Four years go by and the leap year sneaks right up. Had sryo not have mentioned it, it would have slipped right pass. Four years without touching the code base, let alone using PureLS for anything besides a loader for jkey and bangvwm off a USB key on Explorer entrapped machines. Read that as you may.

However, for the last several months I've been toying with an idea that has been longer brewing in the back of my head. Forgoing the background details, it boils down to a shell core that provides shell services to a scripting interface. The shell core would no longer have the ability to load modules, it would be monolithic shell service provider; anything the shell can do is built into the core. The UI would be made from scripts, Lua being the scripting language.

Now some background detail or reasoning. The few C/C++ developers that exist anymore interested in providing services for the shell (hotkey, vwm, task management etc) should be encouraged to collaborate on a unified implementation. Scripting greatly lowers the barrier to entry for aspiring coders and non coders more interested in the UI - how the user interacts with those services, and how they are visually represented. THC4Ks work with lslua for LiteStep saw this need, but could not be fully satisfied as an addon module.

Maybe in four more years I'll have something to share.

I've posted Release 0.41 of PureLS. Thanks to the-golem for reminding me what today was, so I could get it out! :) Happy Leap Year! Enjoy.

* Updated Shell Service.
 - Fixed systray module update issues with icons and tooltips.
 - Fixed potential crash.
 - Fixed (and enabled) AppBar support.

* Optimized Graphic API routines

I've posted Release 0.40.1 of PureLS. It is mainly bug fixes, which is a good thing. More stability, less bloat. Enjoy.

* Mainly a bug fix release
 - Fixed NULL pointer access in shellsvc, and lsapi (only would occur
   in very low memory conditions)
 - Fixed race condition in the shellsvc thread which resulted in the
   litestep thread never registering it's callback for the icon
   notification service.
 - Fixed startup policy check on the HKCU RunOnce handler from looking
   at the HKLM policy.

* Added signal event to dismiss XP Welcome splash screen on shell load.

I decided that February 29th would be a good day to do releases from now on. Does that sound good? :)

Here is PureLS 0.40 - I hope it is all that you ever wanted, although I know it isn't. There isn't much to say about the release. There are not a lot of new features since the last release. This release fully supports 2K/XP notification icons, and you will never loose icons because you unload a systray module. (You may loose icons still if you quit the shell, then restart it). You must use vtray.dll 1.06 or systray2.dll 2.0.3 for your systray module. I am currently developing another systray module which works really well under PureLS, but the Balloon Tip support is not quite finished.

The binary and source can be grabbed from the normal place. I suppose I'd best remind you where the normal place is, since it has been so long. Get them right over here.

Here is a small summary of the changes from the last public release:

* Complete overhaul to the notify icon tray (systray) service.
  - XP DUN issue fixed among other problems.
  - Systray modules may be unloaded without loosing any icons.
  - Only use vtray.dll or recent builds of systray2.dll.
  - Do not use grdTray, or old systray builds.

* Complete overhaul to the startup runner service.
  - RunOnceEx supported.
  - Correct handling of RunOnce serialization, so that installation
    scripts are handled correctly.
  - Startup run policies are now respected on NT machines.
  - Many bugs fixed.
  - On NT systems, startup items will only be ran once per logon
    session (may be overridden by the command line).

* Shellsvc is now fairly self contained, and provides most of the
  various background services expected from a shell.
  - This includes: tray notifications, task list event service,
    startup runner, desktop appbar management (not complete).

* Large implementation changes to PureLS and the Litestep Module Handler
  - Litestep modules are ran in a contained thread, seperate from
    the PureLS core.
  - Thread recovery basics implemented, which allows for a 'fail safe'
    interface to be implemented.
  - Added interface for modules to register Dialog Windows so their
    messages can be handled.
  - New/changed command line options.
  - Multiple instance check.
  - New About dialog architecture.  Current dialog is a bit sketchy,
    but the structure is there for a nice one to be implemented.
  - LM_BANGCOMMAND supported, !.exe will now work with PureLS.

* API
  - Thoroughly cleaned up the lsapi GDI functions.  Many optimizations
    and code readability changes.
  - Added recent Litestep functions such as LSLog, GetRCCoordinate,
    LSSetVariable etc.
  - Fixed implementation of all of the LCxxx functions.  It was very
    problematic in earlier builds.

* Build Environments
  - full UNICODE support
  - MinGW make files (partially broken at the moment)

* Lots of things (TM)
  - A huge amount of code cleanup and general bug fixes.
  - Most of the changes listed in the source archive changes.txt were
    day to day (year to year :P) transitions, and do not necessarily
    represent a removal/addition/change/fix from the last release to
    the current release.
  - Currently if no modules or configuration files are successfully
    loaded, the shell will exit.

I hope no one feels like they have a monkey on their back this year (ok poor joke). I thought I'd try to clean the website up in good New Lunar Year tradition. I hope I can bring in a few new fresh builds soon, and revive the place a little bit. There has been a couple of test builds released over the last month (only one semi-public though). I said I'd get a build out before the end of February, and it looks like I just might manage it. :) Yay for everyone.

On a small down note, the purels.org domain is currently in limbo, but it should be back online soon. (Stay away from dotearth.com domain registrar, they have given me terrible service over the last week, and I plan on ditching them.)

Play safe with the firecrackers and enjoy.