What's New? Highlighted Features:

• Speed! Rendering performance is now an order of magnitude faster. Animated icons render 20-30 times faster and the combination of magnify with other mouseover effects should now work well even on slow systems.





• Smooth transitions when moving, adding or removing items in docks and the Shelf.
• Based on the existing Water Ripple effect, the new RainDrop effect turns a dock or Shelf into a liquid surface where rain drops fall continuously, with a soothing matching audio. The frequency of the rain can be set and the audio turned on or off.
• New Burn, Grayscale and Fireworks mouseover/launch/attention effects (Burn effect displayed below).



• Fixed incompatibility with some ObjectDock v2 dock themes.
• Dock icon labels can now have a solid color background with optional outline and automatic colorization.
• Optional icon drop shadows.





• Dock and Shelf activation hotkeys can now act as a toggle: use once to show, again to hide.
• Always-on-top docks can now be set to hide automatically when a window is maximized.
• Color hot-track for particle effects (colorizes effect with the icon's dominant color).





• Improved organization and functionality of the right-click context menus in the Shelf.
• Improved right click context menus now make it a lot easier to modify the contents of NextSTART menus.





• The fish version of the Wanda widget just got a new face, and it can be colorized too!
• You can now use animated icons to 'skin' the fish style of the Wanda widget.
• The desktop version of Wanda can now swim across your desktop - and it will try to run away from your mouse pointer too! Have fun playing catch to get her to display a fortune cookie...





• The dock clock module tooltip now also displays the time.
• The dock weather module tooltip now also displays current sky and weather conditions.
• Email Checker widget now supports checking Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts.





• Restored the Weather.com (Weather Channel) feed.
• Added 14 new weather icons for a more accurate weather visualization.
• Clicking the weather widget in a dock now pops up the 5 day forecast in a sub-dock.





• New dock auto-hide animations: 'Fade Out', 'Fly Out', 'Burn', 'Flair' and 'Implode'.
• Added alternative 'Fade In','Fly Out','Burn', 'Flair' and 'Expand' sub-dock opening animations.
• Improved support for touch screens by adding settings to change the sensitivity of screen edge bumps.
• Added work-around to a driver bug that caused Xtreme not to operate properly on laptops with hybrid Intel/nVidia graphic chipsets.





• Collapsing the Shelf by clicking the label of the active tab behavior can now be disabled.
• Colors of the 3D Frame around the icons in the Shelf can now be specified by the user.
• Added customizable 'Launch' and 'Attention' effects to the Shelf.
• In-Shelf docks can now be set to open horizontally as well as vertically.





• Folder, Desktop and Documents Shelf tabs can now be sorted by Name, Type, Date or Size.
• Added option to lock the Shelf and prevent it from being moved.
• Xtreme can now reserve screen space on all monitors (previously only objects in the primary monitor of a multi-monitor system could prevent maximized windows from overlapping them).
• Sub-docks no longer extend onto reserved screen areas.
• ... and much more! Please see complete change log below...

WorkShelf v12.2 complete change log:

• Updated German language file.
• Updated Dutch language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated Portuguese (Brazil) language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• Added 'Launch Effect' and 'Attention Effect' sub-menus to the right click context menu of the Nexus control icon.
• The Shelf now obeys an auto-hide setting of 'Collapse the Shelf immediately after launching an application' when left clicking items in a Tasks or Tray tab. Same for a Sticky tab.
• Added customizable 'Launch' and 'Attention' effects to the Shelf.
• Moved the 'Shift icons to make room for new entry when dropping items into the shelf' setting from the Effects tab to the Advanced dialog of the Behavior tab in Shelf Properties.
• Changed the display of 'Dock Tiles' in the Themes tab of the Dock Properties panel so more tiles are visible at one time.
• Added ability to scroll the list of dock tiles using the mouse wheel.
• Improved the icon rendering algorithm for mouseover dock effects, as icons with very high refresh rates would still occasionaly crop part of the effect on neighbor icons.
• Added color hot-tracking to dock and Shelf particle animation effects.
• Added 'Launch Effect' and 'Attention Effect' sub-menus to the right click context menu of the Shelf left mini-tab.
• Also added 'Hide Windows Taskbar' setting to the Tasks tab in Preference.
• Changed Tab and Shelf item and right click menus so that the main Shelf context menu (previously only available by right clicking the left mini-tab) is now available from these context menus as well.
• Restored the Weather.com feed by using the XML feed instead of the XOAP feed.
• Sub-docks no longer extend onto reserved screen areas.
• The application should no longer hang when forcing itself into the foreground if the current foreground window is hung.
• Added a 'Default' button to the Fluid Surface and Fluid Reflection setting dialogs, which resets the settings to default.
• Magnification effect can now span a single icon.
• Magnification Effect Settings dialog has been updated.
• Fine tuned the icon reflection effect so it always starts at least 50% transparent regardless of the reflection size and increased the quality of the reflection itself.
• Added optional icon drop shadows.
• The labels of icons in the dock can now have an optional balloon background, which can be colorized by the user or set to colorize automatically based on the dominant color of the current dock background.
• The dock background colorization setting, previously found in the Themes tab of the Dock Properties dialog, now also appears in the Appearances tab for convenience and logical organization.
• Improved the drawing performance by using PixelFormat32bppPARGB instead of PixelFormat32bppARGB (Pre-multiplied ARGB is faster than ARGB).
• Re-organized the Shelf's context menus so that the Tabs menu is also accessible from everywhere.
• Folder type tabs in the Shelf can now be sorted by Name, Type, Size or Date.
• The tooltip of the Weather module now displays the source of the information (NOOA, Weather Channel, MSN, Google).
• Added final bounce effect to the animation of a dock sliding from the screen edge.
• The Launch effect animation now still plays even if the dock is set to hide automatically on launch.
• Clicking on a sub-dock icon now also plays the Launch Effect animation for that icon.
• When inserting an item into a tiled dock via drag & drop, the insertion point no longer is a blank tile.
• Added 'raise' effect which plays when an item is added to the dock.
• The image of the 'animated fish' style of the Wanda module can now be colorized.
• Different images can now be used to customize the 'Animated fish' and 'Fortune cookie' styles of the Wanda module.
• Added 'Swim' and 'Stop Swiming' actions to the context menu of the Wanda desktop module. When 'Swim' is enabled Wanda will now swim across the monitor it has been placed on and will try to run away from the mouse pointer.
• Added option to lock the Shelf and prevent it from being moved to the Behavior tab of the Shelf Properties dialog.
• Added new 'Edge Bump Settings' button and dialog to the Behavior tab of the Dock and Shelf Properties dialogs.
• The user can now set the distance from a screen edge that will still trigger an edge bump. This setting should be very helpful when using a touch screen.
• Top screen edge bumps can now be optionally ignored if within the button area of a maximized window. Useful to minimize triggering an accidental edge bump when closing, restoring or minimizing a maximized window.
• The Desktop and Documents Shelf tab types can now also be sorted by Name, Type, Date or Size.
• Added 'Behavior' tab to the Dock Properties dialog of in-Shelf docks.
• The auto-hide delay slider now displays the current delay in milliseconds.
• 'Auto-Hide' and 'Collapse on Launch' are now independent Shelf settings, with the later setting appearing in the Advanced dialog of the Behavior tab in the Shelf Properties dialog.
• The 'Always open folders as menus' setting has been moved for the Advanced dialog of the Behavior tab in the Dock and Shelf Properties dialogs.
• The open In-Shelf Dock mouse over settings have been moved from the Advanced behavior dialog to it's own 'Sub-Docks' dialog.
• If the user specifies a edge bump as the activation method for a dock, this activation method overrides the default one, i.e.; a hidden dock attached to the top edge of the screen is usually made visible by bumping the top screen edge. If the user specifies another screen edge as the activation method, bumping the top screen edge will now do nothing.
• Added 'Activation acts as a toggle (shows if hidden, hides if visible)' setting to the Behavior tab of the dock and Shelf properties panels.
• Renamed 'Activate dock when the mouse pointer bumps screen edge' setting to 'Popup dock when the mouse pointer bumps screen edge' and moved it to the Advanced Behavior dialog.
• Added bounce effect to the end of Shelf uncollapse animation.
• The bounce effect at the end of the Shelf uncollapse and the dock slide animations now automatically adjusts itself to make up for slow systems.
• The Shelf collapse and uncollapse animations now accelerate and deccelerate.
• The right mini-tab symbol is now flipped vertically if the Shelf is inverted.
• By default, clicking the label of the active tab collapses an expanded Shelf. Added option to disable this behavior to the Shelf's Advanced Behavior Settings dialog.
• Colors of the 3D Frame around the icons in the Shelf can now be specified in the Appearence tab of the Shelf Properties dialog.
• Added 'Auto-Hide for maximized applications' setting to the Position tab of the Dock Properties dialog. When enabled, a dock set to always on top will automatically hide when a window is maximized.
• Added alternative 'Fade Out','Fly Out','Burn', 'Flair' and 'Implode' dock collapse and uncollapse animations to the Behavior tab of the Dock Properties dialog.
• Added option to disable the uncollapse/unhide animation 'boing' effect.
• Added a 'zoom out' effect to the deleted icon when you delete a dock item.
• Moving items around the dock is now smoother.
• The dock clock module tooltip now also displays the time.
• The dock weather module tooltip now also displays current sky and weather conditions.
• Backgrounds of dock icon labels can now be outlined.
• Wanda in swim mode is now a little bit more random, sometimes pausing for a while or changing direction.
• Wanda in swim mode now stops moving when a context menu or balloon tooltip is open.
• Added alternative 'Fade In','Fly Out','Burn', 'Flair' and 'Expand' sub-dock opening animations.
• Clicking the weather module icon now opens the weather forecast in a sub-dock.
• In-Shelf docks can now be set to open vertically or horizontally.
• Added three new weather icons for Windy, Freezing and Hot.
• The left mini-tab Prefs symbol is now automatically flipped vertically in inverted Shelves.
• Added 'Burn' mouseover, launch and attention effect.
• The Grayscale effect can now also be used as the Launch and Attention effects.
• Magic, Teleport and Water effects are now persistent on mouseover, i.e.; the effect keeps playing while the mouse pointer is over the icon.
• Improved weather descriptions of the MSN Weather feed.
• Added new weather icons to complete the standard weather icon set.
• Added 'reserve screen space' support to all monitors in a multi-monitor system.
• Added 'raise' effect to the Shelf which plays when a new item is added.
• Added optional icon drop shadows to icons in the Shelf.
• Icons in the Shelf now smoothly move to occupy the space of a deleted icon.
• Moving items around the Shelf is now more smooth too.
• Added new 'Fireworks' mouseover/launch/attention effect.
• Added RainDrops effect. Based on the existing Water Ripple effect, RainDrops turns a dock or shelf into a liquid surface where rain drops fall continuously, with matching audio. The frequency of the rain can be set in the 'Water Ripple Settings' dialog and the audio can be turned on or off.
• The fish style of the Wanda module can now be customized with an animated icon.
• The Email Checker module now supports Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts again, i.e.; any email account requiring a SSL encrypted connection.
• Size of the desktop Wanda image when swiming can now be independently set.
• Replaced the text boxes with sliders in the Wanda Settings panel.
• Particle mouseover effects now render about 3 times faster.
• Improved rendering speed on docks when combining the magnify effect with mouseover effects that extend beyond each icon (such as the particle effects, Swing, etc...).
• Raindrop effect for the Shelf no longer plays if the Shelf is collapsed.
• Configuration settings for modules on a dock now appear always on top if the dock is also always on top.
• The Update Manager can now install updated Language Packs when there is an update to the language file of the user's currently selected language.
• If a Wanda cookie is set to display automatically after a certain amount of time and the Wanda desktop module is closed, the cookie will now pop up next to a Wanda module in the dock (if any).
• When the Wanda desktop module is set to 'Swim mode', the right click context menu will now allow you to set the icon size of the Wanda image without having to go to Wanda Settings.
• Modules can now be customized like other icons by dropping an .ICO, .PNG or .TIF file directly into then. Exceptions are the Recycler and Weather modules, and the fish style of Wanda is the only module that accepts an animated icon (PNG strip).
• Memory usage is now monitored and a red warning dialog displayed if a memory leak is detected.
• The Shelf and docks now remain visible under Windows 7's Aeropeek if 'Keep visible when pressing WIN+D (Show Desktop)' is enabled for it.
• Removed 'Normal linked to the Shelf' z-order option.
• The Hi and Lo weather forecast temperatures were swapped.
• For locations in the United States, the Weather module now passes 'city,state' to the Google feed instead of 'city,country'.
• Fixed an incompatibility with some ObjectDock v2 themes.
• The dock was not properly re-sizing automatically when using proportional tiled themes and the dock was too big to fit on the allocated screen space.
• The INI configuration files of 3rd party dock themes are now validated before being put on the list of available themes.
• Fixed problem with certain 3rd party RocketDock themes where the authors had no idea what they were doing with the offsets. RocketDock was more forgiving, we weren't and this resulted in a dock displaying two overlapping backgrounds.
• The label of a task button/icon did not revert to a window caption under grouped mode when only a single instance of that task was running.
• Fixed major issue that broke sub-classing and caused WorkShelf to malfunction on systems with hybrid Intel/nVidia video cards.
• Bounce effect was squishing the icon on the last bounce.
• Fixed issue that could cause a dock Launch or Attention effect to become cropped.
• Creating a RAS connections tab in the Shelf could crash the application.
• Sub-docks of Always-on-Bottom docks were not obeying the parent's z-order.
• The Locate button in the Dock & Shelves Management tab in Preferences would not work if the currently selected dock was previously disabled.
• Fixed problem with the tooltips of some desktop modules which could potentially cause WorkShelf to crash.
• Custom Email Checker animations were not working.
• Dock icon reflections could extend beyond the dock with the bounce mouse over effect.
• The application should no longer hang when forcing itself into the foreground if the current foreground window is hung.
• When dropping an item into a dock using a dock mouseover effect combined with the Magnify effect, the dock would first shift the icons and only magnify afterwards.
• The disable and enable time announcements option in the clock module's context menu was only being applied after a restart of the application or after going to Preferences and clicking Ok.
• The Flat Magnify effect was scrambling icons.
• Customized tray icons could appear as fuzzy images if the source image was smaller than 128x128 pixels.
• Context menus of icons were not respecting the 'open sub-menu on mouseover' setting.
• Changes on the shift keys pressed (CTRL or SHIFT) were not being reflected on drag & drop images until the image was moved.
• Fixed bug in last beta which could result in half size icons being displayed.
• Fixed bug in last beta which could result in dock icon labels failing to display.
• Icon reflections on docks were not rendering properly when combining the Rock or Swing mouse over effects with the Magnify effect and the dock theme masked reflections to fit the tile (such as the KTEK-4D1 to KTEK-4D5 themes).
• Automatic repositioning of open sub-docks when dragging items over the parent dock was not working properly under all circumstances.
• Fixed possible positioning problem with blur region when uncollapsing the shelf.
• A dock set to collapse immediately on Startup with animations disabled would appear on the screen as an inactive dock.
• When deleting an item on an Always On Top dock by dropping it into a Recycle Bin module, the confirmation dialog could appear behind the dock.
• Fixed sudden icon size 'jolt' when moving an icon in a magnified dock to the right of the original position.
• Flat Magnify was broken with some themes and worked fine with others.
• Changing the tab type in the Tab Properties dialog had no effect.
• Fixed issue where an horizontal sub-dock of an horizontal parent dock at the top of the screen could slightly overlap the parent dock.
• When the new 'toggle activation' setting is enabled, the dock will only toggle collapse if it is already the foreground dock, otherwise it comes to the foreground first.
• Centered horizontal sub-docks could appear partly off-screen.
• It was not possible to hide a dock while a running task was flashing/asking for attention, as the dock would immediately pop up again. The dock now only uncollapses automatically if a new window asks for attention.
• Fixed reserve screen space problem with setting 'prevent maximized windows from overlaping the dock/Shelf' and NOT setting 'Respect space reserved by other docks, toolbars...'.
• It was not possible to copy an item right next to itself in the Shelf.
• Some of the particle dock mouseover effects could appear cropped if the attention effect was not set to 'Jump'.
• The Shelf preview in the Themes tab would appear empty if the first tab of the Shelf was not a Regular tab.
• Minimum vertical and horizontal icon spacing for the Shelf has now been set to 10 pixels to prevent rendering problems.
• Fixed several graphic glitches with the Shelf mouse over effects.
• Locking or Unlocking the Position of a floating dock from the Nexus context menu was not doing what it was supposed to do.
• Changing the Shelf's mouseover, attention or launch effect via the context menu while the Shelf was collapsed would display a fully expanded Shelf even though the Shelf remained collapsed.
• Fixed icon reflection not being cropped properly on the dock with Push effect.
• Fixed several positioning issues related to games or applications that change the screen resolution.
• "Safely Remove Hardware" Internal Command is no longer available on 64 bit systems, as it only works on 32 bit systems.
• When dragging an item in a dock with a persistent mouseover effect, the mouseover effect would keep playing while the item was being dragged.
• Sometimes a persistent mouseover effect on the dock would keep playing after launching an item.
• Automatic Wanda fortune cookies popped up at the cursor in a multi-monitor system if the Wanda desktop module was placed on a monitor with negative screen coordinates.
• Fixed dock rendering problems with mouseover effects combined with magnify when there was a large difference in size between a non-magnified and a fully magnified icon.
• Fixed overlay 'leftovers' problem that could happen when using a theme such as Nx-Lawn on a dock with magnify + other combo as the mouse over effect.
• The 'Disable animations for this module' and 'disable sounds for this module' settings were not doing anything.
• Some of the settings set via a module settings panel invoked by right clicking on a module in the dock were not being applied immediately.
• Fixed several issues related to capturing WorkShelf desktop modules into NextSTART.
• Fixed problem with Show Desktop (WIN+D) which could cause the Windows taskbar to disappear when the Desktop was being shown and the user clicked on a WorkShelf object and then on the desktop.
• A change in the Z-order of a dock made via the Dock Properties dialog was not being applied immediately.
• Mouseover animations did not play on a collapsed dock.
• Fixed rendering issue with the Expand dock open animation and docks with overlays.

NextSTART v12.2 complete change log:

• Updated German language file.
• Updated Dutch language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated Portuguese (Brazil) language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• Fine tuned speed of the hide/show taskbar animation.
• Added 'Enable/Disable Auto-Hide' option to the Taskbar context menu.
• Added 'reserve screen space' support to all monitors in a multi-monitor system.
• A 'Add New Item' context menu option for menus now opens a sub-menu from where you can quickly select the item type (or add via the Item Properties Editor as before).
• The Update Manager can now install updated Language Packs when there is an update to the language file of the user's currently selected language.
• Added 'Alignment' sub-menu to the tasklist context menu when the tasklist is attached to the NextSTART taskbar.
• The Taskbar, Tasklist and System Tray are now always visible under Windows 7's Aeropeek.
• Programs run through Hotspots (including applications in the Quick Launch section of the taskbar) were ignoring the 'Run as Adminstrator' setting which was also not being saved.
• The label of a task button/icon did not revert to a window caption under grouped mode when only a single instance of that task was running.
• Fixed major issue that broke sub-classing and caused WorkShelf to malfunction on systems with hybrid Intel/nVidia video cards.
• The application should no longer hang when forcing itself into the foreground if the current foreground window is hung.
• Un-hiding the NextSTART taskbar from the screen edge would not automatically make it the foreground window, which meant the expanded taskbar would pop up behind maximized windows and thus remain not accessible.
• The Resize cursor would show when hovering over a NextSTART taskbar hidden into the screen edge.
• Fixed potential flicker in the show taskbar animation.
• Customized tray icons could appear as fuzzy images if the source image was smaller than 128x128 pixels.
• Context menus of icons were not respecting the 'open sub-menu on mouseover' setting.
• Keyboard navigation on menus was only working properly for menu items with upper case first letters.
• Opening menus with one or more items pointing to disconnected removable drive or a non-existing drive could take a long time.
• Fixed issue with adding a hotspot or quick launch button that activated a Control Panel virtual folder menu.
• Fixed issue that could crash NextSTART when displaying a Control Panel menu too big to fit on the screen.
• Fixed issue from last beta where bumping the screen edge would bring the NextSTART taskbar to the front even if a full screen application was running.
• Startbar would not reserve any screen space right after unchecking 'Keep windows taskbar visible' and applying.
• Fixed several positioning issues related to games or applications that change the screen resolution.
• "Safely Remove Hardware" Internal Command is no longer available on 64 bit systems, as it only works on 32 bit systems.
• Fixed issue that could potentially prevent navigating menus using the keyboard.
• Fixed several issues related to capturing WorkShelf desktop modules into NextSTART.
• Fixed problem with Show Desktop (WIN+D) which could cause the Windows taskbar to disappear when the Desktop was being shown and the user clicked on a NextSTART object and then on the desktop.
• Hotspots attached to the Desktop now respond even when 'Show Desktop' is active.