LiteStep
LiteStep is a Windows shell replacement under the GPL, for Windows 9x and up. It was inspired by AfterStep, which in turn was inspired by NEXTSTEP. LiteStep was initially developed by Francis Gastellu as a closed source project until April of 1998 (version b23), and was then entirely rewritten (versions 24 and up) by the newly assembled development team. LiteStep later inspired DarkStep, which supports scripting, and PureLS. It also inspired Phil Stopford in 1999 to start LDE(X), which is a complete and production-stable LiteStep-based Windows interface replacement.
LiteStep is one of the oldest remaining Windows shell replacements. Over time, and due to the rise of popularity in freeform skinning, LiteStep desktop designs have tended to drift away from the Afterstep layouts seen under pre-24 versions.
Like most of the commonly known Windows shell replacements, LiteStep is based on the idea of a small core that loads configurable modules (DLLs). LiteStep has the biggest number of modules and this allows all Windows users to configure their environment to be rich and full-featured or minimalistic. When needed, additional modules are now downloaded and installed automatically from the internet.
A theme for LiteStep is a collection of configurations, scripts and images stored in a .zip or .lsz file that, when installed, change the visual style of the desktop. When using recent themes with a recent version of LiteStep, installation is automatic.
LiteStep has been known to please people that like their desktop to be visually appealing, people that like to configure their environment, Unix/Linux users and people that find the Start button interface that comes with Windows to be less than ideal.
Modules
The interface of Litestep is composed of modules, most having the extension .dll. They are loaded through a text configuration file called step.rc. The syntax of step.rc is very simple. To load different modules you would write a line like
LoadModule $ThemeDir$Modules\alitestepmod.dll
LoadModule tells litestep.exe to load a module where "$ThemeDir$" is the variable defining the location of the theme files. "Modules\" is the directory under the theme directory that holds the theme-specific modules, and "alitestepmod.dll" is the filename of the Module being loaded.
Variables are just as easy to set, with many already hardcoded in. $LiteStepDir$ is one such variable being the directory that litestep.exe resides in.
Other variables can be set by writing a line in step.rc like
Firefox "C:\progra~1\Mozill~1\firefox.exe"
You could then use the variable $Firefox$ where you needed the full path. Of course this would be rather pointless unless you could include other rc files from within the step.rc. You can include other files with a line like
include "$dirTheme$$rcStep$"
The variable $dirTheme$ is the directory of the theme being currently used, and $rcStep$ is a variable that call's the themes specific configuration file.
Modules are what make Litestep look and behave the way you want it to. There are Graphical Modules that are used to build GUI elements. There are also Non Graphical modules used to create hotkeys, watch window classes, and create Litestep specif
lsxcommand.dll One of the oldest continually maintained non-core modules. This is a commandline where you can enter bang commands, filepath commands i.e. notepad.exe or C:\, and urls.
geekamp.dll A module that creates bangs to control winamp. The bangs can then be used in User Interface elements such as shortcuts, or hotkeys, etc.
hotkey.dll This type of module lets you create custom hotkeys such as CTRL+R, which can be used to execute the bang command !recycle which reloads all of litesteps configurations from the step.rc.