It should close, obviously. Or rather, the Shelf should not have closed automatically while the Stack was still open.

Still fine tuning little issues like this, which is why this is still a beta. Thanks for keeping reporting them in, Ross.

Eh? Bridge? What Bridge?

See reply 142. You have to click on it because the text in the image is small.

Oh, I have no idea. That part of the context menu is provided by Explorer and the context menu extensions you have installed on your system. You should be able to see those same options if you right click the same file in Explorer.

You're right 'cause I figured out what it is. The bridge comes with photoshop. When I did the system restore it uninstalled PS and that particular link vanished. No problems here. Now back to the debugging.  

Here's a new one for next beta to help boost your productivity:

New Search Filter:

As you know, the Shelf, Drawers and the new Grid Stacks can display the contents of folders in your hard drive.

Folders, in turn, can have hundreds or even thousands of files. Locating the file you want can thus become time consuming, and this is where the new search filter comes in: simply start typing and the contents are automatically (and immediately) filtered by what you just typed.

Say you want to see only the JPEG files in a folder. Just click on the Shelf/Grid Stack and type jpg - the search box pops up (so you know a filter is currently being applied and also can see what you are typing) and only files with jpg in the filename are shown. The search box (and the filter) can be dismissed by pressing ESC and mistakes when typing can be corrected by pressing the backspace key.

As you type, the first item matching the filter is automatically selected, and can be launched by pressing ENTER. This makes it very easy - and very quick - to locate and launch/open a specific file in the midst of thousands, without even having to use your mouse: just type the beginning of its filename and press ENTER once the file becomes selected. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate items on the Shelf/Drawer/Grid Stack.

The search box was designed never to be on the way: it only remains visible while the owner has the focus - click somewhere else and the search box automatically fades out. Click on the owner again and the search box fades back in - and, of course, the search box is only visible when a filter is currently being applied.

Detachable Grid Stacks:

Something else that will be in the next beta is detachable Grid Stacks. This works in pretty much the same way as the detachable sub-menus in NextSTART: if you move a Grid Stack with the mouse, it becomes detached from the parent (and a sound effect plays for you to know this just happened) - i.e.; it will no longer close automatically when you click somewhere else, instead remaining on the screen until you explicitly close it using the right mini-tab symbol or click again on the parent icon.

As you can see from the above, one of the greatest focus of Winstep applications is enhancing productivity, not just eye candy.

Icon Grid:

And since I'm talking about eye candy, here's something else which actually ALREADY is in the beta you guys have but I didn't want to mention until now:

The Shelf allows you to optionally display a grid around the icons. One of my pet peeves (and something I complained about multiple times here) is that many skinners do not properly define the colors of this grid - the grid should be subtle with a nice 3D effect obtained by using two different colors (one lighter, one darker) that match the Shelf background, otherwise it just becomes an ugly mess of thick solid squares.

Many skinners, perhaps because they don't use the grid themselves, use the same color for both the darker and lighter settings, and to make matters worse even use a color that contrasts strongly with the Shelf background instead of blending in as it should (for instance, solid black or solid white).

Because of this the Shelf now automatically detects when grid colors have not been properly defined and auto-corrects them. Here is the before and after (and the Before is not even the worst example of colors not properly defined for the icon grid):

Before:

After (auto-corrected):

As you can see, the auto-corrected version not only ensures the subtle 3D effect that was always intended for the icon grid, as it also uses colors that actually match the Shelf background.

You be the judge as to which version looks better.

My grid stacks stayed open even after closing the drawer and I was able to not move them around. Now I can.   

To me it looks like a bevel/emboss turned down instead of up. I use that same technique as dividers. Good show dude.   

Uvah

reply 166

To me it looks like a bevel/emboss turned down instead of up. I use that same technique as dividers. Good show dude.   

Thanks! That's the idea.

Can you change the Grid Stack icon?

Of course. Just like any other icon: either drop a PNG or ICO file directly into it or right click, select Entry Properties from the context menu that pops up and then change the icon in the Properties dialog.

But... but... does that mean you don't like my icon?    

I didn't see the Entry Properties, I was looking in the Grid Stacks Properties.

Love the icon. It's just when you have a bunch of them together it gets confusing.

Thank you 

Don't forget: the quickest and easiest way to customize icons in the dock and Regular Shelf tabs (especially if you want to customize a bunch of icons at once) is NOT by going through each of those items in turn clicking Entry Properties but by opening the folder with all your custom icon images in Explorer and then dragging and dropping those images, one by one, into the icon in the dock you want to customize.

If you are doing it right, the icon will start glowing when you hover over it with a PNG, TIF or ICO file.

I already mentioned this above, but it's such a time saver that it's worth mentioning again.

Just a mention. The Atmospherica theme has three buttons on each dialogue...green which does nothing, amber which is a rollup and red which closes it. This would be an interesting feature I think. Add them to the grid stack and when you move it you can also roll it up. What you think?

Green does nothing, eh? It actually toggles the menu between always on top and normal z-order.

Anyway, no can do for the Grid Stack, since it's based on the Shelf, the theme itself only has space for two controls. This said, you can grab the tab header (click the tab text) and drag the tab down (or even up). It won't shrink beyond a single row of icons though.

New beta released. Give the new Search Bar a try and let me know what you think - useful for quickly locating items in Grid Stacks/Drawers/Shelf tabs with many files/items.

Ok umm.. how do you turn it on? I don't want to sound stupid, but there's a lot going on in the settings. 

Eheh, you don't turn it on, you just start typing (and press ESC to dismiss, and backspace to delete characters). It's actually very simple to use, as described above.

EDIT: But you can find some settings to either disable this feature or change its color options in Shelf Properties -> Behavior tab -> More Options dialog.

What is happening here?  It does this with Aero LowRes, Brisa and here with K-Tek 4D. All the other's are fine. Even the older one's I've downloaded are OK.

Sorry about that I should read more. As for what I just posted says nothing about that.  

Search works.   And I checked those themes. All them in good shape. Screenie is Ktek-4D

Maybe it's the way I have it set. Icon alignment is centered and the tabs are centered.