So i seem to have somehow broken Windowblinds, ie it won't actually skin the windows anymore.

So i thought to myself, self, why don't we look at this litestep thing.

So we did. We downloaded it and booted into it and we said we love you, and swooned. [ask Flirbnic, he was there].

Then i spend somewhere around 3 hours trying to find a theme for it that:

A: doesn't just outright suck. there were several things that made it fall into this category. perhaps the foremost was putting controls and other such important information in the bloody /centre/ of my workspace.. i realize some of those could probably be moved.. but still, wtf. my workspace tends to be rather busy and full, i can't leave little holes in the middle for stupid huge junkie roundy obstrusions.
B: has sufficient information and functionality [being the data whore that i am]
C: isn't entirely done in some utterly illegible font which is supposed to look 'cool'.

and most difficult
D: one that actually /works/, as opposed to the majority which either weren't ots2 compliant, or were but were very often missing images or other components [not modules, acutal parts of the skin].

Finally i run out of themes [looking through 52 pages of them on litestep.net], and gafe up trying to find one that was mindbogglingly sexy and worked, and just used LiteGnome, which is sexy in its own right is clean and relatively simple and actually /worked/.

That whole process took about 3 hours, leading me to the point where i am at currently, with a really not-messed-with-basicish theme [and samurizer out of habit and love]:


However, i was a little distressed to discover that despite all claims and publicity to the contrary, Litestep actually takes considerably /more/ memory than XP with Windowblinds. This made me somewhat sad, the figure being somewhere in the 50-100m of RAM range. And that is fairly consistent, even higher with the more complex themes obviously

So i'm still not entirely sure this was worth the effort at all. But it does look pretty decent. Mostly it makes me sniffle and miss Gentoo and E, whom i have sadly neglected due to a complete inability for some fair while and then eventual distraction to get to work with my 'new' video card [radeon 7200].

The other thing which made me ever so very sad, is that my application windows refuse to skin regardless of the theme i use, like the colours update, but all the screenshots show happy and gleeful skinned application windows, and mine are unhappy and naked. I'm a bit distraught.

I know that several people here use and do love Litestep, are there any deep dark secrets i would need to know, or places to look for good modifications or resources. While i do like the basic interface i have, i am very used to my taskbar being vertical, so i figured tomorrow i may try to get that all arranged. I did do a bit with Darkstep several years ago, and for quite a long time [until samurizer] had a little box in the corner of xp with various darkstep things in it [task-catcher and command-line and such], which i did a decent amount of fiddling with over time, so i'm not entirely unfamiliar with .rc and such.

Shrug. Just felt like sharing, and seeking information.

On an entirely ironic note, after uninstalling deleting and reinstalling Windowblinds just now it works again. So i can use it to skin my windows in litestep.. [picture updated appropriately]

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If all those usefull inventions that are lyable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science, which might be lawfully profest."
-John Wilkins, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift messenger, shewing how a man may with privacy and speed Communicate his thoughts to a Friend at any distance (London, 1641)
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 24, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 24, 2004).]

I got tired of that theme i was using awhile ago and I'm now running XP old-scghool style.

Everytime I see the reference to Windows XP's "clean lines and smooth curves" in the winxp setup, I just start laughing. Clean lines my a**. The standard windows xp theme looks like a 4 year old made it.


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The University of North Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing for four years, hasn't missed a packet in all that time. Try as they might, university administrators couldn't find the server. Working with Novell Inc., IT workers tracked it down by meticulously following cable until they literally ran into a wall. The server had been mistakenly sealed behind drywall by maintenance workers.

I am the undesputed king of all things Litestep around Massassi. So any questions feel free to ask.

OS2 is a whore of resources that should have never been born. I only use OS1 with a modified shell. And all those pretty windows, sorry to say, are all done through windowblinds. Litestep can't alter your ap windows. I wish it did, but they haven't coded it in yet. Some day though maybe we'll have a module that can do it, and broaden the skinning world. The good thing though, is that about 80% of the litestep developers make windowblinds skins as well as some IM client skins and Winamp skins to match their LS theme. Wincustomize usually has all of the matching stuff.

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-=I'm the wang of this here site, and it's HUGE! So just imagine how big I am.=-
1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

[This message has been edited by Yecti (edited June 24, 2004).]

Hm.. by all accounts trying to install litestep without the aid of the brand new installer for whatever version i just got, is somewhere between scary obsessive and masochistic. Is this accurate?

If not, and even if so really, how might one go about installing a non-whorish version of Litestep? And suggestions for good theme resources and such would be appreciated [i did look through wincustomize a lot and most of their themes fell under one of those 4 caveats i listed above it seemed, though that may have been in part because of this being ots2]

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If all those usefull inventions that are lyable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science, which might be lawfully profest."
-John Wilkins, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift messenger, shewing how a man may with privacy and speed Communicate his thoughts to a Friend at any distance (London, 1641)
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

I used to use pixoffice (both litestep and windowblinds) and it was teh sex. I can't remember why i ditched Litestep, because I do miss the virtual desktops...

...But now I just have Opulence for windowblinds, and sometimes use vectorcell too. And they look spectacular. And I've got a skinny objectdock too, which is a godsend.

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

I attempted Litestep...I didn't like it. I found it unfunctional for me. Yes I'm making up words but it's 1:37 AM so I'm allowed damnit!

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

I liked litestep, and i customised it to my liking using the basic setup that came with the installation... but it is a system hog. Maybe when I get some more RAM I'll consider putting it back on.

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[ Massassiism ] [ Cynicism ] [ Fanaticism ]
Sell your soul for a cookie?

I was never comfortable with litestep either, and I did give it more than one try.

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And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon...
DSettahr's Homepage

Dor, all that aside, whatever happened to (: and 's?

You consider 4,288 k mem used a system hog?


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<Outlaw_Torn> you mean your related to that damned sasquatch, Mech?
<MechWarrior> Lets just say the part of the family tree that does fork has bossy the goat in it.

<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?

I don't know the exact values, but it was noticably slower opening games and suchlike.

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[ Massassiism ] [ Cynicism ] [ Fanaticism ]
Sell your soul for a cookie?

It really depends on the theme you use... some themes use transparancy and crap like that which really hog the system while others like the MAC Os one that I have hardly take up anything at all

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<Outlaw_Torn> you mean your related to that damned sasquatch, Mech?
<MechWarrior> Lets just say the part of the family tree that does fork has bossy the goat in it.

<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?

If you were to want to install LS with a standard build (2.2.2.24 or the like) without an installer you would have to edit several registry keys because you're not running 9x. However, what I was suggesting I do is run an OTS1 build, and install the modules I need from OTS2 to make themes that I want work --as if that matters, because I use a custom rendition of iBDEv5--. Personally I recommend looking at Loose Screws to get some ideas on how to remedy your situation and perhaps how to compile a build that might be better suited to your needs. OTS2 is still relatively new, and it will be a while before the script kiddies get done stuffing every unoptomized but functional module into the themes they create. Once the dust settles you'll find it harder to find new themes, but each theme you find will be a good one. Take a look at stuff done by Bau and Phar0e and you'll be impressed. Most of their work is really low on the resource end of things, but is still visually astounding:


Bau's iBDE5

If you can't find an older revision of the installer (which I think is still available with a membership to Litestep.net) I could host the build I use minus my customizations (as without using the exact setup I use they wouldn't do you much good) so you might further your persuit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to help as well. For the most part the whole thing is rather straightforward, and module installation is rather simple. It's just a matter of learning how to write in LScode and implement it into your .rc files.

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-=I'm the wang of this here site, and it's HUGE! So just imagine how big I am.=-
1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

I might have to take you up on that offer, Yecti. I'm finding it utterly impossible to find an installer or even many references to any version of litestep before about 0.24.7b1.

I don't know how often you're around, but i'm at aim ormouse1182 and am always findable in the #teapot if that'd make assistance simpler.

I appreciate it.

And GHORGH.. um.. i got older? I dunno. (: tends to have gotten edged out by and anymore i suppose. And the various other [bad bad bad dirty dirty dirty] conventions like 's got to be prohibitive to coherence and even darn annoying for /me/ to read and write to be honest.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If all those usefull inventions that are lyable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science, which might be lawfully profest."
-John Wilkins, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift messenger, shewing how a man may with privacy and speed Communicate his thoughts to a Friend at any distance (London, 1641)
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 25, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 25, 2004).]

I'll host it by the end of this evening Dor. Hopefully with a better version of the shell you'll have better luck. Even though the developers want you to help OTS2 grow by using it, I'd say it's safe to be pessimistic until it comes into its own.

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-=I'm the wang of this here site, and it's HUGE! So just imagine how big I am.=-
1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

hehehehe I just had an evil idea... lets make a Massassi skin.

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<Outlaw_Torn> you mean your related to that damned sasquatch, Mech?
<MechWarrior> Lets just say the part of the family tree that does fork has bossy the goat in it.

<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?

Well the massassi forums already take up a considerable amount of my workspace, so it's not like i don't have the ol' green-n-black there already.

OS1 or whatever better be /hella/ lighter than what i have installed. It's up to a cheery 150-200m more than xp uses with this application load..

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If all those usefull inventions that are lyable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science, which might be lawfully profest."
-John Wilkins, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift messenger, shewing how a man may with privacy and speed Communicate his thoughts to a Friend at any distance (London, 1641)
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 25, 2004).]

I dunno I gave litestep a try yesterday and its kinda buggy... I mean I don't even get an autorun and when programs install I don't get shortcuts so I just uninstalled it and set the good old Windows Explore back to my shell and everything is running just perfect.

Litestep is a good idea don't get me wrong but I think it still needs some work before I'm gonna put it back on.

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<Outlaw_Torn> you mean your related to that damned sasquatch, Mech?
<MechWarrior> Lets just say the part of the family tree that does fork has bossy the goat in it.

<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?

Hmm.. maybe i should have asked the favour of someone with a less dodgy internet connection

[edit: Strange, when i went to sleep last night i had 76% ram use, waking up it was at 87%, someone suspects a memory leak heh]

Ohwell, i'm patient (:

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If all those usefull inventions that are lyable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science, which might be lawfully profest."
-John Wilkins, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift messenger, shewing how a man may with privacy and speed Communicate his thoughts to a Friend at any distance (London, 1641)
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited June 27, 2004).]

Yeah. Sorry about leaving you hanging. That night my [wonderful absolutely grand] dialup internet access died. But I've got it working again and I'm uploading that build as I type. I'll AIM you a link as I'm not so sure I want to have everybody who wants to try litestep leeching this thing.

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-=I'm the wang of this here site, and it's HUGE! So just imagine how big I am.=-
1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On