:: Shell-Shocked :: Interview: Maestr0 by jesus

Dag Johan, I shall begin with the usual first question: name, handle, age, sex, location (anything you don't mind divulging).
Hoi Christian, no, no problem�:-) Pleased to be here.
My name is Johan Klos (handle is Maestr0). Born, bred and living in the Netherlands. I?m currently 26 summers young, and live in the vicinity of Amsterdam. Oh, yes, I?m male too�;)

I've wondered quite a lot: where does your nick, ��Maestr0�� come from ?
I got it from a book, a trilogy actually, by Timothy Zahn�: Conqueror?s Trilogy. Great books, ?specially if you start with the second book first, like I did�:-) Maestro was the call-sign for one of the characters in the book, so I started using that?. I guess it was around 1996 or so. Maestro was usually taken when signing up for something, so I rather soon made it Maaistro and later Maestr0. The latter stuck with me.

I'd like to know what made you discover Litestep and your story (from a Litestep point of view).
It was around 98/99 that I started using LiteStep: I discovered Litestep from an article I read, PC Magazine I think... I read it on the train station while waiting for the train. It had www.litestep.net as a link.
My Litestep story ? I had huge problems getting wharf or dwarf to work, heh, the early days I guess.

Do you have many other released themes ? The only one I can think about is dArk_bundle.
Hehe, haven?t really released any themes, no. Just dArk_bundle is worth mentioning.

What theme did you started using? What theme did you begin playing with?
dArk_bundle of course, and I started that one with lsbox; made it all by myself.

Even back in 98/99 ... wasn't there a theme you started using when you started to use Litestep ?
Not that I can recall: I always scrounched parts. I guess I started tweaking from the start: I can't recall someone else's theme I used for more than an hour or so.

But were there themes that gave you ideas, themes that left you some strong feelings ?
Oh, every theme gave me ideas: I guess ��21�� (by darkfyre) influenced me to try and make a boxed theme.

So, speaking about your tenebrae theme (see this issue), what brought you to do that theme, I mean, in the first place ?
Nothing really, just tweaking :). I mean, I can't really stand using other people's themes, because I have very ermmmm "special" needs :). Thinking back, I think I wanted to do a theme that had different styles and different color-schemes.
I've always tried to make my themes as independant as possible: any resolution, any os...
I guess my aim became to get maximum flexibility in the users' wants... letting the user change most of it through the popup, instead of editing text files.
My initial motive was the font-based changing of the dimensions: I added some scripting to let the user change the font and fontsize; I think that that's fundamentally the most innovative thing about my theme.
I think the REAL challenge was getting the styles to be dynamically added to the mix.
I wanted a way for the user to add styles to the theme, a theme within the theme as it were, to just unzip a style into a special styles folder and recycle and it'd be added.
I've succeeded in this largely by nagging Vendicator about it. He made scandir, which I used to get it working the way I wanted it to.

Right, here goes a classic Shell-Shocked question (goodness knows why people want to know this!): could you describe the hardware and software you use at home?
Yes, I can�:-) I put it together myself, almost short-circuiting it beyond recognition, but it?s working now�:-). When I started making tenebrae I had a 8 GB hard-drive, and an Asus P2B-F mainboard with a Celeron 466MHz on it, with 256 DIMM and a 17 inch monitor?. Now, I have a Athlon XP 1700+, MSI K7T 266 Pro 2 with 256 DDR and a 19 inch monitor, with 60 GB?. guess I moved up in the world�:-)

I guess you did! What do you use your computer for, in general ?
Besides talking to my girlfriend overseas? In general, I use it to keep in touch with people: a computer with internet is my voice to the world, I guess, my "social life" outside.

... listening to music ... I was wondering about the magnifier; do you use it? And the vwm, I remember you told me you had no use for it some time ago, did it change?
I use the xprop while theming, getting all the details right, zooming in on separate pixels to see if there is overlapping which would be visible in transparent bars.
The vwm ... well ...
I enlisted some betatesters along the way, which REALLY got my theme to expand by the way, who like having the VWM always loaded. So the people who use it a lot don't get a bundle of windows on one monitor all of a sudden when switching to my theme.
The betatesters pointed me to problems I had not foreseen, like W2K's problem with shredder and clockwork (both of those are fixed) but also more general ideas.

Do you consider your theme to be done, like, you reached the goals you wanted and the likes ?
Heh, it's not in my nature: I DID think it was done, but just today, I added something I didn't think of before. I added left and right-clicking to the label on the bottom left, which displays the OS and stuff, letting you choose what you want displayed. It even works, with a lot of help by Ilmcuts I might mention, because I had problems getting my mind around how to do it best.
It's gotta be done some time ... still, today, I wished I had a changelog.
In the end, the theme has become VERY extensive. I mean, all of the functions can't really be shown on a screenshot even: you can't see the movement, can't hear the sound, can't see the hidden toggling points, the intuitive placing of modules and popup-points. I'm rather proud of it actually.

So, I'm in the shell-shocked archive, looking at dArk Bundle review. I'm trying to list the improvements.
Heh, the dArk_bundle theme and the dArk-style look rather similar, no ? Yeah, that review by Phar0e was VERY flattering; very pleased by it.... heh, tried the theme again a month or so ago.
Tenebrae is SO much better and user-friendly.
Here are the differences:
1. styles
2. font-changing
3. changes through popup
4. animation
5. start screen
6. stability
7. languages (English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Japanese, Finnish and Spanish) dropping (like the styles).

Yes, the start screen is really nice: it seems like a nice step toward a GUI configurator for Litestep.
It?s a bit too static for me, to be honest. Every line needs to be translated in all those languages, and has to have at least three separate labels�: one for the text, two for the buttons (on/off).

Oh, something I just thought about : Is there a way to keep the configuration somehow ?
From build to build? Usually, yes, but not always since I change the vars sometimes. You can save the varsame.rc if you use the same settings for all styles. If you don't, then it's different from each style and saved in vars.rc.

Worth putting in your readme :). Something that gets on my nerves: I use geekamp with hotkeys (defined in personal.rc), could you make your use of dynamp somehow optional ?
Oh, that'd be hard because lsbox doesn't accept if/then statements, although it does accept evars and step.rc accepts if/else. I would have to make an extra var for each button too. Plus, I don?t want the extra overhead with another module in the theme.

Ok, perhaps in your next theme then ...
Speaking about that, what would you think about teaming up with me (and possibly other people)? I'm thinking about some LDE(X)-like ��theme�� (more of a complete desktop environment than a theme).
Ah, hehe, sure. I don?t have all that much time at the moment, with my new job and RealLife? issues, but sure�:-)

Usually you work really closely with module coders, it seems ... is it fun and productive as it seems ?
Yes, though frustrating at times, because I can't code, so I need to whine and whine until they get it right and it does what I want�:-)

If you could code, would you code for yourself, or for the community ?
I think they are the same: whether I would code for myself or not, the community would benefit.

Well, thanks for answering all those questions. This was some good times spent with you. This brings us to the latest question, which will be, as a Shell-Shocked tradition ... the weird question. What would you change about Litestep to see more girls/woman get interested (and I don't want any ��convert their man�� - like answers).
Pink ribbons and mirrors�? Heh, honestly, I think most women are pretty straight-forward in their computer use? it has to work all the time and doesn?t need any maintenance? they need all their attention in those areas with their man�:-)

Anything else you'd like to add?
Erm, nothing but to thank you for this interview�;-)

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