MacOS X Themes

aquatic · February 7, 2003 12:44PM

I have downloaded all the Themes at ResExcellence for 10.2.3. There weren't a lot. Where can I find more 10.2.3 Themes? Thanks. By the way, I noticed ThemeChanger is great but hangs at the end of changing Themes, I just go to the Window menu and select Bring All to Front and that recovers it. FYI.

nosey · February 7, 2003 3:42PM

[ 02-07-2003: Message edited by: nosey ]

aquatic · February 8, 2003 1:08AM

What in the who now?

mcq · February 8, 2003 10:47AM

Haha, you're not allowed to know any more

Um, if you haven't picked up SmoothStripes yet, some people really like this theme, I don't think it's listed at ResXcellence.

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/max_08/themes/smoothstripes.htm"; target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/max_08/themes/smoothstripes.htm</a>;

aquatic · February 8, 2003 3:47PM

I think it is. I used it but it got annoying because instead of just taking out the Stripes it makes the white with Stripes into an UGLY grey without stripes, not white without stripes. Otherwise I'd use it.

I like WaterColor Blue. Just needs some refinement and muting to fit in more with the rest of OS X. It looks very pro.

sick little fox · February 9, 2003 7:25AM

I don't know why Apple is going with two separate themes: ie brushed metal (for some but not all apps) AND pinstripe (for the OS). I don't care which one they go with, as long as they just keep it all uniform!!

bigblue · February 9, 2003 8:36AM

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

I

I like WaterColor Blue. Just needs some refinement and muting to fit in more with the rest of OS X. It looks very pro.<hr></blockquote>

Where can I find this WaterColor Blue theme ?

whyatt thrash · February 9, 2003 5:02PM

[quote]Originally posted by BigBlue:



Where can I find this WaterColor Blue theme ?<hr></blockquote>

Ehem, I selected "WaterColor Blue theme" from your post, pasted into the google field in Safari and it showed up as the fifth result.

here ya go

<a href="http://www.621.org/~carbon/"; target="_blank">http://www.621.org/~carbon/</a>;

bigblue · February 10, 2003 3:00AM

[quote]Originally posted by Whyatt Thrash:



Ehem, I selected "WaterColor Blue theme" from your post, pasted into the google field in Safari and it showed up as the fifth result.

here ya go

<a href="http://www.621.org/~carbon/"; target="_blank">http://www.621.org/~carbon/</a><hr></blockquote>;

Ok. Thanks. Always underestimate Google.

aquatic · February 10, 2003 6:39PM

Yeah isn't Watercolor cool? Kinda Windows-like, but with another update it'll be sweet.

Anyone else found some cool Themes?

ibrowse · February 10, 2003 9:25PM

The BeOS theme is pretty nice, I believe they have it at ResExcellence. That and the Pez theme are the only ones I really every used for a very long time.

aquatic · February 10, 2003 11:27PM

They're not at ResExcellence under 10.2.3.

Will they make a Kaleidoscope X? Yes I know it used hacks but I don't see why they don't make a version that does at least as much as Theme Changer. Can Themes change your mouse, the shape of the window, etc?

Kaleidoscope X would kick my ass and I would like it.

whyatt thrash · February 11, 2003 3:00AM

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

They're not at ResExcellence under 10.2.3.

Can Themes change your mouse, the shape of the window, etc?

<hr></blockquote>

Yep. There are themes of all sorts of shapes.

Try Blobber or Beachball to change the mouse pointer. Seacrh versiontracker for them.

amorph · February 11, 2003 3:21AM

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

They're not at ResExcellence under 10.2.3.

Will they make a Kaleidoscope X? Yes I know it used hacks but I don't see why they don't make a version that does at least as much as Theme Changer. Can Themes change your mouse, the shape of the window, etc?

Kaleidoscope X would kick my ass and I would like it.<hr></blockquote>

Last I'd heard, Arlo Rose and Greg Landweber were so exhausted from making Kaleidoscope not suck on OS 9, and so daunted by the total rewrite necesssary for OS X (against a moving targe, since OS X is still getting bits added and reworked under the hood) that they decided to throw in the towel. There will be no Kaleidoscope for X. Frankly, neither OS 9's nor OS X's GUI is really set up for themeing. There are too many hardcoded assumptions about what size a block of text will be, how large a widget will be, what color the window will be, etc. I actually think OS X is a bit better than OS 9 in that regard, simply because it lacks all the legacy that OS 9 had. Nevertheless, GUIs are designed with a any number (including zero in some lucky cases) of assumptions that themes break.

Rose has his own <a href="http://www.konfabulator.com/"; target="_blank">cool GUI customization utility</a> now, though.

aquatic · February 11, 2003 10:39AM

I understand that. I know Kaleidoscope used hacks. But what I am saying, Amorph, is that they could do what ThemeChanger does better. They write high quality apps. Granted it wouldn't have quite as much capability in OS X as in OS 9 but with time it would probably come close. And they could someday add all sorts of neat things using Quartz Extreme etc. They should and will make a Kaleidoscope X, I know it. Either that or they should make it open source and contribute juts a bit, maybe get it started, doing as much as ThemeChanger for example, and let the community take it on.

aquatic · February 11, 2003 10:50AM

Wow Konfabulator is awesome.

Where are more OS X Themes! What is everyone using? I thirst for more than just a handful of Themes at ResExcellence. There were some insanely great ones for 9.

bigblue · February 11, 2003 3:21PM

How well do these themes work ? I mean bugs and performance-wise ? I read somewhere that OSX' GUI is hard to hack ...

[ 02-11-2003: Message edited by: BigBlue ]

overhope · February 11, 2003 3:37PM

Point is (as Brad has probably got bored of repeating, since his customary "There are no themes in OS X" post hasn't showed up yet) there is no structure in OS X designed to deal with different themes, unlike OS 9 which has the Appearance control Panel.

Therefore, to change any aspect of the GUI, whatever you use has to actually hack the OS itself, which can have some pretty serious repercussions if it all goes wrong. At the very least you may get some odd behaviour, at the worst it could crash the system completely and require a reinstallation.

This isn't a criticism of anyone either using themes or writing them: I'm sure you all know what you're doing.

aquatic · February 11, 2003 11:28PM

This is what I never understood: Themes just change pics that make up the interface, right? So why would this cause any adverse effect on OS X besides a cosmetic bug here or there?

Now on with it: I want more Themes besides the ones at ResExcellence!!! Can I use ones in 10.2 on 10.2.3?

ghost_user_name · February 11, 2003 11:54PM

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

Can I use ones in 10.2 on 10.2.3?<hr></blockquote>No, and that's part of the reason themes are inherently dangerous. They don't just swap out individual image resources in the resource files, they replace the *whole* files from the UI frameworks. If the system relies on something new in said files over an update, if you replace these files with older, now unsupported versions, you can't begin to guess at what problems will arise when the system doesn't find what it's looking for. Problems can range from the "disappearing widgets" that started happening in 10.2.3 when people use old resources to the system not starting up properly AT ALL when 10.2 came out and people used old resource files.

It's too late and I'm too tired to get into all the details and argument now. Maybe tomorrow.

barto · February 12, 2003 12:04AM

Blah blah. We know. It's dangerous. But that's still not going to stop myself and others from doing it.

There was an incredibly kewl theme web site "iStudio". Tonnes of themes. I can't find it anymore though.

Barto

MacOS X Themes

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