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Suburbia: where they tear out the trees & then name streets after them.
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See also Coding tutorials and Theming tutorials below.
 Tutorial: Hacking The Look
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Reverend Karn aka ZenLogic aka Reverend Karn (because I don't know which is the handle here) presents us with an updated version of an article he originally wrote for 2600.com (May the hair on their toes never fall out). This article has it all: modifying a dll with a hex editor, screenshots, lots n lots o' Res-Hacker, a touching moment of DBZ or two, and pomes fer cryin out loud. Go read it already! |
(12 comments) [posted: 25 Mar 2004]
Tutorial: Hacking The Look: Revisited
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For our less experienced readers, here's a reprint of an article from 2600.com on basic shell-replacement hoodoo. It's important to have this stuff archived for the community.
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(11 comments) [posted: 05 Nov 2003]
Tutorial: Safe Hex
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How many times have you seen that little windows colour picker with the RGB values? But oh, you need it in Hex. Fine. Take out your fave graphics tool and convert it. But do you really know the how, why, where and what about the relationship between the two? If you thought Math class was over, think again ... |
(15 comments) [posted: 10 Jun 2003]
Tutorial: Memory Hogs Identified
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Ever wanted to determine how much RAM your apps are using - for real? Alan Martin shows you how. It's surprisingly very difficult to get a precise answer! |
(2 comments) [posted: 28 May 2003]
Tutorial: Deconstructing the Shell
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The second of Alan Martin's three-part drama. In the last issue he advised us on how to get the most out of an aging PC. In the next issue ... well .. I wouldn't want to spoil it for ya! |
(12 comments) [posted: 06 Mar 2003]
Tutorial: Max Bang Per Buck by Alan Martin
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The first of a three part series centered around shells. Herein lies some great tips on getting the best performance out of your (old) machine. An excellent piece on minimalism. |
(8 comments) [posted: 30 Jan 2003]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Advanced LSXCommand.dll
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Lsxcommand.dll is one of the oldest and widely used modules available for litestep today. Its feature list is pretty huge, and there's always something else you can do with it. |
(6 comments) [posted: 15 Nov 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Hiding themes when gaming
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This tutorial is for making sure that litestep modules don't appear above
screensavers or games. Basically anthing that runs fullscreen and possibly
in a different display mode. |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Sep 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: *nix-style xmouse
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If you want to enable xmouse under Windows, but for some reason don't have
access to TweakUI, you can use xmouse.dll. |
(2 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: Diary of a Madman - Part 2
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Our resident newbie gives you his perspective on how to approach shell replacement. Complete with a series of tips on how to make the process as painless as possible. |
(7 comments) [posted: 10 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: How's the weather?
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Currently Litestep is lacking a good, up-to-date weather module. Brian has come up with a pretty good solution. |
(4 comments) [posted: 09 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: Installing Litestep under Win2k/XP
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If you use an installer - that's cool. If you'd really like to know what's going on under the hood, or you just want complete control over your shell installation, have a look here. If even you don't need it now, you might later on! This is written with LiteStep in mind, but may be applicable to other shells as well. |
(7 comments) [posted: 04 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: Diary of a Madman - Part 1
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Do you ever feel a bit "at sea" when you start out using a new shell? This article is about the difficulties faced by a newbie LiteStep user, and how he overcame them. A very amusing read! |
(20 comments) [posted: 18 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Skinning and theming
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A perspective about how skinning and theming have evolved over the last few years. |
(11 comments) [posted: 18 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Block Commenting
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Litestep only supports single line commenting and it's possible to use an IF/ENDIF block to simulate block commenting.
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(0 comments) [posted: 15 May 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Mouse Wheel on Desktop
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jdesk.dll comes with support for performing an action when you wiggle your
mouse wheel on the desktop. I only just noticed this, and came up with a few
ideas as to what you could do with this feature. |
(3 comments) [posted: 15 Apr 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Gestures.dll
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Some pre-made gesture definitions to get you started with this awesome module. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Mar 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Running Litestep on Explorer
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Sometimes, you just can't get away from Explorer. I've discovered this myself
- ever since I moved off-campus, I've had to use the public computers more
and more, and as a restricted user, I can't kill Explorer as I would normally.
So, I'm forced to have it running. Luckily, though, I can still use Litestep. |
(3 comments) [posted: 15 Dec 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: LS/Explorer for mult. users
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Setting up Litestep and Explorer for different users on the same computer. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Nov 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Systray to mouse cursor
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The problem some people have is what to do with the systray. They have a
minimilist look but the colors of the systray icons can spoil the effect.
Some make the icon size really small while others use grdtray and alter the
colour of the icons to fit in better. I don't like these methods so I devised
this simple script that I bind to a couple of keys via hotkey.dll. |
(4 comments) [posted: 15 Oct 2001]
Tutorial: What the Shell?
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A "primer" on the subject of shells. Desktopian's Tin Omen answers some questions posed by the Tek Team. This article originally appeared in the Teknidermy magazine, and is reproduced here with permission. |
(8 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Dynamic Desktop Area
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Sometimes you just need to have
a full-screen application given the largest amount of of desktop real-estate
possible - Photoshop, for instance, or Dreamweaver. So what can you do? Well,
there's a way to change your desktop area when you open one of these applications,
and then change it back when you've finished. |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Voice Alarms and Alerts
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Litespeak.dll gets your computer to talk to you - and you
wouldn't believe how many hours you can spend sitting around with your friends,
making your computer say rude words to you in a Stephen Hawking voice. Countless. |
(5 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: How to thread modules
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Litestep has the ability to run modules in a threaded state. It's only an
experimental feature, but it allows you to force a module to run in its own
memory space. |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Fun with the VWM
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Did you know that you can have a different litestep theme running on each
virtual desktop? Or a different screen resolution? Or just a different wallpaper? |
(3 comments) [posted: 15 Jun 2001]
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Tutorial: Design and Fitts Law
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If you've been bluffing your way through life as an Interaction Pro, none other than Bruce Tognazzini himself wants to help you become less of a pretender. The issues discussed herein are very relevant to both themers and users. |
(10 comments) [posted: 18 May 2003]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Creating a Modular Theme
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This tutorial is an attempt on Martinez's part to explain a concept he developed for
his Technicallity theme which he calls "function modularity." |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Shortcut3.dll
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Shortcut3 is new, but straightforward it is not. Lets take a look-see shall
we ;) |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: CkDialog.dll and fonts
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Using ckdialog to present a dropdown list of fonts |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: Trayicon.dll
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How to add custom items to your system tray. |
(2 comments) [posted: 07 Jul 2002]
Tutorial: Label.dll and !LabelSetText
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A few cool things you can do using Litestep's Label.dll from the author himself. A text-based VWM, and interactive help using label tooltips. Awesome! |
(5 comments) [posted: 19 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Common mod. dir. with OTS
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There's no reason why you can't have a common mods dir in an OTS compliant
setup. Omar, one of the OTS pioneers tells all. |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Color Considerations
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If you're a themer, or if you have a web-site - this is essential reading. A professional gives us some tips on the effective use of colour (or is that "color"?). |
(10 comments) [posted: 08 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Mzscript.dll for beginners
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We have been putting mzScript through some severe punishment within LDE for
some time here. The scripting is actually fairly straightforward within mzScript
and it is extremely flexible. Virtually anything you might want to do within
LiteStep can be achieved with mzScript. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Nov 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Kick it up a notch
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A theme that only uses core modules doesn't even scratch the surface of what Litestep
is capable of. It's a good introduction, but there's much more out there, and
this is the purpose of this section. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Sep 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Theming
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I'm going to assume that there are still people out there that want to dive
straight into the joy of editing text files and figuring out configurations.
That there are people that want to tweak, and play, and learn how Litestep
runs. |
(11 comments) [posted: 15 Aug 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Tasks in a draggable box
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This is an explanation by Ceeslans as to how to get tasks into a draggable
lsbox. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: A sensible theme structure
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An alternative theme structure. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Popup theme-switching
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Theme-switching via a popup menu. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Saving hidden/shown states
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If you have a theme where there are several elements that can be toggled,
you might like to know that you can get Litestep to remember the state of
these elements (shown or hidden) when it is shutdown or recycled, so you don't
have to go and hide or show everything again. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Dynamically resizing tasks
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One of the things that the Explorer shell has over Litestep, in my opinion,
is the taskbar, due to its dynamically-resizing task buttons. It doesn't matter
how many tasks you have open, or how few, you'll never run out of space on
that one bar. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jul 2001]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Changing text colour
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When you change your desktop wallpaper - if you have white text and you change to a white or light background, then you have to go through your step.rc to change all the colours. No more with this script. |
(1 comments) [posted: 15 Jun 2001]
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Tutorial: Coding: iShell Applets - Part 1
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Allelimo, one of the devs for iShell, an open source replacement shell available on Source Forge, has put together a tutorial on creating your own iShell applets. Put on your C++ hat and dip into the stuff that makes the Alternative Shell world tick. |
(1 comments) [posted: 25 Mar 2004]
Tutorial: Coding: iShell Applets - Part 2
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Part 2 of Allelimo's tutorial on creating applets for iShell. |
(1 comments) [posted: 25 Mar 2004]
Tutorial: Coding: iShell Applets - Part 3
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Part 3 of Allelimo's tutorial on creating applets for iShell. |
(0 comments) [posted: 25 Mar 2004]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Compiling LS with MSVC
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For all those developers out there who want to get their hands just a little more dirty, fear not! All you need to do is follow this tutorial and you'll be on your way to compiling Litestep. |
(0 comments) [posted: 15 Jun 2002]
Tutorial: Joeblade: Litestep: Module Coding
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This tutorial covers module coding for the win32 shell Litestep. It will not serve as a beginners guide to programming
and as such, a small level of programming knowledge is desired, but it is
not neccessary. Please enjoy and happy coding! |
(4 comments) [posted: 15 Jan 2001]
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raviHi West - I did a while back, if it's a recent one - I haven't been checking regularly. My flat's been totally flooded from a burst pipe - so life is a bit disrutped at the moment.
03 Nov/14:18 
WestHey Ravi, did you get my email?
27 Oct/02:02
RaviPS Chatbox currently functional.
14 Oct/00:02
RaviPhew - that took a while, but all's well now. Sorry for the hiatus folks.
13 Oct/23:56
raviI think I'll implement a "keyword" for this site, so you'll have to start your comment with ... say "shells" ... I'll strip that and post your comment.
Hopefully that will keep the spammers at bay.
24 Mar/19:04
ravigv, you naughty boy you.
24 Mar/19:02
raviAh, I see neither gv nor the spammers fell for it.
gv - you do realise that now I'm going to delete the spam and you'll look crazy don't you?
23 Mar/12:20
gvspears naked what?
23 Mar/10:50
gvJust testing ;)
22 Mar/10:37
raviI'm going to disable the chatbox and comments until I have some time to deal with the comment spam. Meanwhile contact me at: [ link] if you'd like to post a comment. 21 Mar/17:01
sheepwhat is the best shell replacment to use if you want security for liek a public desktop e-mail me at [ email] 14 Mar/11:42
gvIt's called emerge desktop now and its available at [ link] 09 Mar/09:35
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