Re: I'm back and willing, if still welcome . . .

> As far as Litestep/LiteStep, I am fine with either. It seems to me that the
> second is slightly more formal than the singlecap version. FWIW. I suspect
> that I'll continue to use the first most of the time, since it's one fewer
> key to press. :)
>
> -Alan Polacek
>  pfx
>   
Hello, all.

I suppose I looked like I fell off the edge of the world or something. 
Just some interesting spells on the health and computer fronts. I am 
sorry I dropped so suddenly. That is not usually my way of doing things. 
While I can't promise that I won't drop suddenly, my status has moved 
into "palliative" which fundamentally means that I am less likely to die 
from the treatments now than before! I also get all the pain drugs I 
want, which helps some.

When I did check out last, I felt we were close to a better idea of just 
*what* it would mean for someone to start using Litestep.

I'm willing to spend some time writing, now, (if I haven't violated 
expectations too terribly much). I think I might be able to help with 
the material introducing Litestep, based on the feedback of last year.

My interpretation/expectation is that the Litestep community is pretty 
much committed to serving first as the "coders' desktop." The biggest 
benefits I heard coming back from those who responded to my somewhat 
aggressive probes were:

(1) I get to change my own working environment--Litestep offers me a 
level of control over desktop that is unmatched in the Windows environment.

(2) it is really nice to see what others are doing to their desktops, 
especially if someone comes up with something I can appropriate with 
relatively little effort to maximum effect.

(3) Litestep brings together a community of people with some incredible 
complementary skills--the potential of coupling one person's skill and 
experience in one area with another's vision for a great new 
application/module offers a huge potential,

So does this triad make sense?

It would not forbid the non-coder from using Litestep, and in fact it 
serves the community well to make it easy for new community members to 
ease their way into a full-scale Litestep project. A steep learning 
curve will help no one. Yet we also do not want to become too 
accessible--it is not necessarily a bad thing to encourage those who 
want someone to do the work to produce a series of custom-ordered 
desktops at no charge (and with no time/energy commitment on the part of 
the user) to look at other "out of the box" sort of desktop customization.

Likewise, Litestep probably won't be the best stop for people interested 
in seeing how many special graphics effects can be crammed into one 
desktop (even if the result is a computer good for little but running 
the desktop bells and whistles!  Again the point would not be to drive 
these folks away, but rather to gently encourage potential Litestep 
users who are more interested in having someone else provide complicated 
special effects (especially effects unrelated to the possibility of 
doing actual work on the computer) to look at some other sites which are 
more focused on this sort of desktop customization.

This does not mean that Litestep users don't appreciate a particularly 
clever bell and whistle!  Only that the primary draw of Litestep is 
toward making the computer work better with and for the user--not to 
simply make it louder, brighter, or more frenzied in appearance. Any 
given Litestep user might actually be caught playing around with a 
special effect still looking for an application, but we would not expect 
to find a desktop stuffed with various animations, special effects, etc. 
to the point that system resources are taxed and everything else slows 
to a creep.

It also implies that some Litestep users will probably have some sort of 
"sandbox"--either on a separate, older machine or perhaps in a 
cordoned-off place on their working system.

And the Litestep community is no "NOVA or nothing" group of high-brow 
purists!  There will always be a bit of off-center, sci-fi, Hubble 
telescope, and a bit of Wonder Woman popping up in unexpected places.

In short, like the majority of its user base, Litestep will always be 
functional, impressive when it counts, and a bit. . . quirky.

This sensibility would be reflected in the tone of our introductory 
material and would guide the sorts of aids and themes and components 
that are held up as the creme de la creme of the Litestep community. Our 
materials for new arrivals to our community would be written with a 
no-nonsense, complete and careful but with a definite air of 
"professionally delimited whimsy" about them.

The whole "Vista" problem will need some resolution at some point, or 
Litestep will slowly fade into irrelevancy. That is, if Microsoft 
doesn't drop Vista and do something completely different for the 
"Windows 2009" product (ways of doing things-wise, not necessarily 
ultimate appearance-wise).


Meanwhile, we need to figure out just what materials are the absolute 
must-haves for a reasonably intelligent, computer savvy (but not 
necessarily an expert programmer) to understand and start to use the 
Litestep suite of programs.

Does this fit? Make sense given what you all know (and I do not) about 
what is available, what is in the works, and what a reasonable person 
might need?

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