Winstep Nexus Dock v15.9 Released!
Thursday, October 1, 2015 by JcRabbit | Discussion: OS Customization
The Winstep Nexus dock is a FREE dock for Windows. Every feature you’d expect from a dock, including widgets, mouse-over effects, skins, drag-and-drop, and many others not available in most other docks, such as live icon reflections, in-dock system tray, blur-behind effects, and much more. Completely customizable, with thousands of different backgrounds freely available online, Nexus is fully compatible with skins for all 3rd party docks.
Supported Languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi (Persian), Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brasil), Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish.
Nexus runs on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8.x and Windows 10.
v15.9 is a monster release, with hundreds of changes and additions. Focus was on adding missing key functionality as well as, of course, some new eye-candy.
What's New? Highlighted Features:
- Speed! Due to new and improved activation and hide delay timings, Nexus simply feels a lot more responsive. Rendering performance when shifting icons in a fully expanded Shelf to make room for a new shortcut is now also an order of magnitude faster (Nexus Ultimate only).
- Improved Windows 10 integration.
- Now fully high-DPI aware. Throw anything at it from 100% to 200% scaling and everything will still work and look as it should. New settings added to control the scaling of menus and the Shelf on high DPI systems.
- Added support for systems with multiple input languages: new 'Language Bar' internal command can be placed anywhere and emulates the functionality of the Windows language bar.
- New optional Edge Swipe activation mechanism.
- Shortcuts in the dock now double up as running application icons, so there is no duplication of icons when running applications are being displayed in the dock.
- Shelf now smoothly resizes when double clicking a tab header to fully expand the Shelf in order to show all the contents of that tab at once (Nexus Ultimate only).
- Weather module now automatically retrieves the user's location when running for the first time. Also added new 'Get My Location' button in the Weather settings panel.
- New Smoke mouseover/launch/attention effect. Not too intrusive and makes the dock look like it's on fire! My new personal favorite when combined with the magnify effect.
- Added support for RKLauncher dock skins.
- New option to colorize themes based on the dominant color of the current desktop background.
- Explosion animation shown when an item is deleted or removed is now user-customizable.
- New optional Windows 10 style for some UI elements, specifically designed so the application blends in with the new Windows version. Automatically enabled on Windows 10 systems.
- Added new 'Action Center' internal command (Windows 10 only).
- Clicking the clock module now shows the Windows calendar instead of the Regional Settings dialog (Windows 7 onwards).
- Font size in the User Interface is now automatically decreased when a non-English language is selected to better accomodate the (usually) longer translations.
- ... many other performance and stability improvements!
More Information:
Winstep Web Site:
http://www.winstep.net
More information about Winstep Xtreme:
http://www.winstep.net/xtreme.asp
More information about the Winstep Nexus dock:
http://www.winstep.net/nexus.asp
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Reply #23 Thursday, October 15, 2015 4:24 PM
I had thought about that already, but I'm not sure what the best way to implement that is, i.e.; granularity of the Undo: a new level every time you change a single setting or only when you preview the theme?
Anyway, I better explain the basic idea behind the Winstep Theme Builder:
The Builder itself does not skin anything, it only provides a GUI to the skinning settings as well as lots of explanations on how things work (so you don't have to constantly refer to an external user guide). The skinning panel for each of the components can be scrolled vertically, so this allows lots of space for uncluttered settings and explanation text.
Since the builder does no previews itself, it relies on the applications themselves (and them being running at the time) to show/preview the theme you are working on. You press, say, Preview, and the applications (NextSTART, WorkShelf, Nexus Ultimate, Nexus, whatever) automatically apply whatever theme you are working on in the Builder. Because of this the best way to create a new theme is to start by basing it on an already existing theme (perhaps automatically base every new theme on the default Winstep theme, or allow the skinner to select any existing theme as the base).
This is actually not much different from what it was before (v9.5 days) when the skinning settings were inside the applications themselves, the only difference is that they are now in an external application.
Also, to help skinners so they don't have to remember the names of all the individual bitmaps that make up a theme, the Builder will accept drag & drop of images and will rename/place them appropriately.
So this is the basic idea of how it will work. Things will begin to fall into place better as I work on them.
Reply #25 Thursday, October 15, 2015 8:53 PM
a new level every time you change a single setting
That's what I had in mind for my particular style of blunder: "Those were the wrong fields and now I have no idea what was in there." A preview-based undo could cover that type of thing reasonably well too as long as a person previewed frequently.
Either way, glad that you're planning on something like that in there and happy that you're moving forward. 
Reply #26 Thursday, October 15, 2015 9:09 PM
[/quote]So is this the "SkinStudio" for Winstep that I've been asking for ?? 
Reply #28 Friday, October 16, 2015 8:00 AM
A lot of folks are gonna have fun with this.......me included.
*as long as it don't scare me like SKS does* 
Reply #29 Friday, October 16, 2015 8:28 AM
Looks like a good beginning, Jorge.
I like the 'real time' and 'self naming' features. No doubt the first skinning module will have a Forum at Winstep.net, where folks can give input on features they'd like seeing added...I really look forward to seeing it!
Perhaps the 'undo' can work like the History panel in Photoshop... https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/undo-history.html
Reply #30 Friday, October 16, 2015 9:58 AM
Sorry to interrupt.
Went to winstep.net looking to see if purchasing Winstep Ultimate can be done by money order. Went to about us...clicked on sales and nothing happens. Its as if the link is dead. Other than that......
Doc's suggestion is pretty cool. Those of us who use PS would be right at home.
Reply #31 Friday, October 16, 2015 3:19 PM
You mean the Sales *email address* link? Clicking that will launch your default email client if you have one configured. Otherwise you will have to copy the address and paste it to web mail or something.
Reply #33 Friday, October 16, 2015 3:50 PM
Thanks, Seth!
I'll release a beta of the Winstep Theme Builder as soon as I have something minimally acceptable in terms of functionality, so users can give some feedback and help shape where it's going.
Reply #34 Friday, October 16, 2015 3:54 PM
You mean the Sales *email address* link? Clicking that will launch your default email client if you have one configured. Otherwise you will have to copy the address and paste it to web mail or something.
Understood but can I pay with a money order. I don't have paypal and the m.o. is my only way.
Reply #35 Friday, October 16, 2015 3:59 PM
As far as I know, BMT Micro, Winstep's payment processor, accepts money orders too. Just click on the 'Buy Now' links to go to the shopping cart, then select the payment method. Or you can promise to buy me a burger if I'm ever close to where you are hehe.
Reply #36 Friday, October 16, 2015 5:27 PM
Went to winstep.net looking to see if purchasing Winstep Ultimate can be done by money order
Uvak - Ross I guess you only want the dock. You do know for $5 more you also get the Start menu and Taskbar replacement. That is what all the themes on here are for. Winstep Extreme give you the dock and the startmenu and taskbar replacement. Just saying in case you weren't aware of this.
also I would guess but not sure that when the new builder is ready it would come with the Xtreme.
Reply #37 Friday, October 16, 2015 7:39 PM
OMG my year has just been made with the announcement of the Theme builder. Jorge you're a wonderful human being. I miss being able to make themes.
Reply #38 Friday, October 16, 2015 9:45 PM
I've been using OD plus for years. This looks like a good replacement. Is there anything I will lose using Nexus?
Reply #39 Friday, October 16, 2015 10:02 PM
Went to winstep.net looking to see if purchasing Winstep Ultimate can be done by money order
Uvak - Ross I guess you only want the dock. You do know for $5 more you also get the Start menu and Taskbar replacement. That is what all the themes on here are for. Winstep Extreme give you the dock and the startmenu and taskbar replacement. Just saying in case you weren't aware of this.
also I would guess but not sure that when the new builder is ready it would come with the Xtreme.
Dave, my man, Winstep Ultimate IS the dock, start menu, taskbar, the whole shebang.
Reply #40 Friday, October 16, 2015 10:17 PM
Dave, my man, Winstep Ultimate IS the dock, start menu, taskbar, the whole shebang.
I thought as you said but the web page says different. Look at the bottom of the page where it compares the 3 versions. What am I missing.
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Reply #21 Thursday, October 15, 2015 2:16 PM
By the way, if you guys have an suggestions for the Theme Builder, now is exactly the time to give them.