LiteStep is one of a oldest odd Windows husk replacements. Above instance, & due to the rise of popularity within freeform skinning, LiteStep desktop designs have tended to drift apart from a Afterstep layouts seen under pre-24 versions.

Rather virtually all of the unremarkably known Windows shell replacements, LiteStep is based on the idea of a little core that loads configurable modules (DLLs). LiteStep has a large total of modules & this allows a lot Windows users to configure their environment to be rich & good-featured or even minimalistic. Once required, extra modules come nowadays downloaded & installed automatically from either a net.

The theme for LiteStep occurs as collection of configurations, scripts & images stored around the .zip or even .lsz file that, whenever installed, vary a ocular style of the desktop. Whenever applying recent themes sustaining the recent version of LiteStep, installation is automatic.

LiteStep has been known to please humans that prefer their desktop to become visually appealing, humans that such as to configure their environment, Unix/Linux users and population that locate a Begin button interface that attach to Windows to be to a lesser degree ideal.

Modules

A interface of Litestep is composed of modules, virtually all with a extension .dll. It is loaded across the text configuration file known as step.rc. A syntax of step.rc is simple. To machine load different modules wise shoppers would write the line like

LoadModule     $ThemeDir$Modules\alitestepmod.dll

LoadModule tells litestep.exe to machine load the module in which "$ThemeDir$" is a variable shaping the location of the theme files. "Modules\" is a directory under a theme directory that holds the theme-specific modules, & "alitestepmod.dll" is the computer file name of the Module existence loaded.

Variables come even as easily to placed, by having several already hardcoded in. $LiteStepDir$ is of these such variable existence a directory that litestep.exe lives inside.

More variables may be placed by writing the line inside step.rc like

Firefox     "C:\progra~1\Mozill~1\firefox.exe"

Smart shoppers may so have a variable $Firefox$ instead of the to the full path to the executable. Variables may be combined within the statement to provide flexibility & power.

include "$dirTheme$$rcStep$"

A variable $dirTheme$ is a directory of the theme existence presently utilized, & $rcStep$ occurs as variable that calls the theme's specific configuration file.

Modules come what produce Litestep look & behave a way wise shoppers desire it to. There come in writing modules that are utilized to build GUI elements. There are too non-graphical modules utilized to produce hotkeys, keep an eye on window classes, & produce Litestep-specific commands known as !bang commands.

!bang commands come the flexible & mighty way to define scripting variables that might information files, folders, namespaces, executables, more LiteStep modules or even area of the todays LiteStep interface. Several !bang commands come hardcoded into a LiteStep core, however others may be provided across scripting or even across !bang modules. Bangs come as well a primary way busy people control a modules themselves. Bangs may be executed across a hotkey, the popup menu, cutoff, or even across one of the Litestep commandline modules.

A few of the virtually all popular modules include:

lsxcommand.dll: One of a oldest high-pressure maintained non-core modules. This occurs as commandline in which busy people potty enter bang commands, filepath commands we.e. notepad.exe or even C:\, & web sites.

geekamp.dll: The module that creates bangs to control winamp. A bangs may so become utilized within User Interface elements like cutoff, or even hotkeys, etc.

hotkey.dll: This nature and severity of module lets professional people produce custom-made hotkeys like CTRL+R, which may be utilized to execute a bang command !recycle which reloads completely of litesteps configurations from either a step.rc.