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  XSWEEKLY Shell Related News 06.01.01 - 12.01.01
 -------------------------------------------------

	Some amazing things have been happening lately.  It seems that
a lot of large companies are finally starting to see the light when
it comes to shells and even skinning programs.  Real Player, Microsoft,
etc.. have started to add skinning ability to their programs and even
their os.  What an amazing step.  It seems like just yesterday that
skinz.org was opened and efx was the talk of the town.  LiteStep was
finally growing out of its infancy and geOShell was around the corner.

	While skinning and even the idea of having a more visual
shell is great to see in these main stream programs, I don't know 
how great that is us.  If MS get's it right, programs like Illumination
and WB will be pointless.  Who would need a program to skin Windows
if it can do it correctly itself?

	Now I don't think that shells will be affected all that much.
Windows would have to have some extremely dramatic changes for it to
even come close to competing with any shell out there right now.
The only thing that I worry about is that they will make it nearly
impossible to run a shell within windows.  Once Microsoft sees something
as a threat, they attack it viciously and take huge steps to protect
what they believe is their's.

	I really hope that something like that doesn't happen.  Having
shells as an alternative makes working on my computer all the less
painful.

- demigod

  ----------
 [ Mail Bag ]
  ----------

  This weeks mailbag question is:

  Would you attend a Shell Conference?

  e-mail - mailbag@xsweely.com
  url - http://www.xsweekly.com/mail.html

  -----------
 [ Spotlight ]
  -----------

- nikon.cm.nu

  The idea of this site is to be a repository for programming, art
  work, screen shots, and photo's.  The database is all user submitted
  and they are hoping that it will grow to be another great community
  site.
  
  url - http://nikon.cm.nu

  -------------------
 [ Shell Of The Week ]
  -------------------

- SharpOS

  This is an interesting shell that I have had the past privilege of
  beta testing.  While it is not available for public consumption yet,
  it soon will be.  Although it is not as modular as LiteStep is, 
  it is still a very nice and stable shell.  As of right now it
  includes a popup, launch bar with a bunch of options, VWM, systray,
  gui config, and a bunch of other stuff.
  
  http://www.lowdimension.net

 .................................................
               -= Shell Specific =-
 .................................................

  ---------
 [ Modules ]
  ---------

- mmsupport 0.2b ~ Message (9:55 08.01 ls)

	This module is for multiple monitor support.  You must be
	running the January 1st build or later for this to work.
	
	url - http://www.mindjunction.com/message/
	e-mail - message@litestep.net
	(source: LS Mailing List ~ New Module....)

                           +-------<*>-------+

- LSBox 2.2 ~ Black Hawk (10:11 08.01 ls)

	"LsBox is a Litestep loadmodule that allows the creation of 
	freefloating and skinnable "Boxes" that can be used to 
	generate custom messageboxes, Floating Menues and Dialogs."
	
	New in this version:
	
	- {Shortcuts}Added support for ShortCutgroups to LsBox.
	  !LsBoxGroupShow/Hide/Toggle it's all there ;).
	- {Bangs}Added a !LsBoxToggle Bang.
	- {Boxes}LsBox won't close on Alt-F4 anymore (request).
	- {Lsbox}Fixed a hole in the LsBoxDestroy Function. This
	  should have caused crashes .
	- {LsBox}I moved all the Bangs to a separate file.

	url - http://floach.pimpin.net/blkhawk/
	e-mail - blkhawk@blkhawk.de
	(source: http://floach.pimpin.net/blkhawk/)

                           +-------<*>-------+

- LSPanels Alpha 12 ~ Figbash (9:34 10.01 ls) 

	A newcomer to the mod scene, Figbash, has a pretty neat
	module out. LSPanels is for making panels. They are moveable,
	hideable, skinable, and can be any shape or size. Good for
	making gnome style panels, app launchers, and almost an
	unlimited number of other, useful things.

	url - http://www.ls2k.org
	e-mail - Nostrildamus@hotmail.com
	(source: yogib3ar via irc)

                           +-------<*>-------+

- LSGradWall ~ galois (9:36 10.01 ls)

	galois, famed coder of LS Theme Selector, has put out another
	interesting module. This module can create gradient wall
	papers and was originally coded to test his gradient engine.
	It might just be eyecandy, but it's pretty neat.
 
	url - http://floach.pimpin.net/galois
	e-mail - galois@chungkuo.net
	(source: rootrider via irc)

  -----------
 [ Web Sites ]
  -----------

- LSD4P up and moves ~ _why ( 10:54 13.01 ls)

	More movement of sites.  This time its _why moving his Disto
	page on over to litestep.com.  He has decided to leave
	the :Pigeon project at its old home to hold the fort.
	
	url - http://why.litestep.com
	e-mail - whytheluckystiff@mailcity.com
	(source: http://lsd4p.dx0.org) 

  ----------
 [ Programs ]
  ----------

- TweakgUI ~ Vishk (11:32 09.01 geo)

	This is a small program to change registry settings for
	geOShell without having to hand hack the registry.
	
	New in this version:
	
	- Updated the Settings for the latest beta.
	- Added the configuration for the geOTasks Plugin.
	- The Transluscency option has been improved,  Settings now
	  stick around & are how they should be.
	- Small (cosmetic) fixes in the Hotkey Section.
	- Multiple user Shell settings has been added.
	 (WinNT / Win2K only)

	url - http://vish.htmlplanet.com/geoshell/
	e-mail - Vishk@Rediffmail.com
	(source: http://vish.htmlplanet.com/geoshell/)

  ------
 [ Misc ]
  ------

- LSD4P 1.2 ~ _why (9:57 08.01 ls)

	_why has put out yet another version of his LiteStep
	distro.  This new package has some new themes, a new
	installer, and :Pigeon 0.4.
	
	url - http://lsd4p.dx0.org
	e-mail - whytheluckystiff@mailcity.com
	(source: http://lsd4p.dx0.org)

  ---------------
 [ Latest Builds ]
  ---------------

- LiteStep
     o 24.6 build 010201
     o http://builds.litestep.net/builds/ls-0246-dev-20010102.zip

- geOShell
     o 4.6.5a
     o http://news.geoshell.com/Plugins/Download/geoshellr465a.zip

- PureLS
     o 052900
     o http://209.46.69.134/purels/binaries/00-05-29r.zip

 .................................................
               -= Alt OS Specific =-
 .................................................

  ------
 [ Misc ]
  ------

- SEAL App Step by Step Tutorial ~ Bad Seal (11:27 08.01 sel)

	"I wrote a tutorial that describes step-by-step the creation
	of a simple SEAL application. It is about 14 pages printed
	(A4) and contains a lot of source code. Also at the end is
	the source code for a telephone book program (like a data
	base). You will find it with the sources in .c format for
	testing at www.badseal.org/ in a single ZIP file (13K)."
	
	url - http://www.badseal.org
	e-mail - michalopoylos@hotmail.com
	(source: http://pub8.ezboard.com/bsealsystem)

                           +-------<*>-------+

- SEAL Goodies ~ Ant (13:22 08.01 sel)

	Looks as if Ant has set up a shop over at Cafe Press and has
	some SEAL goods on display.  You can buy a t-shirt, coffee
	mug, and a mouse pad.  Pretty cool stuff, but where is the
	case badge??
	
	url - www.cafepress.com/pmad
	(source: http://pub8.ezboard.com/bsealsystem)

  ---------------
 [ Latest Builds ]
  ---------------

- SEAL
     o 1D (042900)
     o http://www.home.sk/public/seal/sealexe.zip

- V2_OS
     o 0.70
     o ftp://vp.dyn.dhs.org/0.70/v2_os.img

- AtheOS
     o 0.3.0
     o http://www.atheos.cx/download/list.php3?0.3.0

....................................

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