Winstep Releases Winstep Xtreme Beta 2!

http://www.winstep.net/news.asp
from WinCustomize Forums

Winstep Xtreme is a complete integrated Desktop Environment featuring the next generation of award winning Winstep user interface enhancements: NextSTART and WorkShelf. While most Windows customization software focuses on eye candy, Winstep applications raise the usability bar to another level: they give added functionality to Windows and complete control over every aspect of the user interface. 

  

NextSTART is a complete Start Menu, Taskbar and System Tray replacement, famous for its unmatched flexibility. The number of options you can configure is truly outstanding: configurable menus - via drag and drop or using the built-in Menu Editor - customizable menu behavior, an amazing number of ways to activate menus and run programs using hotspots, taskbar and systray management and more! 

WorkShelf is a desktop replacement and tabbed program launcher. Like a dock, but better. It enables you to organize your most often used applications and documents into categorized shelves while taking as little screen space as possible: WorkShelf automatically collapses into a small strip of tabs when not in use. It also gives you access to system folders like My Computer, Control Panel, etc... Throw in it’s task management abilities and built-in modules such as a speaking Atomic Clock, Recycle Bin, POP3/IMAP Email Checker, Weather Monitor, CPU, Net and RAM Meters, and a 'fortune cookie' reader (with many more soon forthcoming) and you have an incredible utility you’ll soon find out you can’t be without. 

So what is new in Winstep Xtreme? Here is an highlight of just a few of its new features:


Per-pixel alpha support: this allows incredible eye candy effects and themes that will blow your mind! Everything can be semi-transparent - or have semi-transparent parts - blending smoothly with the background. You don't have to wait for Windows Vista: the next generation in User Interfaces is already here.

Task Snapshots: the NextSTART tasklist and WorkShelf's Tasks shelf display snapshots of the actual windows, which are automatically refreshed to keep the contents always up-to-date. Window snapshots make it much easier to identify documents in a taskbar filled with identical icons.

Image and Video Thumbnails: context menus allow you to visualize image and video files. This is extremely useful to help you identify specific pictures when, for instance, using NextSTART menus to browse your hard drives.

Send To, Open With, context menu options: NextSTART and WorkShelf context menus were already very powerful, but they lacked support for the important Send To and Open With sub-menus. Context menus now not only provide all the options you would expect to find on Explorer's context menus as they still manage to add a few more!

PNG Icon support: you can now use PNG files to specify object images. This is true for anything that previously only allowed ICO files, including menu items, shelf items, tasklist, module and quick launch icons, etc...

Special FX: lots of new special effects, such as icons zooming on selection, shifting to make room for items about to be dropped onto WorkShelf, plus incredible water ripple effect that makes the shelf behave like a liquid surface whenever you click on it, new sound events for emptying the recycler bin or dropping items into it, a mind warping 'ripple' menu animation, and more!

Proxy Support: transparent proxy support for all functions that depend on the Internet to work, like auto update, online cookie retrieval, and weather and email checking. No need to configure anything since proxy settings are automatically retrieved from Internet Explorer itself.

WorkShelf Hotkeys:  You can now open, activate shelves and run programs using nothing but the keyboard! All key combinations are system wide, WorkShelf does not need to have the focus for the hotkeys to work.

Desktop Modules Animation Support: This means that the email module can now display a rotating envelope whenever you have new mail, that the Recycler can light up like a furnace when you move items over it, and that Wanda can be given a new face.

There are literally HUNDREDS of other new features, changes and fixes, too many to list here. Become part of the Xtreme experience now and see for yourself!

Download: Winstep Xtreme (includes NextSTART v4.0, WorkShelf v2.0 and FontBrowser v 1.0)
26,781 views 51 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That looks pretty neat. I'll have to give it a go.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hm, sounds familiar. May I say DesktopX ?
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Combination of DesktopX, ObjectDock and a little bit WindowsFX.

What I want to know is how to disable the sound effects. They are quite intrusive.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Carl[c242], NextSTART and WorkShelf were already around long before DesktopX ever saw the light of day (Winstep Software Technologies was born in 1998). Besides, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Thomassen, you can disable sound effects in the Sound and Animations Preferences tab for NextSTART and in the Global Preferences tab for WorkShelf. You can also lock the current sound scheme in there, if you want (so that switching themes doesn't change it, since some themes have their own sound schemes). In WorkShelf you can also change the current sound scheme to something you might find less intrusive by right clicking on the left mini-tab and then navigating to Appearence and Sounds -> Sound Schemes.

Drexler, no, it's not free, it's shareware. Run it and you will see why - they're quite complex applications (you didn't expect, say, WindowBlinds or DesktopX to be free either, did you? )
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How come when I get things from this site, some of the things have password locks on them? I downloaded pointers, desktop themes, and log on screens to make my home pc look better, but I only could use the desktop wallpaper. Help please! Thanks


Brian
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
1. This question doesn't belong here.

2. My guess would be because it wants to know your password.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok so when I download that skin and then when I go to open it and it says needs password, just type it in and see if it works? Also, after you download certain ones, when you extract it, does it automatically put them in the places they need to be?
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Ok so when I download that skin

Which skin? How about a link to it.

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Mr Cherokee27 ; I have never seen a skin on "This Site" that needed a password. More info is needed so that someone can help. Most of the time, if a skin that has been extracted from a zip, and it is associated with the proper program , then double clicking it should install it. Hope this helps.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
There is something wrong with that zip file. I can see the contents, but I can't extract them - not even using WinRAR. I think it might be because there are so many nested sub-folders that the entire path exceeds 260 characters.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This comes up as a "bootSkins" skin for me. Not a zip file per say. Do you have "BootSkins" installed on your computer? You will have to install it to see it as a bootskin file.
Also - This thred belongs to JcRabbit for winstep, so we thought you were asking about a winstep file. Might ask around in the appropriate forum section for more help. lol
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My apologies if some of the Wincustomize users got a 404 in the past hour when trying to download Winstep Xtreme. This was due to extremely high traffic and has been fixed already. If you were affected by this, please try again.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Heh. I figures that there was quite a bit of traffic. My download averaegd about about ~10Kb.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
JcRabbit : I am sorry for that, I wanted to edit my post, but I couldnt. Wrote that after 1st reading. I am a registere customer myself, so I will try it of course.
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hm, sounds familiar. May I say DesktopX ?

Not really. Nextstart does a taskbar/start menu far easier than DesktopX and better than ObjectBar. Workshelf does basic tabbing/task/folder management far better then ObjectDock. Plus the general skin customizing and editing is pretty easy.
I suppose it isn't really fair to compare, but it's hard not to.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It *is* quite a large file, and, for a while, it looked like everybody here was trying to download it at the same time. Our host had a panic attack when it started seriously affecting his other customers and so we had to come up with a way to split the load. I've heard about being 'slashdotted' but this is the first time we've been 'Wincustomized'
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Is there anywhere that outlines the differences between this software and what's available through Stardock? Advantages/disadvantages etc.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I hope you understand I'm on a difficult situation here, so...

I think Xtreme is perfectly capable of speaking for itself: download it, try it for a while, don't be afraid to ask questions in the Winstep forums or directly to Winstep support if you run into any problems/doubts and... make up your own mind.

More than anything else, Winstep focus is on usability/functionality.