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LiteStep Portable Beta 5

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February 15, 2009 - 11:15pm
#1
crazy2be
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LiteStep Portable Beta 5

Application: LiteStep Portable
Category: Other
Description: LiteStep is an alternative WIN32 shell that completely replaces the traditional explorer shell, allowing users to completely customize the look and feel of their desktop.
The portable version allows you to bring all of this with you, and also bring your desktop, including icons, with you.
Please look at the tutorial in \App\Litestep\Tutorial\Tutorial.exe, or by typing "tutorial" in the runbar

Screenshot

Download LiteStep Portable 0.5.1.3b installer [3.6MB download / 12.2+MB installed]
(SHA1 Checksum: 0f41352671544a2c1c16e24571dfd68082d315b2)

Release Notes:

Development Test 1 (2009-02-15): Initial release

Development Test 2 (2009-02-16):

  • Fixed a few things i forgot about in the initial release Blum
  • Now, if you extract it to your portableapps directory, you should not get any errors.

Development Test 3 (2009-02-22):

  • Added a (decent) installer
  • Added a desktop background

Development test 4 (2009-03-09):

  • Deleted an unnecessary and unrelated binary file, shrinking the size significantly
  • Fixed the ShellSwitcher to create the settings.ini file if it does not exist (and it won't when the program is first installed)
  • Replaced the lslua module with a version that shouldn't require the runtimes, so it will work properly on computers without the runtimes.

Development test 5 (2009-03-23):

  • Fixed? appinfo.ini settings.
  • Added a splash screen
  • Further updates to the tutorial
  • Decreased size further by removing duplicate theme switcher
  • Fixed Issue 2 and Issue 3
  • Added a "forcibly terminate litestep" option to settings.ini to allow you to forcibly terminate litestep if you are having problems
  • Added Help.html in portableapp root
  • Added shortcuts to the tutorial in the popup and the lsxcommand
  • Made portableapps automatically be added as aliases to LSXCommand (E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe becomes "firefox")
  • Marked as beta

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February 15, 2009 - 11:51pm
horusofoz
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Sounds good

Are you sure this doesn't require admin rights and/or wont be leaving anything behind? Does it work on Vista as well as XP? These are just a couple issues you'll come up against if this is to become an "official" app. I hope it fits the bill because I like being able to customize my stuff but dont want to edit settings on a pc I dont own, hoever it seems a little too good to be true Sad

Also you'll need to PAF it.

PortableApps.com Advocate

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February 16, 2009 - 12:06am
(Reply to #2)
crazy2be
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Nope, nothing left behind

...With the exception of some modules, the only one i know of being older versions of clickonic, leaving reg settings behind.

No administrator rights are required, it just kills explorer.exe and starts litestep.exe

i know i need to paf it, but i don't know NSIS, so i'm hoping someone else will do it Blum

And i know it seems almost to good to be true, but it is Blum
you can customize everything, and bring your customized desktop with you!

as for qualifying as an "official" app, it would more be a replacer of the portableapps menu than a app to be started by it Blum

but test it out. I've been using it for about a year now, and wrote the source for the lanucher and the themeswitcher myself, with the original versions i used being batch files. If you find any bugs, report them on the project page, http://code.google.com/p/litestepportable/

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February 16, 2009 - 12:47am
Chris Morgan
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Messy SVN :-(

Sorry, but looking at your SVN repository you've missed the idea of SVN... binaries shouldn't go in SVN, and all your stuff which you've stuck in the root should really be stuck in trunk.

SVN is meant to work with /trunk (main development copy), /branches (for big things or other people's tests or things like that) which may break in the middle, while you want trunk to continue working) and /tags (for tagging releases).

If you'd like, I could help you out on the PAF and SVN aspects of this project - if you make chris.morganiser on the gmail.com server a member of the Google Code project, I can help.

It looks like something which quite a few people could find useful, though for me personally, I prefer just the ordinary Windows stuff normally. I'd need to try it though.

Nice job though so far (without having tested it :P)

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

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February 16, 2009 - 7:02pm
(Reply to #4)
crazy2be
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Well, my first time using SVN...

and i had no idea what the different branches etc were for Blum
So, i just put everthing in the root.

I've added you to the members, you can reorganize it if you want, just don't delete anything Wink

And i hope someone can paf it (it shouldn't be that hard...?)

And about binarys in the SVN...
i don't see why not. the directory structure (with the associated binarys) should be ander version control, imho.

The SVN should now be in proper order...

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February 16, 2009 - 5:51pm
dragonmage
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Wow, if you can get Litestep

Wow, if you can get Litestep up to the paf standards that will be very cool. I've been building my own portable environment using bblean and rainmeter.

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February 16, 2009 - 6:24pm
crazy2be
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I prefer LiteStep to bblean, persoanlly

becuase it has much more beutiful themes Wink
bblean is focused on minimalism, and although that is easy to acheive with litestep, you can also do much more complicated things, with LUA scripting.

Only thing i miss from trying bb4win is the window skinner... wish someone would make a litestep module for it.

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February 16, 2009 - 10:18pm
(Reply to #7)
dragonmage
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Yeah, thats what I'm using bb

Yeah, thats what I'm using bb for, the window skinning. I'm gonna have to learn the LUA scripting though, I have a massive idea for rainlendar.

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February 17, 2009 - 8:40pm
(Reply to #8)
crazy2be
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Yeah, LUA is great ;)

Although i, myself, don't know that much about LUA used with litestep, i know that it is quite powerful, and allows much more appealing and interactive desktops than just plain explorer (ick)

Any ideas on whether this can become an official app? There's no risk of anything being left behind, (except with some themes using older versions of clickonic), even if the shell switcher goes awry.

So then, the only real obstacle i can see is the fact that it needs a paf installer, and i don't think that should take long for someone who knows NSIS (since it's in a zip already).

Are there any bugs anyone is aware of? I want to iron those out ASAP so i can get this out of beta status.

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February 19, 2009 - 11:10pm
crazy2be
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Any bugs? Anything still needed to "officially" release this?

Are there *any* bugs in this at all that anyone can find? If there are some, post an issue report here, with as much detail as possible so i can fix it.

Also, is there any requirements that need to be met for this to be "officially" released?

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February 20, 2009 - 6:20pm
(Reply to #10)
Chris Morgan
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Various PAF issues

There are various issues in the PortableApps.com Format compliance of this, which I can fix in SVN for you. Things like missing/incorrect AppInfo settings, missing help.html and Other\Help\images, just things like that. And especially labelling it as a Development Test in help.html, appinfo.ini and the installer filename (if you put that in the title as you should, people will actually think it's a proper portable app in the PortableApps.com Format, rather than an app-in-development to be ignored (I will admit that I don't normally take any post in the beta testing forum seriously unless it's got Development Test or Pre-Release in its title, or another special addendum like "Speed Test" or "Functionality Test" as John sometimes does, e.g. for a Firefox 3.1 pre-release Portable pre-pre-release or a Flash portablizer or something like that).

Also, what you've published has .svn folders right through it - what this means is that you've merely built from your SVN working copy. What you need to do is to do an "export", as it's called, which makes a copy of everything, but leaves out the SVN data. This SVN data stores a copy of everything. In most SVN clients, you'll be able to e.g. right click on the folder and do Export or SVN -> Export, or a menu item or something. By doing this you could take your size down a lot, probably to less than 2.4MB. Also note that you've reported 20.6MB install size, but in actual fact because of the SVN metadata it's 41.4MB.

One final thing which I noticed, you don't have any of the launcher source code in the package - this is needed above just about all else (especially for Google Code hosting - currently it's actually not legal because of that). And your Other directory isn't in SVN - I suggest that you either use SVN, or don't - if you're using it, make sure everything's in it.

Hmm... SVN checkup: "Tutorial" has worked its way back to the SVN root... need to remove that. And you've got branches full of the trunk stuff, that's not how you do it - atm you shouldn't have anything in branches. Read http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch04s02.html about how branches should be used.

Requirements for official release here: must be useful, stable, and checked by the Release Team against a number of things like PAF compliance, data storage, leaving the host alone, OS compatibility, etc. (btw, I'm a member of the release team). A piece of advice about doing stuff here: have patience. Things take time when we all do it as volunteers, and also we have very stringent quality assurance guidelines - only the best software gets in, and as far as portability goes, it must be perfect.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

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February 20, 2009 - 7:40pm
(Reply to #11)
crazy2be
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Thank you!

...for telling me exactly what i need to do, and giving me the link that helps explain SVN better Smile

To answer a few of your points:
- I made the paf at like 10:00 last night, so i wasn't fully awake, and forgot about the .svn folders everywhere. I'll fix that and release an update asap.
- "Tutorial" was in the svn root because i was trying to change the url my working copy pointed to, and it was giving me "Path not found" errors... i'm re-downloading the whole /trunk branch atm, since it seems my metadata got corrupted somewhere along the way...
- The code wasn't in the release package, because i wasn't aware that it was needed (or even wanted). It was, however, in the SVN
- the other folder wasn't in SVN because it was empty, other than the installer source code. That has not yet been added because of the formentioned problems with corrupted metadata
- The current copy is useful (in my option :P), stable (i think? are there any bugs in the launcher?), and leaves the host alone (litestep by itself doesn't store anything on the host PC, only older versions of clickonic do this, and that is the responsibility of the theme author)
- As for OS compatibility, i only have WinXP (and ubuntu :P) installed as OS's, so someone else will have to test this for me.

thanks again for the feedback!

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March 9, 2009 - 11:57pm
crazy2be
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Beta test 4 has been released!

Changelog:

  • Deleted an unnecessary and unrelated binary file, shrinking the size significantly
  • Fixed the ShellSwitcher to create the settings.ini file if it does not exist (and it won't when the program is first installed)
  • Replaced the lslua module with a version that shouldn't require the runtimes, so it will work properly on computers without the runtimes.

Still to fix:

  • Update binaries to latest litestep version
  • Finish the tutorial
  • fix bad appinfo.ini settings?

Please report any errors/bugs here!

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March 10, 2009 - 10:02am
(Reply to #13)
alanbcohen
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The link still appears to be

The link still appears to be to a Test 3 release (3b), not a test 4. Is this simply a difference in the numbering or 'real'?

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March 10, 2009 - 11:30pm
(Reply to #14)
crazy2be
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It's the correct one.

The numbering started at 0.5.1 being the first release, and the second 0.5.1.1, third 0.5.1.2, and this one being 0.5.1.3

So yeah, i did remember to update the link... this time Blum

Is should all work out-of-the-box, if it doesn't, post here.

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March 23, 2009 - 7:35pm
crazy2be
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Beta test 5 is out!

There are a large amount of fixes from the original version, and i think i have fixed every problem outlined in Chris Morgan's post.
Changelog:

  • Fixed? appinfo.ini settings.
  • Added a splash screen
  • Further updates to the tutorial
  • Decreased size further by removing duplicate theme switcher
  • Fixed Issue 2 and Issue 3
  • Added a "forcibly terminate litestep" option to settings.ini to allow you to forcibly terminate litestep if you are having problems
  • Added Help.html in portableapp root
  • Added shortcuts to the tutorial in the popup and the lsxcommand
  • Made portableapps automatically be added as aliases to LSXCommand (E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe becomes "firefox")
  • Marked as beta

If you can find any issues, or have any problems at all, please post them here. atm, the only thing i think needs fixing is that the tutorial need to be finished. If you have feature requests, you can add those here to.

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September 6, 2009 - 4:33am
(Reply to #16)
pixellegolas
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Themes?

First of all let me congratulate you on this project. Looking forward to seing it complete.

So far I have had no problem with the program, I do however have questions regarding themes. Can we install themes manually for portable litestep? I wish to try it but don't know if it will work yet Smile

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September 30, 2009 - 1:05am
(Reply to #17)
crazy2be
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Sure

You can install themes manually like any other LiteStep distribution. LiteStep is portable in itself, however, external utilities (like the thememanager) are not. Also, this version will pick up on installed portable apps, and nicely integrates them.

I am no longer actively maintaining this, i have moved on to Linux. If anyone else wants to take over this project, e-mail me (crazy1be g m a i l.com). I forewarn you that the C++ code is messy, and written in pure WIN32API, as it was my first real project. Good luck to all!

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