Theme Question./

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
We all know Brad's "themes are dangerous" speech, though hopefully Guality 4 GX will start mitigating the danger a bit...



...but is there any way that folks can think of that a theme (more precisely, SmoothStripes) could make my Mac *slower*? Noticably slower?



i was screwing around with this before the update, and I can't tell...for now I am just going in Aqua til I figure out if it was the reboot in 10.2.4 that did it.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    *looms ominously*



    In theory, no, themes should not make your system significantly slower. If the themes use resources larger than what Aqua already uses, there may be some very minor delays when launching apps and drawing or refreshing windows.



    Also, sometimes when permissions get wonked the system may act slower when accessing certain things.



    So, in general, no, installing a "theme" should not slow down your system.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    Darnit! Why did apple have to go and release another OS X update? Now I have to uninstall all my haxies and themes, install .2.5, and see if they work in the new version. Why do they always have to be changing stuff on us? Why can't they just leave everything the way it was so our hacks will always work? AARRRGH!



    </sarcastic rant>



    As far as speed goes, I haven't noticed really any speed differences with any of the themes I've installed. And smoothstripes is so close to aqua, that I don't think it would make a difference unless something got screwed up, like brad said.



    Really, it just replaces the image files (which is why it's so dangerous in the first place), but as long as they are the same size, there should be no difference at all.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    I like the theme WaterColor tho it's hard to see if the scroll bar is all the way down or just almost since the arrow buttons are the same color as the scroll bar.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    bauman, what was with that sarcastic rant?
  • Reply 5 of 8
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    heh



    Just a little something off topic. It really is always a pain when Apple updates, tho, since if you update with themes in place, it can really screw things up. \



    [Edit: doesn't look like this version does it, but IIRC, 10.2.1 and 10.2.2 really did mess some people up if they didn't remove their theme first. I think I'll use aquafix anyways, just to play it safe]
  • Reply 6 of 8
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bauman

    Darnit! Why did apple have to go and release another OS X update? Now I have to uninstall all my haxies and themes, install .2.5, and see if they work in the new version.



    I actually did a very Bad Thing. Installed 10.2.5 without resetting the system. I like to live On The Edge(TM).
  • Reply 7 of 8
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bauman

    Just a little something off topic. It really is always a pain when Apple updates, tho, since if you update with themes in place, it can really screw things up.



    The system is made with a number of interdependencies. One framework may rely on another framework to be up-to-date in order to work properly or for certain features to be enabled. When you install a "theme" you are taking very large parts of the Carbon and HIToolbox frameworks and CoreServices, deleting them from your hard drive, and replacing them with very heavily modified/hacked versions. If you have an older version than the system needs, you are bound to run into some problems.



    This is what happens when you install a theme and the system has been updated recently. The system expects version 'y' when your theme is a hacked-up version 'x' -- THAT is one of the reasons you have problems like you did with 10.2.1 or 10.2.2.



    You can't blame Apple for updating these frameworks. To fix bugs and add features, there's no other way. It's people's own faults if they decide to muck around in /System and things start to break. Apple had good reasons for disabling "write" access to /System for all users but root. This is one of them.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    Right... that's why I put the </sarcastic rant> in there



    I really wasn't being angry, it's just a hassle... and I realize it's my fault that I need to do it.
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