Litestep discussion, themes, troubleshooting, etc

[Azuremen]

Well, I ran a search over the forum and the last thread that directly discussed anything Litestep related was two years old, and the "who uses litestep" thread over 3 years old.

So new place to discuss, and maybe compile a FAQ and resource for those of use that like making things overly complex at times for that unique factor (without bothering with Ubuntu)

For those of you that are not familiar with Litestep, I would call it a customization tool. However, do not confuse it with a simple skinning application, as it replaces the Explorer shell with the Litestep version, changing much of how Windows operates. So you can have event handlers, completely different menu setups, and so on. Its quite nice if you like to tweak things to work just how you like to think, and have the look how you want. Downside is bugs come up, and some tweaking of code (Relatively simple code though) is needed at times. For those that just want a pretty startbar and windows, stick with WindowsBlinds, StyleXP, or whatever floats your boat.

Currently, at home, I am fiddling with getting a theme called Obsidian up and running. Having some issues because another theme I installed went crazy and edited some code regarding icons, creating some trouble... 50 error messages, though the theme still worked. I'll get screens up when I get it all running smoothly. Has a handy bit for dual display users I have found.

Pages I am using for reference right now are as follow...

http://www.ls-universe.info/news.php - where I got my installer and current core from

http://www.litestep.net/ - another handy site, been using for the icon error stuff

http://www.nbi-studio.com/news.php - have the skin I grabbed and a bit more support for it.

So, talk Litestep stuff. Where do you get themes, problems, trouble shooting, etc.

EDIT/Update



Current look of my desktop, running the Obsidian them. Got it working after doing a reinstall of LiteStep. Theme to avoid is "complex-simplicity", caused me a headache with missing file data.

Update:
Realized "ctrl + alt + f1" brings up a small option list that is handy if things aren't working quite right. The key one being "Recycle Litestep" which is handy if something is just not working quite right and you don't want to restart.

 

[Eric.]

How stable is this? Any problems with crashing or anything like that? Much of a resource hog?

Just wondering as I may install it on my Compaq to play around with as it is primarily a Ubuntu system right now.

 

[Azuremen]

Its fairly stable, though stability also depends on the theme you are running and the modules it uses. I used Omars 3.0.2 installer, and someone tried a different installer and had some issues. The Obsidian theme is being quite stable, though I did have SCVHOST.exe issues, with it eating up 100% of the CPU, but running some spyware checks and such seems to have resolved it (This was just random spyware, nothing related to litestep itself it seemed).

Resource wise, its not a hog at all. Even with all the integrated goodies, the weather checker, calender and media controls, I was maybe using 10 megs more ram than I would running normal windows.

Worse comes to worse, being that it stops responding (Litestep) you can CTRL + ALT + DEL, end process "litestep.exe" and then WINkey + E to get Windows explorer up and navigate to the control panel to uninstall litestep, then just reboot from the task manager and everything should be fine.

I know Toyomatt use to use Litestep, not sure anymore though.

 

[zoxxy]

I know Toyomatt use to use Litestep, not sure anymore though.

I used to aswell. But Linux got the better of me. I'm kinda wanting to trying it again though...

 

[Danoff]

I used to fool around with Litestep in college. It's a good program but not for the faint of heart. I never did end up with a theme I really liked.

 

[zoxxy]

Requesting foobar-implemention information, over.

 

[Azuremen]

All righty Basically, all I did was add a component called "Winamp API Emulator" to Foobar...

Which I believe can be found here (I am not quite sure where I got from back a few months ago)
http://chron.visiondesigns.de/foobar2000/#foo_winamp_spam

Its also called foo_winamp_spam (Don't know why)

Just install that and launch Foobar... anything in Litestep that normally looks for Winamp to manage will instead use that. It will also work with other "remotes" for winamp, if I recall correctly.

 

[zoxxy]

Awesome, works flawlessly!

 

[zoxxy]

Bumpidy.

So, in the obsidian intro it says that I can change the location of my documents, and that would be really useful for me, so if could tell me how/where, that would be great.


Cheers

 

[Azuremen]

I don't know actually...

I should probably find out, as that would be handy for me as well! :goofy:

 

[DQuaN]

You can change the location using windows if you like.

 

[zoxxy]

You can change the location using windows if you like.

How?

 

[DQuaN]

Open my computer, right click on My Documents on the left hand side, select properties.

Then move it.

 

[zoxxy]

Oooohh, nice! Thanks man, this was really useful!

 

[DQuaN]

Be careful though. Sometimes it can screw up and leave you with folders you can't delete.

As I have found out!

 

[boiltheocean]

Sorry to bring up and extremely dead thread but I've been looking over Litestep for a few months now and always decided against using it. Can any of you that still use it give me a few answers.

1. How easy was it for you to switch from Explorer to whatever Litestep theme your using?
2. Is Litestep easy to install and kill incase all goes wrong?
3. What exactly does Litestep change? ie. Start Menu or Folder Structure
4. Any continuous bugs you've found?
5. How do you find navigation within themes?

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm not planning on running the Obsidian theme as I don't really like the look of it but this looks really nice.

EDIT 2: Tried it out and didn't like it. Modules didn't work and the whole thing took up too much screen real estate to fit in. Until someone like Kaelri (Made Enigma Skin for Rainmeter) makes a really tiny theme I don't think I'll bother again.

EDIT 3: I found a really nice theme called Mire. I'm really not switching back to Windows Taskbar now.