Litestep looking lovely

Ever since I visited my first skin site, originally looking for wallpapers, I’d been captivated by Litestep themes.

It was the completely co-ordinated, customised desktop, with a certain techy look to it that drew me to the Litestep screenshots. They were all so different, and yet they all seemed to have this certain techy elegance to them that I adored. Many had simple lines, slim, elegant borders, with subtle but oh-so-effective shading, and there was not one single hint of the default windows look to be seen.

I’ve always been one to do things differently. Let’s face it, that desire is at the heart of every skinner. How many of us carry on our passion for customisation into our clothes, our living spaces, our lifestyle even? Yet after a few weeks on the messageboards I had developed this belief that there was something even more different about the average Stepper. Perhaps it was that code with which they talked, referring constantly to their step.rc file and talking about builds not working with some modules… it all seemed terribly complicated compared to the "What skin are you using?" questions the average windowblind user might have.

So I resisted the urge to jump in and try out Litestep straight away. But I was still drawn to those sections, and would visit Litesteps .net and .com once in a while to gasp at the latest themes. I saw many visitors to message boards in shock when after installing Litestep their system had told them that they needed to re-install windows. I saw, many, many times the same newbies being told the first rule of Litestep was RTFM. (Read the effing manual). It is also the second, third, and fourth rule.

So what is Litestep anyway? Well, it’s an alternative shell. For more on shells refer to last issues article, but for now just think of this, the shell is what launches and manages your programs. In windows, the default shell is explorer (not Windows Explorer the file manager, but explorer.exe). Explorer consists mainly of the Start menu, and desktop icons for launching your programs, and the systray and task bar for managing currently running programs. This is a very basic simplification, please refer to the article above for more.

In Litestep, the possibility for launching programs and managing them is almost endless, mainly because of the way it is built. The actual file Litestep.exe does little on it’s own, as it is the associated modules, or .dll files that affect how the shell completes it’s tasks. And as for Litestep modules, well, there are hundreds, and new ones still appear fairly regularly. Included in the basic distribution are 10 modules, regarded as core modules. That is, you will find them, or replacements for them in nearly every Litestep theme. Let me describe them for you, in the form

generic name: core module, alternative third party modules: typical functions (dependant on exact module).

Desktop: desktop2.dll, jadesk.dll : sets the desktop size, primarily for setting the area occupied by maximised windows.

Command: command.dll, lsxcommand.dll: A skinnable command line. Execute lots of Litestep specific commands form here.

Popup: popup2.dll: Acts like an extremely powerful windows start menu. Completely customisable in terms of content, appearance, position on the desktop etc etc. This is generally the main way of launching programs.

Taskbar: tasks.dll: Replaces your windows taskbar. (In a funkily skinnable way, of course).

Systray: systray2.dll: Simply replaces your windows sytray.

Clock: lstime.dll, chronos.dll: Guess what - it's a clock!

Shortcut: shortcut2.dll textshortcuts.dll: Again, a more skinnable version of the default windows desktop shortcuts, including the ability t add sounds on execution, and substituting .bmp's for .ico's.(with 255,0,255 transparency supprt). Textshortcuts.dll allows you to have text as shortcuts, no images.

Hotkey: hotkey.dll: Assign your own hotkeys to various windows and litestep functions.

Wharf: wharf.dll: Not as common in LS themes at the moment, a wharf is basically a launchbar, simialir to the quicklaunch bar icons in win98 and up.

Vwm: vwm.dll: Virtual Window Manager. Ever wished you had more desktop space, without compromising your eyesight? A vwm gives you several desktops, generally four. To elaborate, say you have your graphics program full screen, but want quick access to say, your browser or media player, simply open your graphics program, switch desktops, open your browser and media player, and just one click will take you between the two desktops. If you still don't get it, all I can say is, you need to try one to get the most from them :-).

Other common modules are skinnable interface for controlling media players (geekamp is the most widely used of these) winamp, and a resource monitor.

For a full list, check http://www.shellfront.org/modules-list.php or http://www.ls2k.org/modules.php

Done that? Good.

OK, so you've seen what it looks like, you have a basic idea of how it works… now the bad news.

Configuring Litestep is, at best, time consuming, and at worst, a pain in the arse, as some third party modules conflict with other modules, or even with some builds of the litestep executable itself. Such however, is the nature of an open source project, with nmany different developers working independantly on their own projects, conflicts are going to occur, and many users will say that getting the dll's working is part of the fun of setting up a litestep theme. This is one reason why many litestep themes include the litestep executable itself. It's always best to install the theme as it comes, out of the box, and then tweak it to your own satisfaction.

The configuration file for Litestep is the step.rc file. In this file are all the vital information for the modules, telling them which images to use, and what properties that module should have, and what options are turned on or off. It may help to think of the step.rc file as one big .ini files for every module. Crucially, the step.rc file also contains the paths to all your programs.

And this is where the litestep configuration system becomes potentially troublesome. Because not everybody has all the same programs installed, and not evrybody has installed programs to the same place, each user has to input their own paths and programs, favourite websites into the step.rc. And because each theme will have a differnet step.rc, that information needs inputting in each time. To put it bluntly, if you can't stand fiddling about in text files, then Litestep is probably not for you.

Fortunately there are things oyu can do to cut down on the amountof work involved. Those of you with any intelligence whatsoever will have realised that you could just keep a text file with all your personal paths and preferences in, and sinmply copy this into the ste.rc of each new theme you download. This can also be taken a step further (excuse the pun) and you can actually construct your preferred lmenu layouts, paths etc into a "local.rc" file, which you can then point to in the themes step.rc's.

Of course, part of the reason why Litestep is so popular is in part due to the configuration. It is infinitely customisable, allowing the user to hide almost all the modules, if so desired, maximising workspace and showing off your spiffy wallpaper. Take a look at some of BlackIce's themes for good examples of this. Other's like having shortcuts buried in their wallpaper… Long-term Litestep user Boxxi likes the fact the he can place stuff in a specific place - ." I personally don't like the new trend of having everything resolution independent, I LIKE the shortcuts built into the wallpaper, and the hidden mouseovers. I'm also still enthralled by the fact that my wallpaper is actually interactive!"

I doubt any two people out there run a theme with an identical step or local.rc, and this is half of the fun, and half of the pain, of Litestep. I spoke with two Litestep users, one of whom said that his step.rc was very simple, and required little changing between themes, and another who said he spent a lot of time in his step.rc, and that "a well-designed step.rc file is a work of art in itself, and is infinitely more important than the colour of your popup title font or whatever".

So, besides the good looks, why else might you want to use Litestep? Well, it claims to allow your programs to launch faster. I tested this by timing how long Gimp took to launch (from the time I hit enter from the command line, to the time all dialogues were fully displayed) immediately after a clean boot on my P3 450Mhz Win95 box. The results are as follows:

In explorer, from the Run prompt: 19.3 secs

In Litestep, from lsxcommand: 18.2 secs

Now, my little not terribly technical brain, tells me that 1 second is a fairly big differnece in computer speed stakes, and on my P100 (yes, P100) at home, the results were even more marked (don't have them to hand though - oops!). And I have to say, things did generally feel faster when running Litestep. If speed is important, and RAM at a premium, it might be worth checking out. Some themes are optimised for speed.

Finally, I'm going to touvch on one of the most important things. Installing litestep, and the iinfamous "you need to reinstall windows" message.

Installing Litestep is essnetially simple. If you're not going down the lsd4p route, you simply download a theme you like (try ang get one that touts itself as easy to set set up, and either resolution independent, or the same res as your current desktop), extract the zip to a directory (normally C:\Litestep) and then do the tricky bit.

Open your C:\Windows\System.ini file in your text editor, or type "sysedit" without the quotes in your run dialogue box. Scroll down to the shell=explorer.exe line and replace with the FULL path of your litestep.exe file. It will probably thenr ead shell=C:\Litestep\litestep.exe.

"What's so tricky about that?" you say. Well, one typo, or spelling mistake, or misplaced space or wrong direction slash, will cause windows to be unable to find the shel, and tell you that you need to reinstall windows. You'll then have to boot into dos, type "Edit C:\Windows\System.ini" without the quotes, and corrcet the line from there. It's always best to keep a backup of your system.ini file, and to check, double check and triple check the shell= line before saving and closing your system.ini file. A shell manager, like Litespawn, will automate this job for you, and take out some of the hassle.

If you like then funky look of Litestep screenshots, have plenty of time to spare, and/or need a bit of a speed boost, you may well find Litestep useful. You must be prepared to put in the time reading and fiddling with all your config file. Don't expect to get it up and running in five minutes flat.

People do complain about the stability of Litestep… some builds are more stable than others, and there seems to me, to be little consensus as to which is the most stable. If you have problems, read the documentation in the theme, at the urls given at the top and bottome of the article, in #ls2k, or contact the developer of the module that seems to be causing trouble, or the lsdev team themselves.

Here's some more links which you will may helpful in configuring litestep: (thanks rootrider!)

SITES

THEMES

CONTACT

TUTORIALS

Many many thanks to Jafo, Boxxi, tronn, rootrider and everyone in #lshelp, who have all contributed to this article in some way or another :).