:: Shell-Shocked :: Theme: tenebrae by Maestr0

title	tenebrae
author	Maestr0
download	litestep.net
shell	Litestep
compliance	OTS

General Information ::
Theme Style: Horizontal Bar
Resolution: All

"Tenebrous" means "obscure" or "murky", but there's nothing unclear about its history. Etymologists know that the word derives from the Latin noun "tenebrae", which means "darkness".

The first time I saw this theme was over at a friend's house. He was testing this theme for Maestr0. So I e-mailed Maestr0 to ask him when the theme should be released and that I liked it a lot. Before I even knew, I was testing it too. For eternal fame he promised? =). [Ed: Well here you have it! ;)]

Well, at that time, there were only 2 color schemes available. Right now you can choose from 9 different styles, accessible from both the theme popup menu (by shift+left-click) as well as from the main bar. Yep, that's right, "tenebrae" is a horizontal bar theme, but one with a lot of options. A part from the main bar, a calendar, xprop, 4 VWMs and a system meter are present. These four options are toggleable by a simple click in the screen edges.

The main bar offers time/date/lsxcommand, mem usage, uptime and a "start button" for the theme popup on the left. On the right you can find an analog clock, the systray and winamp controls. The theme is using dynamp.dll, so WinAmp3 users should be fine. The middle section is filled with your tasks and three spots and two arrows to hide/unhide the main bar, bring up the theme popup, change the position of the main bar (top/bottom) and cycle through the 4 VWMs.

Well, I've seen this theme growing from the start until where it is now (no kidding: version_II_RC9c !) and it is still running smoothly. Installation is no problem at all. Just unzip into your (OTS-) theme folder, switch themes and you're good to go. When the theme first starts, a nice first run config screen pops up, in which you can select your language and what options you want to be (dis|en)enabled at startup. Of course you can manage all your settings through the theme popup anytime.

To sum it all up: horizontal bar theme with 9 color schemes, packed with lots of functions, but not looking bloated. This one's staying on my desk for a while!

Maestr0 did a real good job making this theme. Its appearance is not too bloated, but the theme is jam packed with functionality.

Stijn Rombouts (wiseguy)

Comments:

Vulpes:
What can I say about this theme? It has everything, easily the most complete litestep theme I have ever used, and yet everything works so well and nothing is out of place.

Add to this some gorgeous graphics and colour schemes, and some truely unique features... this is a revolutionary theme.

Ilmcuts:
Most feature-filled theme on a line with [noir] and WorkPanel.

Kuhndog:
Seriously.. this is a damn nice theme.

Sryo:
After playing with it for a while I realized the power this theme has. It's easy to configure without being limited in features, it's easy to use, for beginners and advanced users, and shows how powerful LiteStep is. If this is not the best ls theme it definately is one of the top 5 best themes.

Jesus_mjjg:
Highly gui-configurable theme, hoped to be copied and bettered.

From Maestr0's release notes:
Well, too much to show in one screenshot so I'll try and cover it all here:

* fully OTS compliant

* 8 different styles in there, dynamic setup so adding more could be as easy as: "unzip to folder, recycle, click and switch"

* can use most fonts the user has to choose from

* dynamic fontsize: you can pick your fontsize, between font 8 and 20, and most everything will resize accordingly

* startup screen which will let you pick what you want to start with showing and hiding

* popuptheme configurability: you can turn everything on and off through the !popuptheme

* animation: boxes slide into place, can be with or without sound

* multi-res, will work on just about every res, whether or not it's readable depends on the font you use, of course.... tested it from 800x600 to 2048x1536 with no problems, though you might want to change the font between resolutions :)

* revolutionary Help system, a special box which tells first-time users what some of the theme-things are under the mouse cursor...

* main bar can be both on bottom, on top or hidden altogether, positioning and state is remembered automatically

* has several modules it can load (toggle-able) rainlendar, xprop, sysmeter, sysvwm, lsxcommand and lsmail.

* autoresizing taskbar3 and systray2.

* recycler 5 implemented to show if the bin is full or empty, can be used to empty the bin as well, can be toggled on and off.

Well, there's more... it's win 9x compatible up to a point, but I disabled some stuff for those OS's like alpha trans and some other things that interfered with correct functioning of the theme.... just so you old OS-users know :).

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comments: 3

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