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Winstep Xtreme v18.8 Released!

August 30, 2018




An integrated workspace environment, Winstep Xtreme is a powerful suite of applications that merge incredible usability and performance with breathtaking eye candy.

Windows 10 Ready Xtreme runs on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8.x and 10.

v18.8 brings truly massive improvements in terms of functionality, adding support for multiple Shelves (tabbed docks), vertical Shelves, Shelf scaling, and something new called Drawers. A Drawer is a dock/Shelf hybrid, merging some of the best features of docks with some of the best features of Shelves (read below for more details).


What's New? Highlighted Features:




  • New Drawers.

  • Basically a single tab Shelf, a Drawer is a dock/shelf hybrid, merging some of the best features of docks with some of the best features of shelves:


    1. Drawers, unlike shelves, automatically expand to show all their content when you click on them (provided it fits the available screen space).

    2. Drawers, unlike docks, can have text labels next to the icons so you don't need to mouse over an icon to know what the label says. Labels below the icons are still optional, though, and the Drawer can be configured so that labels appear outside the Drawer only when mousing over an icon.

    3. Drawers, unlike docks, can be configured to display 'special' content (for instance, the content of the Windows Desktop, Control Panel, Recent Documents, the contents of a folder in your hard drive, etc).

    4. Drawers, unlike docks, can be scrolled whenever they have more content than what would fit in the available screen space.

    5. Multiple Drawers can be open at the same time and left open, unlike shelves where only a single tab can be active at a time.

    6. Drawers, unlike docks that completely disappear into the screen edge when hidden, collapse into a single small tab. This allows you to use the tabs instead of screen edge bumps (prone to accidental activations) to gain access to the Drawers. Drawers can also reserve screen space so that the tabs of collapsed Drawers are never overlapped by maximized windows.

  • Multiple Shelves.

  • You can now create as many Shelves as you want via the Docks and Shelves tab in Preferences or via right click context menus. The new Drawers - as well as other docks - can also be created this way.


  • Vertical Shelves.

  • Shelves can now be vertical as well as horizontal.


    Previously you could only have a single horizontal Shelf docked at the top or bottom of the screen. With the added support for multiple as well as vertical Shelves, you can now have multiple shelves each docked to a different screen edge (or left floating in your desktop).

  • Shelf scaling.

  • Some of the best themes (like KTEK-4D, for instance) were made at a time when the average screen resolution was very low (e.g.; 800x600) and thus screen space was at a premium.


    On the higher resolutions of today this can result on text being very hard to read at the original font sizes. Shelf scaling solves this problem by allowing you to seamlessly scale a Shelf by up to 200%.

  • Full high DPI support on Shelves.

  • Prior to this release, the Shelf already had some built-in support for high DPI displays, but this did not scale the bitmaps themselves, only the size of text and icons. The size of the tab text in a Shelf was therefore still constrained by the size of the tabs themeselves. This is no longer an issue.

  • New colorization options.

  • Previous releases already supported two different colorization methods, Tint and Hue. Although different in what they did, none of the two methods colorized blacks or gray scale colors.

    The new 'Tone' colorization method is intended to be used with monochromatic (black and white) themes, as it is the only method able to change blacks into the target color.


    You can also use the new 'Tone' method with non-monochromatic themes, of course, but since it is an additive colorization method the results will be undefined and often unexpected in that case.

    Under Windows 10 themes can also be automatically colorized according to the currently select system 'Accent' color, using either Tint, Hue or Tone.

  • New Alarm options.

  • Added the ability for alarms to go off only every x days, months, weeks or years.



  • Pass arguments to UWP apps.

  • It is now possible to pass arguments to Windows 10 UWP apps by specifying them in the Arguments field of the item's Properties dialog.


    For instance, if you type '-private' into the Arguments field of Microsoft Edge, Edge will open in private mode when you click on that icon in the dock.

  • Many other performance and stability improvements! Please see complete change log below...


WorkShelf v18.8 complete change log:


  • New Arabic language file.
  • Updated the Hungarian language file.
  • Updated Portuguese language file.
  • The balloon tooltip of the 'Check for Updates' internal command now displays the last check for updates date as 'yesterday at' or 'today at' instead of the full date if the last check for updates occured less than 48 hours ago.
  • The 'Task Manager' internal command now also appears in the 'System' category.
  • Added support for multiple Shelves. Just like docks, each Shelf can have its own theme and settings.
  • Added true high DPI support to Shelves. Previously only font sizes and icon sizes were affected, now the whole Shelf properly scales up on high-DPI systems.
  • Added ability to scale Shelves up to 200% via a slider in the Appearence tab of the Shelf Properties dialog.
  • Added new 'Scale' sub-menu to the 'Appearance and Sounds' sub-menu of the Shelf's main context menu.
  • Number of icon rows shown at once on a Shelf is not collapsed can now go up to 99. The Shelf will only display as many icon rows as will fit on the screen.
  • Updated the 'Send to WorkShelf' dialog so it can now handle multiple shelves.
  • You can now disable voices independently of sounds and vice-versa.
  • Added new 'Lock/Unlock Shelf Theme' option to the 'Appearance and Sounds' sub-menu of the Shelf's main context menu.
  • Added support for vertical Shelves and options to dock them on left and right screen edges.
  • Added 'Create New Shelf' and 'Duplicate Shelf' options to the 'Dock and Shelf Management' sub-menu of the Shelf's main context menu.
  • 'Make Shelf tab from Dock' now prompts the user for a Shelf the new tab should be added to if there is more than one Shelf.
  • 'In-Shelf Docks' were renamed to 'Sub-Docks'.
  • Added new 'Tone' colorization method to colorize black and white (monochrome) background bitmaps.
  • Added new 'Colorize with Windows Accent Color' option (Windows 10 only).
  • Added new 'Now Playing' right click context menu option to the Media Player internal command, allowing a song in the currently selected playlist to be selected and immediately played.
  • Added 'Repeat every days/months/years' setting to the alarms.
  • Added new 'Drawers' object, a sort of single tabbed Shelf which will automatically extend by default to show all its items when open.
  • Added 'Create New Drawer' option to the 'Dock and Shelf Management' right-click context menu and to the 'Dock & Shelves' tab in Preferences.
  • Resizing a Shelf or Drawer by pulling on the tab header is now performed with a smooth animation.
  • Colorization settings in the MOdules tab of Preferences for Desktop modules that are not skinned by the current theme (i.e.; display the iconic form) are now disabled.
  • Hovering over a Shelf tab with a truncated name due to lack of space now pops up a tooltip with the full title of the tab.
  • Added 'Check Integrity of Dock and Shelves' button to the Troubleshooting Options dialog in the Advanced tab of Preferences. This option checks the internal data structures for errors and offers to fix them automatically if it finds any.
  • Adjusted the position of dock icon labels for docks not using the magnify effect so the label does not 'sit on the edge' of the dock background bitmap.
  • It's now possible to pass arguments to UWP Apps by defining the argument in the Item Properties dialog
  • The 'Task Manager' internal command was not working on Windows 10.
  • Canceling a theme change in Preferences after applying it was not restoring the proper theme for docks with individual themes.
  • A correct minimum Shelf width is now properly enforced when resizing the Shelf.
  • Removing an item from the Shelf with auto-hide enabled resulted in the Shelf collapsing while the delete animation was still playing and then popping up as if expanded (but without being truly expanded).
  • On certain themes smooth scrolling the Shelf would not display correctly if the Shelf was docked to the top or inverted when docked to the bottom.
  • On certain legacy themes (OpenSTEP, for instance) the left and right mini-tab symbols were not displayed if the Shelf was docked to the top of the screen.
  • Fixed issues related to being able to horizontally resize the Shelf beyond the minimum Shelf width.
  • A dock set to auto-hide for maximized applications when always on top could fail to activate when the maximized application was no longer maximized if the dock was also set to display running applications.
  • Fixed many misc.issues related to Shelves.
  • Fixed 'Respect space reserved by other docks, toolbars and screen objects' not respecting the space reserved by toolbars perpendicular to the dock or Shelf.
  • Changes made to the contents of docks while the Shelf Properties dialog was open would be lost when the dialog was closed.
  • It was possible to restore from a backup with Dock and Shelf Properties dialogs still open, holding settings for docks and Shelves that no longer existed after the Restore.
  • It was possible to make changes directly to the contents of a Shelf while the Shelf Properties dialog was still open, which would result in those changes being lost. Direct changes to a Shelf are now blocked if changes have been made in the Shelf Contents tab and the Shelf Properties dialog is still open.
  • Fixed issue with the names of themes on a Themes context menu if a Themes tab in Preferences was currently open.
  • Text appeared black on Low and Critical Battery alarm reminders.
  • Recycler and Email Checker icons appearing in the desktop version of these modules were not being properly colorized.
  • The 'Colorize text' option in the Color Settings dialog was not being applied.
  • Colorizing a dock background via the Color Settings dialog in the Themes tab of the Dock Properties dialog did not update the preview image.
  • Desktop modules were not using the proper colorization settings when a theme was colorized via NextSTART.
  • Fixed issue where alarms could fail to fire if set to midnight exactly.
  • Moving icons in the dock via drag & drop caused the delete animation and delete sound effect to be played.
  • A Media Player internal command icon in the Shelf flashing the pause symbol caused re-paint problems with the icon positions when dragging items over the Shelf.
  • Fixed glitch with UI scrolling in the Alarms Editor dialog that would happen if the mousewheel (instead of clicking) was used to change the Schedule combo box.
  • Fixed serious issue that could cause entire sub-docks to disappear when the 'Allow attaching sub-docks to existing application shortcuts' setting was enabled. This would happen if, when clicking the small sub-dock indicator, the user *slightly* dragged the main icon a bit towards the sub-dock indicator, causing it to be dropped into itself - which ultimately led to its removal from the dock and thus loss of access to the associated sub-dock.
  • Fixed potential issue when switching from the Themes tab in Preferences before the tab had a chance to load completely.
  • Fixed issue where the balloon tooltip on a Shelf would disappear as fast as it appeared if UI Windows 10 style was enabled and the icon labels in that Shelf were set to display above the icon.
  • Fixed issue where deleting a dock from the Dock & Shelves Management tab in Preferences could crash the application if the dock was first disabled and then deleted.
  • Application could crash when disabling a dock from the Dock & Shelves tab in Preferences if the dock was set to Reserve Screen Space.
  • Deleting a Shelf tab or changing it's type from Regular to something else could leave invisible and undeletable orphaned docks if that tab hosted any sub-docks.
  • If 'Allow attaching sub-docks to existing application shortcuts' was enabled and a sub-dock was added to a module item in a dock, it was not possible to delete or detach that sub-dock via the right click context menu.
  • The animated Recycler trash can image was not being restored properly if the ESC key was pressed to abort the drag & drop operation while an icon was still over it and the trash can was animating.
  • Shelf global icon cache pointers were not being updated properly when inserting, moving or deleting tabs, which could result in increased or unnecessary memory usage.


NextSTART v18.8 complete change log:


  • New Arabic language file.
  • Updated the Hungarian language file.
  • The 'Task Manager' internal command now also appears in the 'System' category.
  • Added new 'Tone' colorization method to colorize black and white (monochrome) background bitmaps.
  • Added new 'Colorize with Windows Accent Color' option (Windows 10 only).
  • It's now possible to pass arguments to UWP Apps by defining the argument in the Item Properties dialog
  • The 'Task Manager' internal command was not working on Windows 10.
  • The 'Colorize text' option in the Color Settings dialog was not being applied.
  • Date in the taskbar was not using the proper user specified format for the system.
  • The expand/collapse tree symbol was not being displayed properly in the Menu Editor.

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