Ack! Where to start? Many, many changes here and there, while the OEM version of StarLyt / LytBar / LytBox was on the front burrner. With luck, this is most of the changes that you'll see. Warning! there are probably loose ends all over the place!

Assimilation complete: StarLyt is now StarTap.exe.

Press-hold on LytBox hardware button to switch to Next Task.

Fix closing Contacts problem. With LytBar and LytBox, you can safely close Contacts, even when it's on a detail screen. Coming soon to GigaBar!

Ditto for switching to Contacts when it's showing that Detail screen. GigaBar will not show an OK button, but LytBar will.

Install Explorer, etc., with StarLyt.

Place shortcuts for LytBar and StarTap help files.

Add PowerG and Backlight.exe (on iPAQ v1.77) programs to LytBar menu options.

Connect Context Help in StarLyt. Properties.

Add LytBar help files.

Create LytBox only skin format, without bars at the top.

Allow Icons to show even without Skin selected in LytBar Properties.

Simplify StarLyt's context menu for Tasks.

Show Control Panel applets in Tasks.

Show My Computer as the name of the '\' folder.

Make all "modes": Docs, Files, Start Menu, etc. lead back to Desktop through a Parent link.

Move LytBox to lower right corner.

V4.96.14:

Lots of improvements to the handling of Custom Icons for folders, though there is a downside. You'll find that all of the folders in the Desktop and Start Menu areas will appear at the end of the icons. Use Arrange on the menu to get them to come back to the top.

When you select Properties for a folder, it will show the folder icon, and you can tap on it to select a Custom Icon. Also, tap on the icon and OK out of the resulting Browse dialog without a file selected to remove a Custom Icon.

When StarLyt does its periodic Custom Icon housecleaning, it won't kill the Folder Custom Icons as v '13 did. Sorry!

The hidden Layout.sli file should appear in directories in Start Menu and Desktop, and where there are images. It should not appear elsewhere. This version should remove those gratuitous files when they're encountered.

StarLyt now shows the name of the current folder as its title.

When the Today screen is shows as a task, it should now have the name of "Today", rather than "Desktop".

Control Panel will finally show the proper icon for AvantGo, and should for those other applets that don't quite "play by the rules".

In StarLyt's Tasks folder, you can now select Show All from the menu. This will expose all of the potentially interesting windows that current exist on the machine. Don't blame us if you Close something you shouldn't!

Also in Tasks, the Properties display contains more information.

The "connected" icon of the Info PlugIn will now respond to a modem connection, as well as ActiveSync.

StarLyt generally remembers the last folder and scroll position for each of its modes: Desktop, Files, Tasks, Control Panel, Start Menu, etc. With this version, that is not true for Desktop mode. Every time you return to StarLyt's Desktop, it will go back to the main folder. We find this behavior - though not 100% consistent - a little less disorienting.

The LytBox now shows a Control Panel icon for 'cpl' tasks, rather than just drawing a blank.

The area dedicated to Today PlugIns by StarLyt will now automatically resize down if the specified area is not needed. If the PlugIns resize themselves up, then the area will grow, up to the maximum specified.

StarLyt will finally use the large icons that appear in the skin images, but for the moment it has to be restarted for changes to show. Also, the Default skin has "old style" icons in it, while Sphere and "no skin" use the new style.

V4.96.13:

Not much, but it should survive emptying the Recycle Bin, without, um, deleting the darned thing.

V4.96.12:

Most important, beta versions before this will expire on June 1, 2001. No notice or nuttin, it just doesn't do anything. This one's good for another month, by which time there should be a way of marking a "registered" copy.

The shortcut to Recycle Bin should act more like the folder itself. Tap-Hold on it in StarLyt, and the menu should offer an Empty Recycle option. Also, it should be impossible to delete Recycle Bin itself (you can delete a shortcut to it).

If you've looked in the StarTap / Icons folder recently, you may have seen that the number of files in there has gotten out of hand. No longer! Periodically, StarLyt will verify that the icons that are there are only the ones that are actually being used. (When you create a Custom Icon, it actually exists in this folder.)

The Skin format has changed (last time, God willing!), to remove the menu wallpaper from the main skin image. In the Skins directory, you'll find that there's a SphereMW.bmp file which is the image used with the Sphere scheme. The Default skin doesn't use wallpaper for the menus, and has no such image.

If you can find circumstances under which LytBar itself or its menus have a black or garbage background, say so! Those gremlins should be put to rest by now.

V4.96.11:

LytBox is essentially the AntiGiga. It's intended to supply as much of GigaBar's functionality as possible without taking over the machine, and to avoid the blind panic, "AAAAA!!! My machine is so DIFFERENT!!!" response that GigaBar has caused in some users.

It's also designed to run properly under many different circumstances. As it will be installed in the beta setup, it will run with a Skin, and with icons and wallpaper on the menus. On the other hand, you can copy the naked 'exe' file to another machine, and it will run properly with none of those things, and will even show "reasonable" assignments to the menus. The same 'exe' file will run properly on an old B/W V2.01 machine, or a brand new Pocket PC, without causing the "compatibility mode" that puts the TaskBar down at the bottom. It actually "doctors itself" so that each machine thinks that it was designed specifically for that machine's OS version. Pretty cool.

Anyway, what is it?

LytBox opens a little 120 X 160 window, and is designed to be assigned to a hardware button. The window shows a list of running tasks, much like GigaBar's list of tasks. Tap on a task to switch to it, or tap-hold to bring up a menu. At the bottom, is half of LytBar, with three buttons that can show menus. The button summons LytBox, and when it disappears it is gone from memory until run again. Very Lyt indeed.

By design LytBox shares settings with LytBar, since a given user would use one or the other, but not both. To show the LytBox to its best advantage, select the SphereBox Scheme. This will place three icons in LytBox, and should cause the Torrey Pines (a San Diego locale) wallpaper to show. You Skinners note that the name of the image is SphereBW.bmp. Sphere is the name of the Skin, and BW indicates "Box Wallpaper". The "border" around the Tasks is a part of the image, and the "interior" part, where the Tasks show, will scroll if there are more than six tasks or so. The bottom part of the wallpaper forms the background for the buttons, instead of the background specified in the skin.

Other changes:

Of particular note on the Casio E115, where the production of the menus has been glacial (get an iPAQ!), you can now turn off the display of Icons and Wallpaper, or do away with the whole Skin. See the LytBar tab in Control Panel / StarLyt.

The Default skin should properly set the width of the background, and LytBar should react properly even if it didn't. Both mean that it will no longer show the black / garbage background as '10 did.

The RegEdit icon no longer looks like a ghost.

If you insert or remove the Storage Card while LytBar is running with the Info icon showing, within a minute or so, it should update to show the change.

StarLyt should install successfully on a machine that has never had StarTap installed. Before, it was so anxious to copy StarTap's existing shortcuts that it'd just hang if it didn't find any. Also, Microsoft in its wisdom specified the default "Desktop" color as black on the Pocket PC. Since this leaves StarLyt with black-on-black legends under the icons, it's not a pretty picture. Anyway, it'll now detect the condition, and set the Desktop color to that standard green.

The Menu items in LytBar now show hiliting when the wallpaper is used.

The icons in Recent are no longer black boxes.

The Menus should paint faster, even on the Casios, when wallpaper is enabled.

V4.96.09:

Bug fixes:

The Today Plugins are now viewable on the MIPS and SH3 machines, in addition to the iPAQ.

The wallpaper will no longer sometimes disappear in the course of changing it, leaving the icons painted over whatever happens to be on the screen at the moment. Very ugly!

The "missing scroll bars" have been found. This was a side effect of hosting the Today Items.

V4.96.09:

One big new feature, and a lot of little fixes. In Control Panel, run StarLyt Properties. There's a new tab: Today. (not in OS V2.11. sorry!) Here you'll find any Today Screen PlugIns that you've installed on your machine. Haven't installed any? Then take a look at CEPlugins.com. Developer One and StellarMetrics in particular have done some work that you might be interested in.

By checking these items off here, and adjusting the Height of the area to show them in, StarLyt can share space with these little guys. Even if the PlugIns that are currently available out there don't move you, be thinking of applications that would. We're always taking suggestions!

Beyond that:

The wallpaper tiles more sensibly, especially for Jimmy-sized screens.

When you turn off the wallpaper, it will disappear immediately, rather than requiring a restart.

The wallpaper can now stretch to fit the screen. Also, LytBar will adjust itself to fit the screen better. Just select Stretch as the mode for the wallpaper, and you should be able to change screen resolutions without problems.

A random tap in StarLyt's screen will no longer disable the scroll bar.

StarLyt's Image Thumbnails will now update if a picture is replaced with a different one with the same name. Pretty tricky, huh! Alas, It means an update to the format of the Custom Icons. If you have any Custom Icons (or Image Icons) assigned, they'll disappear with this version. Sorry! That's why it's called a beta!

In Tasks, you can now select Properties. This will show the total amout of processor time that the Task has used, some indication of its memory use, and stats on the general use of memory. We're not that thrilled with what shows for the Task memory use, but it's the best that Windows will yield at the moment.

Go back to the old Control Panel that StarLyt imported from the StarTap shortcuts, and you'll find that it has icons now.

If you use a larger typeface for StarLyt's desktop, they shouldn't get clipped as before.

If you change the buttons that show in LytBar, and select a button called "Info Back", LytBar now has brains enough to realize that that probably implies that you want the Info PlugIn on top of it. Conversely, selecting another button will remove a PlugIn if one was previously assigned. This applies to the "magic" names: "Info Back", "Clock Back", and "OK Back".

The "fake toolbar" at the bottom of the screen is now in the "button face" color, as is standard on the Pocket PC.

LytBar itself no longer shows in Tasks.

Whew!

V4.96.07:

Not a lot of new features, but pretty ones! This is the first version that offers icons and wallpaper in the menus. The current Screen Shot shows what a menu looks like with the Sphere skin.

Note that the skin format is changed in this version. The Skins page has been updated to reflect it.

This one is not much in the bug-fix department. Look for that next time around.

V4.96.06:

Definitely shaping up!

This version will install the Sphere Scheme for LytBar, as pictured in the current Screen Shot. This Scheme uses only two of the 6 button positions. The four buttons in the middle are all disabled, and have no effect at all. This lets the wallpaper run out of StarLyt and into the LytBar, with minimal hiding. Several changes in the code facilitate effects like this. In StarLyt Properties / Images, the wallpaper can be frozen in its starting position, so that it always lines up with the image on LytBar. Also, in StarLyt Properties / StarLyt, there's a cryptic little combo box that initially reads, "No Shadow".

With wallpaper that has dark and light areas, there is no good color for the type for the icon legends. You can set the legends to have Opaque backgrounds, but that looks like hell. In this little combo, you can tell StarLyt how you want it to add a shadow or highlight to the print. The shadow or hightlight can apply to either the Legend, or to the icon itself. As the combo describes them, you can have a Black shadow on the Legend (L: B), a White highlight (L: W), or a Black shadown and White highlight on the icon (I: BW). The legends in the Screen Shot are yellow (as set in Themes), with Black shadows. If there are other shading effects that you think would be helpful, speak up!

If you want to duplicate Sphere as shown, you'll need the icons and the wallpaper. Just drop the icons (unzipped) in the StarTap / Icons directory, and StarLyt should start using them.

If you go into a directory that has images in it, you'll see a new Loading Thumbnails notification. When it completes, all the images should appear in miniature. Pretty cool! Hit cancel to skip the rest of the images for now. StarLyt will keep copies of the thumbnails that it's made, and will only have to process the remainder the next time you view this directory.

And little stuff:

When you go Browsing for Custom Icons, you can now select icons from 'exe' files, as well as 'ico' files.

You can now remove a Custom Icon by Browsing for a new one, and then OK'ing out without selecting a valid file.

For those of you who can't get enough of that cute little keyboard button, put a check next to Kyb Button in StarLyt Properties / StarLyt, and it should always be with you.

Custom Icons should now survive a Rename operation, though they're lost if you move the shortcut to another folder.

Wallpaper can now be Tiled or Centered.

V4.96.04:

Lots of new features:

LytBar now has a Tasks Menu, which shows currently running tasks, and provides task management functions. This is also combined in the OK / Tasks function that's by default assigned to the OK spot over at the right. When this function is assigned to Tap, it behaves this way: If the current window is waiting for OK, then it will perform the OK function. If not, then it'll show the Tasks Menu. This menu shows the current title, has functions to Close Foreground, Close Background (everything else), Close All, and Close a specific task. Also, you can just tap on the title of a task to switch to it. Note that even when OK is showing, you can tap-hold, select OK / Tasks from the menu, and have access to the Tasks Menu.

StarLyt now has a Recent folder, much like the little icons that appear at the top of the Start Menu. Tap Hold on the Files menu, and you can select Recent there, or just browse into the Windows / Recent directory. Either way, these are the recent files and programs that have been launched through StarLyt. We tried to piggyback on the existing Start Menu list, but they don't know how to share.

The Settings applets available to assign to LytBar buttons should be complete on V2.11 machines now. Also unique to 2.11, LytBar was not shutting down correctly. Fixed.

Just as in StarTap / Classic, you can now order icons as you wish. Just drag in between two other, and it oughta stay there.

This necessitated a change in the way StarLyt stores some of its information, so if you had custom icons or icon positions before, they're gone. Sorry!

There was a nasty bug that caused StarLyt to erase an entire directory when all you wanted was to delete a single file. Holy Snit! It's fixed.

There's a new feature that we'd love to see more broadly implemented on desktop machines. StarLyt will remember your recent paths, the directories that you've been to recently. From the Context Menu, select Back, and then select the directory from the list. Pretty cool!

If and when you must go back to GigaBar, you'll find that StarLyt has filled in all its iimportant functions.

In the Start Menu and Desktop modes, those annoying 'lnk' extensions are gone.

StarLyt was not interpreting the launching instructions correctly when it was assigned to a button. Fixed. You can now assign any of the "mode" shortcuts in the Programs / StarTap directory to a button, and it'll do the right thing.

You can now add new functions to be assigned to LytBar buttons. In StarLyt Properties / LytBar, select New, next to the Function combo. Drop down (well, up) the combo box, and you can add any shortcut that currrently appears in the Start Menu. Select it from the list, and press Add. Then, drop down the Function combo tree, and you'll find the new function in the Extra folder.

Important when we get some skins and themes going, the wallpaper can now be frozen in place. Select Freeze in the Wallpaper box in StarLyt Properties / Images, and it'll stay put.

Off interest only to bit-pushers, the OK project has been updated with a new header file. The PlugIns now receive messages when their button is pressed and released.

The handling of the Full Screen function has been improved.

V4.96.03:

With luck, the importing of existing StarTap shortcuts should work better. In some (most?) cases, it was importing everything into Recycle. Do this: In Files mode, go into the Windows directory, and delete the Desktop folder. Shut down StarLyt, and restart it. It'll recreate the Desktop folder, and all the old shortcuts should be within it. If not, say so!

The StarLyt Properties dialog should be the correct width on V2.11 machines.

MemStat (now Info) should properly show the memory reading for the Storage Card.

The Opaque setting in StarLyt Properties / Shortcuts should be working. "White" there actually only has meaning in the absence of StarTap Plus. If you have access to the Themes applet, you can set the color of the Desktop Icon Legends there.

Anything in the Tmp directory is deleted when StarLyt starts.

The Control Panel item has moved over to the left most (Desk) LytBar button.

The install will no longer create StarLyt and LytBar shortcuts in the Start Menu / Programs directory. All shortcuts should now be in the StarTap directory there. You can delete the old ones.

You can now delete Custom Folder Wallpaper by clearing the Wallpaper edit box in the Properties dialog for that folder.

V4.96.02:

There'll be many small changes in this first week:

The Clear button next to the Action combo in StarLyt Properties now resets all the entries to Disable.

When a new folder is opened, StarLyt tries to show the entries as quickly as possible, putting off the loading of the exact icons. You'll see this primarily in the Windows directory, where it'll appear, and then flash a second or two later, when the icons are updated. During this time, you can tap on a folder or file to launch it. StarLyt now shows those "missing" icons as generic "files". Before, they were just blank.

The dll icons now show correctly.

The action of the buttons in the LytBar should be more rational.

Ditto for the icons in StarLyt. It was almost impossible to do Select All / Delete before.

StarLyt will recognize Cut, Copy, Paste, and Select All from the keyboard, and from the LytBar now.

In the StarTap folder in Start Menu, StarLyt now shows custom icons for it's own different "modes". The Control Panel mode shows with the Control Panel icon, etc.

The lefthand menu (Desk) in LytBar has been revised in the Default Scheme. You'll now find Help at the bottom. Also, StarLyt's version of the Start Menu has been renamed to Start Folder. The "Start Menu" entry will, indeed, take you to the familiar Start Menu.

The Wallpaper and Slide settings in StarLyt Properties were not working. They are, and StarLyt itself should update immediately to reflect the changes (a trick that StarTap never learned!).

Finally, of interest only to those of us who think in C++, there's a sample project for a PlugIn: LytOK. This just duplicates the built-in OK function, but with a red background.

V4.96.01:

First, as the version number implies, StarLyt is destined to replace StarTap, and, in fact, will be known as StarTap when the dust settles. For the moment, the two exist together and this version is Starlyt.

To get started, try this:

If you don't have a normal installation of StarTap, get and install the main download. Then install from the StarLyt download to the same place as StarTap is. If that's on the Storage Card, then put StarLyt there, too. If you have StarTap and GigaBar running, that's OK. StarLyt and LytBar will shut them down, or hide them, respectively. So, run StarLyt and LytBar from the Start Menu. Note that the StarLyt shortcuts, as well as shortcuts to the regular StarTap functions are now in the Programs / StarTap subdirectory in the Start Menu.

At this point, your screen should look much like the screen shot. The desktop button at the left will take you to your imported StarTap shortcuts. Any Theme icons (Explorer, etc.) should be maintained. Any custom icons are lost, though they can be reestablished, the same as before. Any shortcuts to images should show the proper thumbnail image.

StarLyt has many different views: Control Panel, Desktop, Docs, Files, Start Menu, and Tasks. Many of these cover the same territory (In fact Files can be used to browse over everything. In particular, check out Windows / Desktop, Window / Tasks, and Start Menu / Settings. All of these are "special" folders.), but the different views are helpful because StarLyt remembers just where you were in each view. When you go back to the Docs view, you'll be looking at the same place in the same folder as when you were there last.

With the Default Scheme, the three LytBar buttons at the left go directly to the DeskTop, Files, and Tasks Views. The task switching of LytBar depends on the Tasks view of StarLyt. Press the Tasks button at the top, and StarLyt will show the running tasks below.

Tap-hold on the Desktop button, and you'll see that the Default Scheme (more later) has assigned many of the common built-in functions to the menu. Files and Tasks show similar displays. The Info and Clock buttons are different. For these, the Menu function has been assigned to Tap. This means that you don't have to wait for the menu to pop up, just tap on the button, and it'll show immediately.

Just exactly what functions are assigned to each button in the Default Scheme can undoubtedly be improved. We're working on it!