Wow you have gotten so far with this, it’s so amazing!! The window scaling and moving is so smooth, and that background is just so pretty. Not even to mention the amazing file system and it’s features I am really looking forward to testing and using this!

This is looking really great! Keep up the awesome work, and I can't wait to give it a try sometime in the (hopefully near) future!

Thanks for the feedback, both of you! Testing will be gradually pushed out to larger and larger groups of people as I continue development, so keep an eye on the Discord server for that.

Looking forward to sharing more updates in the near future!

Congrats on the pre-release!!! I look forward to seeing how development progresses!

0.1.4

Overview
After another week or so of work, I feel like I've made enough progress for another development update. There are three main new features for this: the color picker, window snapping and task switcher.

Color picker
Thanks to the power of the LCD palette and the help of KryptonicDragon, Zeroko, and fghsgh, there are over 60,000 color options available for every single GUI color in the shell. Here's a screenshot of it in action:


Window snapping
Just like in Windows or many Linux desktop environments, you can now drag a window to the edge of the screen to have it fill half of the screen, or to the top to maximize it and have it fill the whole screen. I imagine this being most useful for copying files from one directory to another, but it also could be used for reading the controls for a specific window and trying them out at the same time or many other applications.


Task switcher
By pressing [tan], you can now show a task switcher, which will display all open windows in the order that they were last opened, and let you jump to whatever one is desired (like alt-tab).


Conclusion
Besides these, there were also a number of improvements and bug fixes. Please stay tuned for more updates, and feel free to request features and give feedback.

Changelog
[added] background rectangle
[added] indicator of current open window
[added] window snapping (drag window to edge of screen)
[added] basic color picker menu
[added] task switcher (like alt-tab)
[added] simple loading screen
[improved] taskbar can now be jumped to in box-based mode with [window]
[improved] box-based navigation mode behavior
[improved] smaller icon-based open apps menu (to save space in the taskbar)
[improved] taskbar background can now be toggled in settings menu
[improved] wallpaper visiblility now toggleable in settings menu
[fixed] potentially incorrect filesystem navigation

Yay! I like the task switcher; will the keybind be configurable? Also, will window snapping be disable-able?

Also, I'm not sure if this was ever clarified or not... In VYSION (1, not 2), if you tried to paste a file to folder that was created before VYSION was last launched, then it ended up in a different folder. Pasting worked fine for folders made after it was last launched, but not before. Has this been fixed?

Yep, I plan to have all keybinds configurable eventually, as the input system already technically supports that. Not sure about disabling window snapping, but that's something I'm willing to consider, as I think I already answered. It would definitely be on by default, however.

And as for the filesystem issue, I haven't encountered any issue of that sort. The filesystem has been completely rewritten and uses a new design that takes significantly less space, is faster, and is more logically formatted. It occurs to me now that the issue you're describing is probably related to some file index not being set correctly--since those indices are no longer used, I imagine that the filesystem should work as it intended now.

But does it support USB drives??

It does not currently support USB drives, so yes, Cesium is better in that regard. As I don't have the adapter needed to test this feature on my calculator, there's also no way I can add it at the moment. However, given that fatdrvce is apparently going to be released soon, there's a possibility that I could add it in the future if there's a demand for it.

Is this something people would potentially like to see?

How does Cesium talk with drives? Do you have to get an adapter?
Also, I would love to see a GitHub page for this, so I can see the code. (My device has an error when it tries to connect to the Discord server).

Funnily enough, a github repo was up for discussion in the discord last night. Epsilon doesn't want people to see all the neat stuff just yet so there's no source online, but there's a chance that some trusted testers will be allowed access to a private repo at some point. So far the only parts of VYSION that are public are VYSION 1 and Optix 3, being the original version and the new libraries VYSION 2 is built off of: https://github.com/epsilonfive.

As for Cesium, search the forum before asking. It works, but drive compatibility isn't great. Test some if you have an OTG that'll work so the lettuce man will start updating it again.

What is an OTG?

It's short for USB On-The-Go - it's an adapter that you can plug in to the calculator, that has a USB port on the other end that you can connect a USB device like a flash drive to.

Thanks for the replies, KingDubDub and commandblockguy.

And yes, as KingDubDub said, I am considering having a private Github repository for the "elite testers" on my Discord server. I may also make the repository public at some point, but I'm still undecided about that for multiple reasons. I'll let everyone know if and when that happens.

It looks really good! I'd love to see USB support. Makes a big difference with how little memory these have.

That it does. Absolutely would love to see USB support. Now if you had a way to use Cesium or Vysion 1's look and feel in lieu of Vysion 2's, and also put in the asm hooks (key shortcuts, like on+prgm to launch cesium) that cesium has, and maybe also add a "launch on power on" (like DCSE8) and password protection for turning on the calc (locked with on+stat, like cesium), not just the shell, and maybe a -- shoot, I lost my train of thought.

But add that stuff, and it'll be better than Cesium.

Oh, right, installed as an app, not a program. Aesthetically, I really like that about Cesium.

Lookin' good! I can't wait for more updates!

Thanks for the support, everyone!

Sounds like the USB support idea is pretty unanimous, and given that fatdrvce exists, it's something that I would definitely like to add, and will as soon as I can get my hands on one of those adapters. Not sure about the app idea, as that would require some reworking of the shell for not that much functional benefit (as I understand it, anyway). It still would be something I'm willing to consider at some point, however.

And for the other ideas, I do plan on adding hooks to VYSION 2, and the password protection will be present in the final release, at least when starting up the shell (I'll need to think about that [on]+[stat] shortcut). Launching on power on is probably a little more difficult than that.

Thanks again for all the feedback, and stay tuned for more updates.

I have an idea: Whenever VYSION 2 runs into a fatal or major error or if a calc reset is detected, the error screen could be themed in the shell's color options to look like a Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death.

Idea for color pickers: have each bar as a gradient for what the color would look like for each setting if you changed it to that. There's probably a graphics program that illustrates this somewhere, but I can't seem to find it :/