LiteSTEP...to 'OTS' or to not...
Tuesday, June 11, 2002 by Jafo | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Well in the face of years and years of doing my 'Own Thing'[tm]...what 'could' be called my 'Own-Thing System' [OTS]....I began delving into the 'Official Themeing Standard' [OTS]... and am wondering just how 'S' this 'OT' really is.
I seem to pick up the odd error or two from one theme to another...eg, one person might be 'including' an 'evar.rc', and another a 'themevar.rc' and the results can be less than good.
I was hoping for a brain-dead, idiot-proof system that was 'guaranteed' to be hassle-free, but it's not 'quite'...
Maybe with practise, and built-in redundancy configurations ['Include' statements] to accommodate 'errors', I'll get used to it, but I've found non-OTS themes that were easier to config and have up and running in less time...
Of course, the proof of the pudding will be to config my 'Own System' to integrate seemlessly with the OTS method....
Still, the 2002-05-30 Indie Build seems to be stable...[so far]...
I seem to pick up the odd error or two from one theme to another...eg, one person might be 'including' an 'evar.rc', and another a 'themevar.rc' and the results can be less than good.
I was hoping for a brain-dead, idiot-proof system that was 'guaranteed' to be hassle-free, but it's not 'quite'...
Maybe with practise, and built-in redundancy configurations ['Include' statements] to accommodate 'errors', I'll get used to it, but I've found non-OTS themes that were easier to config and have up and running in less time...
Of course, the proof of the pudding will be to config my 'Own System' to integrate seemlessly with the OTS method....
Still, the 2002-05-30 Indie Build seems to be stable...[so far]...
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BoXXi
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:14 AM
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:14 AM
Well, as you know Jafo, I was a BIG Litestep fan for about 2 years, but with the advent of OTS, and the demise of Litestep.net, I just gave it up and moved on to DesktopX.
I thought the new standard was a pain in the butt, as I had got used to doing things a certain way,(theme switching etc.) and I just couldn't be bothered starting all over again, and anyway, I had been lured away by objects and zoomers and such. I must say though, I DO miss Litestep.net, I used to love trawling through the themes, they were so inspirational to me, and shaped alot of what I do now.
Is LS.net EVER coming back?
I thought the new standard was a pain in the butt, as I had got used to doing things a certain way,(theme switching etc.) and I just couldn't be bothered starting all over again, and anyway, I had been lured away by objects and zoomers and such. I must say though, I DO miss Litestep.net, I used to love trawling through the themes, they were so inspirational to me, and shaped alot of what I do now.
Is LS.net EVER coming back?
jcg
Reply #3 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:53 AM
Reply #3 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:53 AM
IMHO OTS is an excellent structure for Litestep, I've used nothing else since I found it. It needn't be restricting and it certainly improves the odds of a theme working on anyones machine. And it doesn't prevent you from going "rogue" if you want to.
craeonics
Reply #4 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 4:47 AM
Reply #4 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 4:47 AM
I don't distribute, so I use the Open crae Standard, which means you toss everything in the step.rc.
moshi
Reply #5 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:18 AM
Reply #5 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:18 AM
first of all Jafo OTS does not mean "Official" but "Open Theme Standard". 
it is not much more than a guideline for a theme´s directory standard. due to it´s openness a lot of themers like to include new features of the IndieStep build. so of course you have to update your LiteStep and your core modules. the other dev team is more working on resource friendlyness. i desperately hope this code fork comes to an end and LS.net rises again, but it seems like Jalist is the only person who could code a nice PHP site
it is not much more than a guideline for a theme´s directory standard. due to it´s openness a lot of themers like to include new features of the IndieStep build. so of course you have to update your LiteStep and your core modules. the other dev team is more working on resource friendlyness. i desperately hope this code fork comes to an end and LS.net rises again, but it seems like Jalist is the only person who could code a nice PHP site
Jafo
Reply #6 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 8:49 AM
Reply #6 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 8:49 AM
moshi...it just so happens it was one of yours that gave me a problem...'Audiophile'.....but I added a few others, namely 'Sage' by Phar0e...[he'd included the OTS docs so I wasn't running quite as blind - relying on intuition and a lot of experience....thanks, Phil]....and 10 hours of solid work later, and I've 'almost' got my system ported to OTS....
Just to put it in perspective....I had a trifling 5 simple themes...[one of them was mine running 'clean']...but have now added the 'JafoSTEP Integrated' [as I call it]...which currently stands at 4,401 files, and 378,713,127 bytes....comprising 1 primary theme with 9 different popups and configs, 3 colours, and 13 more interlinked themes...all res independent, all auto loading walls for each res....the simplest has no bmp's, the most complex has 1,605 bmp's....
This, on top of updating from the 20020213 Dev build to the 20020530 Indie build, and converting the Directory structure to OTS.....it ain't a small job....mainly because there are so many limitations if you adhere strictly to the 'method', and I've gotta rig up a lot of work-arounds...
The trick, of course is that I'm running all this stuff from C:\Lite-new\....and not touching my original setup which is just a 'Kill LS - ShellON - Load LS' away....
Just to put it in perspective....I had a trifling 5 simple themes...[one of them was mine running 'clean']...but have now added the 'JafoSTEP Integrated' [as I call it]...which currently stands at 4,401 files, and 378,713,127 bytes....comprising 1 primary theme with 9 different popups and configs, 3 colours, and 13 more interlinked themes...all res independent, all auto loading walls for each res....the simplest has no bmp's, the most complex has 1,605 bmp's....
This, on top of updating from the 20020213 Dev build to the 20020530 Indie build, and converting the Directory structure to OTS.....it ain't a small job....mainly because there are so many limitations if you adhere strictly to the 'method', and I've gotta rig up a lot of work-arounds...
The trick, of course is that I'm running all this stuff from C:\Lite-new\....and not touching my original setup which is just a 'Kill LS - ShellON - Load LS' away....
craeonics
Reply #8 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:43 AM
Reply #8 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:43 AM
craeonics notes: Jafo lives and thrives on randomly dumping the magnitude of his home brew
moshi
Reply #9 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:50 AM
Reply #9 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:50 AM
jafo: no wonder you had problems with Audiophile. it was done before OTS hitted the scene, so it just can´t be 100% compatible, hehe
it usually mentioned in the theme´s description if a theme is OTS compatible.
it usually mentioned in the theme´s description if a theme is OTS compatible.
Jafo
Reply #10 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 10:07 AM
Reply #10 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 10:07 AM
moshi....yes, I know, but it had the same [almost] directory structure, one I'd never directly bothered with, that is with the non-core modules in a separate Folder...so I was 'hoping' [silly me] that it would port over to OTS without much ado.
It just became another learning-curve, as was my separate theme....once I got them ticking over, it was a good lead-in to porting the 'biggie'...
It just became another learning-curve, as was my separate theme....once I got them ticking over, it was a good lead-in to porting the 'biggie'...
moshi
Reply #11 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 10:21 AM
Reply #11 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 10:21 AM
yes, it uses the "ceeslans-structure". ceeslans later was one of the OTS "founding fathers", so it is very similar. btw: Audiophile could use a cleanup. it uses a few hacks of chronos.dll (label.dll did not support world time back in the days), so these (chronoc, chronod, ...) could be replaced by label.dll. makes it load faster.
i wonder when the big one will be released. are you planning to upload an iso to an ftp server?
i wonder when the big one will be released. are you planning to upload an iso to an ftp server?
Jafo
Reply #12 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 5:53 PM
Reply #12 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 5:53 PM
moshi...it'd have to be a CD-distro...
I'm still trying to get around having a popup.rc in the /personal/ and not have it show in certain themes that it doesn't 'suit', eg...my Commodore 64 one...
Just yet another failing of OTS....
I'm still trying to get around having a popup.rc in the /personal/ and not have it show in certain themes that it doesn't 'suit', eg...my Commodore 64 one...
Just yet another failing of OTS....
Jafo
Reply #13 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 6:00 PM
Reply #13 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 6:00 PM
Ugh...just thought of a way...another 20 lines of script.rc coding...
Phar0e
Reply #14 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:46 PM
Reply #14 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:46 PM
Coming in late on this one. Too bad cause its one of my favorite topics.
OTS is a little tricky to convert to, but only in terms of the personal.rc's, etc. The basic directory structure is pretty universal (thats a dangerous term in the Litestep world, I guess).
I definetly have adopted OTS as the standard I use, but with the new indie build theme switcher, you aren't restricted to OTS (which is good). I haven't downloaded many others' themes, but a couple of recent ones I have are by jcg and teschio. I can say that those 3 or 4 themes did drop in practically error free.
So I hope that's a sign of good things to come.
OTS is a little tricky to convert to, but only in terms of the personal.rc's, etc. The basic directory structure is pretty universal (thats a dangerous term in the Litestep world, I guess).
I definetly have adopted OTS as the standard I use, but with the new indie build theme switcher, you aren't restricted to OTS (which is good). I haven't downloaded many others' themes, but a couple of recent ones I have are by jcg and teschio. I can say that those 3 or 4 themes did drop in practically error free.
So I hope that's a sign of good things to come.
Jafo
Reply #15 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:42 AM
Reply #15 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:42 AM
Phil...my theme setup got sort of top-heavy...topping out at 74 rc files....and it all worked perfectly....now I'm chucking in a few more to cope with the 'personal.rc'.....and striking a world of hurt....I get one bit behaving, and another chucks a wobbly.
If it weren't for killing processes....my comp would be a smoking ruin......LiteSTEP goes pear-shaped, sucking up all available ram....I have a gig....and at one stage 'STEP.exe was 756 meg.....2 days now, and I think I need to rework the entire setup.
I still want the full functionality of my system handled with popups and script, but meshed seamlessly with OTS themes as well...
If it weren't for killing processes....my comp would be a smoking ruin......LiteSTEP goes pear-shaped, sucking up all available ram....I have a gig....and at one stage 'STEP.exe was 756 meg.....2 days now, and I think I need to rework the entire setup.
I still want the full functionality of my system handled with popups and script, but meshed seamlessly with OTS themes as well...
moshi
Reply #16 Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:39 PM
Reply #16 Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:39 PM
jafo: just comment this line:
include "$PersonalDir$personal.rc"
and use the following:
include "$PersonalDir$hotkey.rc"
include "$PersonalDir$evars.rc"
*Desktop RButton !popup
jdeskmbutton2 [!none;!none;!popup;!none]
jdeskdoubleclicktime 1
now you can define the popup menu in your theme´s step.rc
include "$PersonalDir$personal.rc"
and use the following:
include "$PersonalDir$hotkey.rc"
include "$PersonalDir$evars.rc"
*Desktop RButton !popup
jdeskmbutton2 [!none;!none;!popup;!none]
jdeskdoubleclicktime 1
now you can define the popup menu in your theme´s step.rc
Jafo
Reply #17 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:33 PM
Reply #17 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:33 PM
Ah, moshi...were it so simple...
The trouble is I want to auto config this to be idiot-proof, with no 'commenting' required....so it's a script.rc issue with getting in and out of LSTS.exe...so some can use the personal.rc of joe-average's, and others will ignore it, but re-use it, coming or going...
The trouble is I want to auto config this to be idiot-proof, with no 'commenting' required....so it's a script.rc issue with getting in and out of LSTS.exe...so some can use the personal.rc of joe-average's, and others will ignore it, but re-use it, coming or going...
Jafo
Reply #18 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:37 PM
Reply #18 Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:37 PM
With the added rc files for the OTS system, I'm still down to 67 rc files....so it's getting 'simpler'....just came up with the idea of a 'includes.rc' file to make it a bit more 'logical'...
Jafo
Reply #19 Friday, June 14, 2002 1:56 AM
Reply #19 Friday, June 14, 2002 1:56 AM
https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=13&SkinID=635
Screenshot of my OTS in action.....still got 12 sub-themes to sort out, but I think I 'might' be getting there...
Screenshot of my OTS in action.....still got 12 sub-themes to sort out, but I think I 'might' be getting there...
moshi
Reply #20 Friday, June 14, 2002 5:13 AM
Reply #20 Friday, June 14, 2002 5:13 AM
you could use one rc file where you define a value for PopupMenuStyle (or whatever you like it to call). then use conditional statements. you can then change the value for PopupMenuStyle with textedit2.dll.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 11:44 PM
I went to Indie and all of a sudden the default skin was working properly. Gotta like that.