JcRabbit JcRabbit

Winstep Nexus dock and Nexus Ultimate v18.8 released!

Winstep Nexus dock and Nexus Ultimate v18.8 released!


Windows 10 Ready The Winstep Nexus dock is a free dock for Windows. Nexus has everything you’d expect from a dock, including widgets, skins, drag-and-drop support, plus many others exclusive to it such as live icon reflections, over 30 different mouse-over effects, in-dock system tray, built-in support for animated icons, full Windows 10 UWP app support, multi-monitor and high DPI support and much more. Completely customizable, with thousands of different backgrounds freely available online, Nexus is fully compatible with skins for all 3rd party docks.

Nexus Ultimate is the commercial version of the free Nexus dock, adding support for multiple docks, categorized sub-docks, multiple tabbed docks (Shelves), Drawers (dock + single tabbed Shelf hybrid) plus even more widgets and cool looking mouseover effects.

Supported Languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi (Persian), Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brasil), Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish.

Nexus and Nexus Ultimate run on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8.x and Windows 10.

100% Windows 10 compatible with full UWP (Universal) app support.

Over 30 amazing mouse over, attention, launch and delete effects!

Built-in battery, calendar, clock, cpu, email, moon, net, ram, recycler, wanda and weather modules/widgets.

Built in support for system tray icons plus running applications with live window preview thumbnails

Multiple built-in docklets such as a compact media player, alarm manager, sleep timer, language bar, cd control, GeoIP location, screen capture....

...and much, much more!

More Information:

Winstep Web Site:
http://www.winstep.net

More information about Nexus/Nexus Ultimate:
https://www.winstep.net/nexus.asp

 

530,436 views 212 replies
Reply #126 Top

And we have Grid Stacks in the menu for the next release!

Dimensions are automatically calculated, there is a cool pop up and close animation towards the parent icon, and because the Grid Stack runs with the power of Shelves it can display anything the latter does. In this case, it is showing the contents of the Windows Control Panel, but you can make it display the contents of any folder and even make a Stack you can directly drag your own shortcuts into, add modules and internal commands, etc...

Reply #127 Top

This is an excellent program - so many settings to really tweak the dock the way you please. Thanks for releasing this. I hope to upgrade in the near future.

Reply #128 Top

o_O

Reply #130 Top

You frazzle me dude. :P First I rediscover Winstep, then I get to play with Drawers now there's Grid Stacks? What you done? <_< >_> ;P  

Reply #131 Top

Nothing. Just work work work... :puke:  

Reply #132 Top

Just a smaller teaser for next release (v18.11):

Nexus Ultimate and Winstep Xtreme now feature native Grid Stacks:

As everything Winstep, these Grid Stacks are not your basic run-of-the-mill Stacks though, but something a lot more powerful and flexible. :)

Reply #133 Top

Wait for it......wait for it......wait for it......*_*  

Reply #134 Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 133

Wait for it......wait for it......wait for it......*_*  

Make sure you have 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' in the Advanced tab of Preferences. A public beta will be out soon if not even later today (after two private betas, so that there wouldn't be any show stopping issues in the public beta). I like my betas 'clean'. :)

Reply #135 Top

I'm gonna take you up on that. But to other matters. This happened when I went to delete a pic from the shelf. I hit retry and it worked as it should. But what created the error? No clue.

Reply #136 Top

Can you repeat the error by doing the same thing?

Reply #137 Top

I tried but nope. Hasn't happened again.

Edit: It just did.

Reply #138 Top

What I need to know is *exact* and *detailed* steps to reproduce this here (i.e.; what you did), please. :)

Main keyword being 'detailed' ehehe

Reply #139 Top

Public beta of v18.11 has been released for Winstep Xtreme and Nexus Ultimate users.

If you like living on the bleeding edge (just kidding, Winstep betas are usually pretty safe with only minor issues like the one above, if any) then you should enable the 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' on the Advanced tab of Preferences and then click the 'Check for Updates' button.

The most obvious addition is the new 'Grid Stack' (or GStack for friends).

The classic Stacks Docklet provides a handy extension that allows a dock to show items from a folder in a Leopard MacOSX style, but is marred by its inability to manage or rename those files.

A Winstep Grid Stack goes an order of magnitude further: not only does it allow the user to manage files in any folder it's currently displaying (with full drag & drop support) as - just like the Shelf (tabbed dock) in Winstep applications - it's also capable of displaying the contents of special shell folders such as the Desktop, My Computer, Control Panel, Recent Documents, and so forth...

In fact, if you are familiar with Shelves, anything a Shelf can do, so can a GStack. This means built-in support for over 30 different mouseover, launch, etc, effects - plus full compatibility with existing Winstep skins.

Adding a new Gstack is easy: just right click, select Insert New Item then Grid Stack and finally select the type of Grid Stack you want: Regular, Folder, Apps, Most-Used applications, Drives, etc...

You can even quickly convert existing folder shortcuts in your dock to GStacks: just right click and select Convert to Grid Stack (so the quickest way to add a new Gstack is probably by dragging a folder from Explorer into the dock then right clicking and selecting Convert to Grid Stack). This also works the other way: you can right click on a folder type Gstack and convert it into a folder shortcut.

Other additions in this beta include the ability to copy sub-docks (with all their content) via drag & drop by pressing CTRL while dragging, ability to set different text effects and effect opacity levels for dock icon labels, new 'Downloads' tab type for Shelves, Drawers and GStacks, plus some fixes related to UWP Apps in Windows 10 and with files that have non-latin characters in the filename.

Please Note: the free version of Nexus will NOT support Grid Stacks.

If you are running Nexus free and needed one more reason to upgrade to either Nexus Ultimate or Winstep Xtreme (really?!), well, there you have it. :)

Reply #140 Top

Detailed:

First thing I did was add downloads to the shelf as is shown in the screenshot. Opened the shelf, right clicked on the pic (jpg) and clicked on delete. The jpg would vanish and the error dialogue opened. I clicked on retry, the explosion effect happens and the jpg reappears. I then right clicked on the jpg again and it works as it should. One thing I did notice was the dialogue didn't appear right away. Instead it opened half way then a second later the full dialogue appeared. That's it, that's all I did. Step by step

Reply #141 Top

Ok, something new. This I believe has something to do with Nextstart. After installing the beta (18.11) I got a green border around each dialogue. The theme I used was the all green screenshot I put up in that thread. I had this problem with Vad_M's weather app. Usually I don't use Nextstart, just the shelf because I prefer the WB taskbar. I took Nextstart out of the start up so only the workshelf and the dock appears. After installing the beta Nextstart came up and the theme had not changed from the green theme and I have changed the theme several times to match the desktop. Then I started getting these green borders around the dialogues. With Nextstart disabled I don't have this problem.

Reply #142 Top

Update: 18.11 beta

Grid Stacks works! Lol......I have four Drawers, three on the right one on the left. I was able to convert my book folders to stacks and taking my cursor off the Drawer it closes and the stack remains until you click on something else. When you do the Drawer makes like a fish and sucks the stack back in :rofl: . No kidding this time. That's what it looked like. It works on the Drawers but not on the workshelf. I thought it was supposed to work there too. I can browse but not convert to stack. Anyway, some screenies...

 

Reply #143 Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 141
After installing the beta (18.11) I got a green border around each dialogue.

Nothing to do with NextSTART, I can assure you. Looks more like a WB vs. NextSTART issue?

Quoting Uvah, reply 142
I was able to convert my book folders to stacks and taking my cursor off the Drawer it closes and the stack remains until you click on something else.

That's actually a bug lol. The Drawer is not supposed to close automatically until you close the stack.

Quoting Uvah, reply 142
It works on the Drawers but not on the workshelf. I thought it was supposed to work there too. I can browse but not convert to stack.

Quick tutorial:

The Shelf (tabbed dock) supports multiple different types of tabs: the Regular tab type is like the tabs in OD tabbed docks, when you add a tab of type Regular to the Shelf you can do with it everything you can with shortcuts in a dock (add modules, internal commands, Grid Stacks, order the icons however you want via drag & drop, etc...)

All the other tab types are very different (you should intuitively understand what each tab type is by its name): the Folder tab type, for instance, allows you to show you the contents of any folder in your hard drive as a tab in the Shelf. Not only that, you can drag & drop files into it, and those files are automatically copied or moved into the folder in the hard drive. Likewise, you can drag & drop files and folders OUT of the folder tab.

Be very careful when manipulating a Folder tab, because unlike what happens with Regular tabs that only hold shortcuts to files or applications, on a Folder tab you are directly manipulating the actual files inside the folder (a Folder tab acts like an Explorer folder in this sense)! So, if you delete a document file from a Folder tab, you are deleting the actual document, not some virtual shortcut to it!

Now, on a Folder tab you can only sort the contents by name, date, type and size, just like with folders in Explorer - you cannot freely organize the contents like you can on Regular tab types. In the same manner, you can only add file system objects to it (files, folders, etc..) - you cannot drag items specific to the Winstep application (like modules, internal commands, Grid Stacks, etc) into it because those are not recognized or even understood by the Windows file system.

There are many other tab types: for instance, the Desktop tab shows the contents of the Windows Desktop as a tab in the Shelf. This can be very useful to maintain a clean desktop and to quick access items on the Desktop: you tell the Winstep application to hide desktop icons, and then you launch/view those icons by opening the Desktop tab in the Shelf instead! Again, the Desktop tab in the Shelf offers full drag & drop support - you can even right-click-drag files and folders into it, so you are offered an option to either copy, move or create a shortcut to those files.

The Documents tab type shows the contents of your Documents folder. It acts exactly like a tab of type folder pointing at the Documents folder in your hard drive (more on this later for you to understand how it is related to your inability to convert folders in this tab into Grid Stacks, like you could in the Drawer).

Some of the tab types reference special virtual folders in Windows: for instance, the Control Panel tab type shows the contents of the Windows Control Panel. The Drives tab type shows the contents of the My Computer folder (normally your drives plus a bunch of other stuff). These type of virtual folder tabs - again just like the real thing in Explorer - do not allow you to drop items into them, although you can drag items out of them.

Other tab types have very specific functions and some do not support drag & drop at all. For instance, the Apps tab type shows all the installed UWP apps on your Windows 10 system. The Themes tab shows all your installed Winstep themes, which you can then apply simply by clicking on the thumbnail. The Recent Documents tab shows your <x> most recent documents. The Most-Used tab type shows a list of your recently launched and most used applications. You can even add a tab to the Shelf that displays all the icons in the Windows System Tray! :)

As you can see, what you can and cannot do on a specific tab in the Shelf depends on the type of the tab! At the same time, this should allow you to understand how powerful and flexible the Shelf really is - it is definitely not a toy, although you can still have a lot of fun playing with it. :grin:  

Now, and this is the important thing: Drawers and Grid Stacks are variations of single tabbed Shelves, they just behave differently. Therefore, everything you can display on a Shelf, you can also display on a Drawer or a Grid Stack. The major difference is that while a Shelf supports multiple tabs, Drawers and Grid Stacks can only host a single tab - you can say they are that tab.

This tab can still be of any of the different types of tabs that a Shelf supports. Therefore you can have Regular Grid Stacks, Control Panel Grid Stacks, etc, and, of course,  the type most normally associated to Stacks: a Folder Grid Stack. Same for Drawers.

Now, wrapping back to your issue: a Grid Stack is a Winstep object. As such, it can only be placed in docks, in tabs in the Shelf of type Regular or in Drawers and other Grid Stacks also of type Regular.

You cannot convert folders in your Documents tab in the Shelf into Grid Stacks like you can in the Drawer because the Documents tab is a Folder type tab and therefore part of the Windows file system (which, again, does not know how to handle Winstep Grid Stacks). Likewise, you could convert folders in the Drawer into Grid Stacks because that Drawer is of type Regular.

I hope this explanation helped a bit and didn't make you even more confused instead. ;)

 

Reply #144 Top

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 143

Nothing to do with NextSTART, I can assure you. Looks more like a WB vs. NextSTART issue?

It happened when I had that all green set up where you said that's a lot of green or some such. I have since deleted that green theme from Winstep skins folder. I'll try and replicate it and see what happens.

EDIT: Turns out the WB Green Theme somehow got corrupted because when I tried to reload it WB's GUi lost it's mind. It started acting like it was struggling to load the skin, flashing in and out. I had to shut it down through task manager. I've changed the WB skin three times since without a problem so yeah Nextstart is off the hook.

Reply #145 Top

Thanks for that tutorial JC. I tried to delete a file off the dock and noticed it was the actual file and not the shortcut. I copied the tutorial and saved it so I know how to use it. :thumbsup:  

Reply #146 Top

Ditto.

Reply #147 Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 144
I've changed the WB skin three times since without a problem so yeah Nextstart is off the hook.

Told ya. :)

There are no green borders in NextSTART menus ehehe.

Quoting Uvah, reply 140
First thing I did was add downloads to the shelf as is shown in the screenshot. Opened the shelf, right clicked on the pic (jpg) and clicked on delete. The jpg would vanish and the error dialogue opened. I clicked on retry, the explosion effect happens and the jpg reappears. I then right clicked on the jpg again and it works as it should. One thing I did notice was the dialogue didn't appear right away. Instead it opened half way then a second later the full dialogue appeared. That's it, that's all I did. Step by step

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation, this is what a useful issue report looks like (the detail of the explosion animation only happening AFTER the error dialog is very important, for instance, it helps me pin point the location of the error in the chain of events).

I'll try to reproduce the issue here and I'll let you know if I find anything.

Reply #148 Top

Ross, do you have WorkShelf set to ask for confirmation before deleting items?

Also, what do you mean by 'the dialog didn't appear right away' and 'opened halfway' ? You mean the error dialog, right?

And finally, do you remember if when you deleted the picture file it was already showing the image's thumbnail or was it still showing as an icon?

Reply #149 Top

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 148

Ross, do you have WorkShelf set to ask for confirmation before deleting items?

Didn't know it could do that so nope. I right click, hit delete and it deletes.

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 148

Also, what do you mean by 'the dialog didn't appear right away' and 'opened halfway' ? You mean the error dialog, right?

Not the error dialogue, menu dialogue after right clicking. Its like it hesitates, see the screenie.

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 148

And finally, do you remember if when you deleted the picture file it was already showing the image's thumbnail or was it still showing as an icon?

In the screenshot it shows the thumbnail. When I did it only the icon shows. Do you have to wait for the thumbnail first because I didn't. I mouse over and click away.

Bear in mind my laptop is an older machine (going on three years) with a duel cpu and its slow as shit.

Reply #150 Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 149
In the screenshot it shows the thumbnail. When I did it only the icon shows. Do you have to wait for the thumbnail first because I didn't. I mouse over and click away.

No, you should NOT have to wait.

Quoting Uvah, reply 149
Bear in mind my laptop is an older machine (going on three years) with a duel cpu and its slow as shit.

It might be the combination of these two facts that cause the issue. At the very least, they are important clues for me to try to reproduce the issue here (a bug can only normally be fixed when a developer is able to understand the chain of events leading to it, which is why detailed reports are so important - they allow the developer to reproduce the conditions that lead to the bug happening).