is available.
• Monitors in multiple monitor systems are now sorted left to right (i.e.; first monitor is the leftmost monitor and the last monitor the rightmost). The primary monitor also has '(Primary Monitor)' added to the description.
• Added new 'Safely Remove Hardware' internal command.
• System tray icons can now be customized.
• Font size in UI command buttons is now automatically reduce if the localized text does not fit.
• Re-organized Advanced Menu Settings dialog.
• Moved Number of Recent Documents and Press SHIFT for Drag & Drop settings from the Advanced dialog to the Menu Advanced Settings dialog.
• Added the ability to set accepted Thumbnail File Types to NextSTART.
• Moved the Troubleshooting Windows Shutdown and Active Desktop sections from the Advanced tab to the Misc.Advanced dialog.
• Added TasksOverlay.png, TasksMOverlay.png and TasksAOverlay.png bitmaps.
• Icon in the Version Information dialog had a dark gray background.
• Opening native Winstep theme files from FireFox failed with an error.
• Fixed issue with re-arranging Quick Launch items on the Taskbar via drag & drop.
• Single .ICO files displayed in the Icon Browser dialog appeared jagged.
• A hidden or collapsed taskbar now automatically becomes visible if a task starts flashing to get attention.
• The mouseover tasklist effect in the Tasklist Advanced Settings dialog for semi-transparent tasklists (Highlight Button or Highlight Icon) is now working properly.
• The tasklist, when attached to the Taskbar, now correctly uses the transparency settings specified for the Taskbar.
• Leading spaces on the name used for the license key woul cause the license verification to fail.