;------------------------------------- ;-- macinus ereXtus - morpheusX ------ ;----- morpheus@wolf-web.com --------- ;---------- 25-MAY-1999 -------------- ;------------------------------------- ;---- Ported to DarkStep by ---------- ;---------- ßöß Wëll§ ---------------- ;------- bob@darkstep.com ------------ ;-------- 01-AUGUST-2000 ------------- ;------------------------------------- ====================================== Installing MaceXDS Under Windows 9x ====================================== These installation instructions assume: a. That this is your first DarkStep installation. b. That your Windows directory is the default "C:\Windows". c. That your applications path is "C:\Program Files\". If all of the above is true, then you can follow these instuctions step-by-step to have a fully functional DarkStep shell :) ====================================== Step One - Getting Started With the Installation: ------------------------------------------------- From within the explorer file manager, simply unzip the macexds.zip file to your C: drive. This will create the entire directory structure that matches the configuration file (step.rc) which is included. Step Two - Setting the Default Shell: ------------------------------------- Double-click on the DarkStep.exe (also from within your Explorer shell and file manager), which will bring up a dialog asking if you would like to make DarkStep your default shell; if you select "Yes" the system.ini file will be altered so that it points to the DarkStep executable, instead of explorer.exe, in the [boot] section's "shell=..." line. If you select "No" then there will be no alteration of the system.ini file, which means that you will either need to install\configure a shell switching utility or manually edit the system.ini file yourself (see Step Four). Step Three - Editing the Step.rc File: -------------------------------------- Since we are still using a few LiteStep modules it will be necessary to manually edit the step.rc file; eventaully this will all be taken care of through a Graphical Configuration Dialog, but DarkStep is still young {:-) In the C:\DarkStep directory you will find a file named "step.rc", select the file then, *while holding down the key*, right-click on the file; this will add an option to the popup menu called "Open with...". Select the "Open with..." option; a window will appear that will allow you to select which application should be used to open this type of file (.rc). Select Notepad (or whatever is your favorite text editor), then make sure the "Always use this application..." box is checked and click on "OK". Now that you have the step.rc file opened up in notepad, you will need to go through the file to make sure that all of the paths to your applications are correct. Your main area of interest here will be the shortcut section, since there are entries there that cannot reasonably be pre-entered for your system. Particularly, if you have Winamp and it *is not* located in your C:\Program Files\Winamp\ directory, you will have to manually change this path. There are also generic entries within the shortcut section where you can enter the paths to your particular application(s) of choice; just look for the "ALL_CAPS_TEXT" type of entries. EXAMPLE: *Shortcut "Dialup Connection" 50 0 a_dun1.bmp a_dun2.bmp .none #1TH "PATH_TO_YOUR_DUN_CONNECTION" You can change everything between the quotation marks to suit your individual application(s); in this case you would want to change "Dialup Connection" to whatever name you may have assigned to your Internet Service Provider Dialup Connection shortcut, and the "PATH_TO_YOUR_DUN_CONNECTION" to match the path to that entry in your Dial Up Networking settings. Use this same basic procedure to enter any other available title\path that may be appropriate for your configuration. Step Four - Manually Editing the System.ini File: ------------------------------------------------- If you have elected *not* to have DarkStep as your default shell *and* do not currently use a shell switching utility, go to your "Start" menu's "Run" dialog and type "sysedit"; this will bring up a window which will have all of your major Windows configuration files cascaded within. Select the system.ini window and browse down to the [boot] section. Under the [boot] heading you will find a "shell=explorer.exe" or "shell=c:\windows\explorer.exe" entry, just place a semi-colon (;) immediately *in front of* the "shell=" part of that line then hit "End" then "Enter" on your keyboard; this will start a new line. Now type: shell=C:\DarkStep\DarkStep.exe In fact, you can just copy\paste the above line directly into place to avoid a possible typographical error :) Now be sure to save these changes, then close the sysedit window. Now you're ready to reboot your machine; when it restarts, it will take you directly in to the DarkStep shell. *** IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ! *** IF, WHEN YOU REBOOT, YOU ENCOUNTER AN ERROR SCREEN TELLING YOU THAT WINDOWS WILL HAVE TO BE RE-INSTALLED DON'T PANIC! THIS MESSAGE ALMOST ALWAYS MEANS THAT THERE IS MERELY A TYPO IN THE SHELL= LINE IF THE SYSTEM.INI FILE OR THAT THE PATH IS INCORRECT. Simply re-boot once again then, AFTER the BIOS information screen and IMMEDIATELY when Windows starts to boot, hit the key and select "DOS Prompt Only" from the resulting menu. Once you have a DOS prompt ("C:\" on your screen) type "edit c:\windows\system.ini" then hit . Windows default DOS text editor will appear with the system.ini file already opened for you to edit. At this point you can either correct whatever the mistake was that caused the error OR you can simply place a semi-colon in front of the "shell=C:\DarkStep.DarkStep.exe" line then remove the semi-colon *from* in front of the previous line; once again making explorer your shell. Now press ++ then ++ to save then exit the editor. When you re-boot the machine you will go right back into the explorer shell and all will be as it was... Just retrace Step Four to find where the error is within the system.ini file, then do it again {:-) Step Five - Loading Modules and Setting the Image Path: ------------------------------------------------------- Once you are running under DarkStep you'll notice that there isn't much of *anything* on your desktop; again, don't panic {:-) The one thing that *will* be on your desktop is the DarkStep Console and, FYI, this is really all you need to do whatever you want! But, I don't imagine that you downloaded the MaceXDS theme because you prefer to run your system like this . So, let's install the modules and let DarkStep know where the graphic files are located! Right-click on any border of the DS Console to have a popup menu appear with the following optional selections: Configuration... Loaded Modules... Import Settings... Export Settings... About DarkStep Select the "Configuration..." option and a dialog will open that has three tabs: StartUp Modules Console On the first tab you'll want to make sure that the boxes are checked for "Auto load/unload modules on list changes", then click once one the elipse button (...) and browse to the C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\ directory and click "OK". Moving on to the "Modules" tab, click the "Add..." button and browse to the C:\DarkStep\modules\ directory; the first module you want to load is the "dsDesktop20.dll", as this is the mod that allows many of the other modules to work, so select it then click "Open" (or simply double-click on the mod:). You'll see the module listed in the Modules dialog window. Continue with this routine until you have all of the modules required by the MaceXDS theme installed and in the following order: dsDesktop20.dll LiteMAN.dll shortcut.dll Popup.dll tasks084.dll HOTKEY.DLL DSSysVWM.dll Chronos142.dll chimes.dll systray104.dll geekamp.dll You'll undoubtedly notice that, as you load the list of modules, things will begin to appear on your desktop :) If, in the course of loading the modules, DarkStep happens to crash (again, it *is* still a beta shell:), simply reboot and continue where you left off. I assure you that, once this process is completed, the shell will be stable and fun! Step Six - Console Configuration: --------------------------------- Now let's configure the DarkStep Console to match the MaceXDS theme... Go back into the configuration dialog (right-click on any border of the DS Console and select "Configuration...") and to the "Console" tab. Enter the following into each box, beginning with the top, left entry (you can play around with the settings later to better suit your personal preferences:): X=830 Width=200 Y=10 Height=35 Font=Arial Size=16 Skin=C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\CONSOLE.BMP Border: Left=20 Right=5 Top=5 Bottom=5 Text Color= (SEE BELOW) Background Color= (SEE BELOW) Check the boxes for: Draw Close Button, Word Wrap On and Auto-save position. Colors: You can click once on each color box to bring up a color selection panel, then select one of the available Custom Color boxes and enter the RGB code for the Text Color as: Red=192 Green=192 Blue=192 and click once on the "Add to Custom Colors" button. For the "Background Color" selection just choose Black :) Step Seven - Configuration of the PopUp Menu: --------------------------------------------- This theme currently makes use of the new DSPopUp 2.0ß3, which is a graphically configurable Popup menu! While you may well encounter a bug or two (it may even crash DarkStep itself:) while configuring the menu (hence the "ß3" nomenclature ), once you have it configured it should be quite stable {:-) Now, let's right-click once on any open area of the desktop... The popup menu will appear and will probably already list your Start Menu item(s) as a folder (e.g. if you mouse-over the item it will scroll out to expose other item(s0)\folder(s)), along with a "Configure Popups" selection... Selecting the "Configure Popups" item will bring up a graphical configuration dialog similar to what we used from the DarkStep Console {:-) On the first tab ("Settings 1") let's type in the popup title first, just copy\paste the following: m a c i n u s e r e X t u s And select Arial, 14 for the font; either by typing the information in or by using the ellipse button dialog. Now set the Title Text Color otion to white and the Normal Text Option to light gray (R192, G192, B192), then select "Custom" from the "Images" option and set "5" as the Delay. In the Title, Bottom, Normal and Selected dialogs enter the following paths: Title = C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\xbar1.bmp Bottom = C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\xbards.bmp Normal = C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\xbar2.bmp Selected = C:\DarkStep\themes\MaceXDS\images\xbar3.bmp Then enter: Title Height=20 Item Height=20 Minimum Width=150 Fixed Width=150 Text Offset=10 Icon Size=0 Since the MaceXDS theme Popup doesn't use icons within the menu, you can leave everything blank on the "Settings 2" tab and move right on to the "Menu" tab... And, bacause everyone's system may well be set up differently, I'll leave the configuration of the individual menu items to you and the DSPopUp menu documentation (included in this distribution). One thing I will comment on though; if you frequently make changes to your Start Menu then you will probably want to change the default "Type" option (last option on the "Menu" tab) from "Static Directory" to "Dynamic Directory :) This will cause the Start Menu item to "dynamically" refresh itself so that as you make changes to your Start Menu (or any other folder that you create and select this option) the changes will be reflected immediately, instead of needing to "Refresh" the popup module or restart your system... ==================================================== ========= NT\Windows 2000 Installation ============= ==================================================== Installation on NT and Windows 2000 is the same as for Windows9x *except* the shell changing routine; it is strongly recommended that you either: PREFERRED - Install a shell managing utility, such as LiteSpawn or one of several others available from various sources. or Select the option to have DarkStep set as your default shell. or Manually edit your registry to use the DarkStep shell. MaceXDS Theme Usage: -------------------- This is a very complete them that, once you get used to it, is really quite nice a ultimately functional {:-) While the shortcut images *may* take a while to get used to, after a short while you'll notice that you don't really have to think about whic icon opens what program, etc.. The theme is also *very* compact in its use of desktop real estate, as most of the graphics are combined into shortcut "groups" that are easily hidden with one click of the mouse! I've purposely left the system tray a bit large to accomodate all of the icons that I usually have running; the try itself will accomodate approximately 16 icons :) Alterations From the Original LiteStep MaceX Theme: --------------------------------------------------- Among the changes that I've made to the original theme are: Replaced the LSTime module with Chronos. Disabled the LSMail module, but left the graphic in-place (for those who may wish to use that module). Re-worked a few of the graphics to better "fit" DarkStep :) Added three applications\utilities (freely distributed freeware) to enhance system functionality. Chronos - The display of this module can be placed (and will fit nicely) into the upper right corner of the desktop and, with repeated right-clicks, will display the time, date and system uptime. I'll leave the add-on applications\utilities to you to discover and make use of {:-) Screen Settings: ---------------- While I could have just exported the setting as a .reg file, its now just as easy to type them in and let you make the entries since Win2K uses reg5 binary registry entries and Win9x\NT still use reg4 . You can go into Display Properties' Appearance tab and set custom colors to match the theme by setting the: "Desktop" color to "Custom" then type in (Red)038 (Green)092 (Blue)119 "3D Objects" color to (Red)148 (Green)148 (Blue)148 and font to Black "Active Title Bar" color to (Red)024 (Green)057 (Blue)074 and Color 2 to (Red)076 (Green)181 (Blue)232 and Font to Arial, White, 8pt. Bold "Inactive Title Bar" color to (Red)097 (Green)097 (Blue)097 and color 2 to (Red)192 (Green)192 (Blue)192 and font to Arial, light gray, 8pt. Bold "Window" color to (Red)242 (Green)242 (Blue)242 and font to Black Known Issues: ------------- The !VWMRollup !bang command is currently broken , so the "VWM" buttons will only work to *expose* the VWM; not to also hide it as was the original design. Hopefully this issue will be fixed with an upcoming DarkStep release :) Popup menu configuration is still a bit troublesome in that it is known to completely crash the shell and *may* have some problems with actaully saving new settings accurately. ==================================================== ==================== CREDITS ======================= ==================================================== First and foremost: Fahim Farook for creating such a nice shell replacement for us all to play with!!! MorpheusX - MASTER theme creator, for creating the original MaceX theme, then allowing us to do with it as we wish! All of the module authors for freely giving us these great(!) modules that are so flexible, configurable, stable, etc. SuS for sending in the 1600.bmp for running the theme at 1600x1200 resolution :) Contact: -------- ßöß Wëll§ bob@mswebdesign.com http://www.darkstep.com/