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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feline
Reply #22 Friday, June 14, 2002 8:37 AM
Reply #22 Friday, June 14, 2002 8:37 AM
feline concludes Jafo really really likes gray 
all this talk of rc files is putting me in mind of my lovely .vimrc file. people always seem to panic when they see it. its only 30 times bigger than average
all this talk of rc files is putting me in mind of my lovely .vimrc file. people always seem to panic when they see it. its only 30 times bigger than average
Jafo
Reply #23 Friday, June 14, 2002 11:29 AM
Reply #23 Friday, June 14, 2002 11:29 AM
moshi....it's dead easy if I just comment out things while switching....but my intent is to make it so that I can upload this 'theme' and anyone at all just pops it in a OTS system and it will work without any editing at all.
My system was fully integrated via popup menu and swapped themes/colours/WB skins from within LS via recycling....not using LSCP.exe as a loader.
Now I have got the primary theme and 9 popups and 3 colours and 4 secondary themes to all work from within OTS...still switching via popup, but with the added linking of LSCP to OTS-compliant themes as well....
So far, I've only totally fragged the shell once....hit lsts.exe by mistake and pickled a few rc files....took a while to get the shell cleaned up again....
Of course, I have yet to switch over to png from bmp....but that's easy enough....
My system was fully integrated via popup menu and swapped themes/colours/WB skins from within LS via recycling....not using LSCP.exe as a loader.
Now I have got the primary theme and 9 popups and 3 colours and 4 secondary themes to all work from within OTS...still switching via popup, but with the added linking of LSCP to OTS-compliant themes as well....
So far, I've only totally fragged the shell once....hit lsts.exe by mistake and pickled a few rc files....took a while to get the shell cleaned up again....
Of course, I have yet to switch over to png from bmp....but that's easy enough....
craeonics
Reply #24 Friday, June 14, 2002 11:42 AM
Reply #24 Friday, June 14, 2002 11:42 AM
Speaking of .png, oh mighty 'Steppian Hierophants, how different does LiteStep handle those? Does it use .png's internal alpha channel for real, 256-level transparency or is it still plain old don't-draw-ff00ff and only different file-extensions?
Jafo
Reply #25 Friday, June 14, 2002 12:08 PM
Reply #25 Friday, June 14, 2002 12:08 PM
Crae.....not sure...I think it's handling them properly...
moshi
Reply #26 Friday, June 14, 2002 1:05 PM
Reply #26 Friday, June 14, 2002 1:05 PM
well, what i meant would not need any user to touch an rc file. but maybe we mean two different things, as my english is not so well
on alpha transpareny (from the latest changes.txt):
- Updated [shortcut3 / MickeM / 2002-06-11]
- Fixed a window message issue from previous verion that will *increase* performance
- Also hunted down a few other performace blocks
- Added transparency support (not alpha shaded maps as is already in it) but all transparent images.
This means one flag has changed name and another one is there:
alphaTrans - Use true-alpha shaded images
alphaMap - Use "fake"-alpha shaded images (this is simply a transparent image)
Also a new command: (or an oldone that has a new use)
*ShortcutEx alphaLevel
= 1-255 (1 is transparent 255 is not)
on alpha transpareny (from the latest changes.txt):
- Updated [shortcut3 / MickeM / 2002-06-11]
- Fixed a window message issue from previous verion that will *increase* performance
- Also hunted down a few other performace blocks
- Added transparency support (not alpha shaded maps as is already in it) but all transparent images.
This means one flag has changed name and another one is there:
alphaTrans - Use true-alpha shaded images
alphaMap - Use "fake"-alpha shaded images (this is simply a transparent image)
Also a new command: (or an oldone that has a new use)
*ShortcutEx alphaLevel
Jafo
Reply #27 Friday, June 14, 2002 9:14 PM
Reply #27 Friday, June 14, 2002 9:14 PM
Rats....almost working just fine...but 2 of my themes use an older popup.dll to use the background image for the popups...and that isn't working in this Indie-build, so 2 themes won't cross over to the newer build properly... 
risblaque
Reply #28 Saturday, June 15, 2002 6:53 AM
Reply #28 Saturday, June 15, 2002 6:53 AM
Must commend you on getting 12 out of 14 done.
The litestep talk in the screenshot is mighty scary.
The litestep talk in the screenshot is mighty scary.
Jafo
Reply #30 Monday, June 17, 2002 8:03 AM
Reply #30 Monday, June 17, 2002 8:03 AM
Ah.....2990 files at 116 meg....all inclusive 1 primary theme with 8 popups and 3 colours, and 13 secondary themes, 7 matching WB skins,38 walls [various screen-res]...all switchable via popups from within, and seamlessly integrated with OTS via LSCP....all files and all docs included...
[and it works]...
Now to shrink it a tad with png's instead of bmp's...
[and it works]...
Now to shrink it a tad with png's instead of bmp's...
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Reply #21 Friday, June 14, 2002 5:18 AM
so you could use conditional statements again.
If UserName=Jafo
...
Else
...
EndIf