Unsanity today released a new app, called ShapeShifter, which makes applying themes in OS X completely safe, says Unsanity - and I trust them.

I've been trying it out in Panther (nice OS, by the way) and so far it works flawlessly for me.

Check out the Unsanity website for information on where to get themes.

[This message was edited by yabor on Tue November 18 2003 at 01:34 PM.]

Jan, I can't get it to "Apply" the themes. Is this available only when you register the app?

Okay, I figured it out. You have to click the little radio button. Highlighing the name of the theme doesn't do it. This is really weird UI behavior.

I had the same difficulty, Brad. Other people too.

Using Themepark, I have combined elements of two themes into one new theme. SS (where have I seen that before, Freunde?) installed it just fine. That's to say, the widgets were "squeezed" (got smaller) but I expected this: reading the MacNN GUI Customization forum, where the theme-makers and also the makers of SS hang out, I learned that SS will do this to Jaguar themes also. Anyway, Themepark will soon be updated and fix this.

I also learned that SS will not install faulty themes. And there's no need to revert to Aqua before installing OS X updates.

Jan,

With ThemePark it would seem to be possible to take a fairly good theme, such as GUiPod, and correct the errors. I've yet to find one theme that doesn't have serious UI errors. In GUiPod it is the very dark background of the menus (kudos to them for making them opaque). Also, the orange highlight in the Finder sidebar is a bit much for my taste. And I'd love to take the window widgets froom Power Metal. Is alll this possible with ThemePark?

Brad, I don't know what exactly is possible with ThemePark. I work with it as follows: say I have a theme A that I basically like. But I prefer the widgets from theme B and the scrollbars from theme C. ThemePark will make the new Abc theme for me.

But in cases where I liked a theme but for its transparent menus, I just installed the complete menubar from another theme. Same thing with the orange highlight in the Finder you don't like (I do like it); I'd just change the whole menubar. In short: I never searched in Themepark for just a highlight- setting or just a transparent-menu setting.

So yes, you can definitely take the widgets from the Powermetal theme - they might come out smaller than their original seize, though (see my post above). If so, this will soon be fixed.

The GUiPod theme needs different scrollbars, don't you think?

PS Sometimes, when changing the widgets, it works better to change not just the widgets but to install the whole windowbar where the widgets came from. -is what I am saying understandable?

[This message was edited by yabor on Tue November 18 2003 at 03:38 PM.]

The GUiPod theme needs different scrollbars, don't you think?


Yes. Good eye. The scroll bar thumbs should be easy to see. You shouldn't have to play a guessing game with whether or not a window has more content that needs scrolling to.

Brad, just now I put the Power Metal widgets in the GUiPod theme.
They look really well.

I also put in a different scrollbar and scroll arrows - the funny blue ones from Max's theme that came with SS. They are less obtrusive than you might think - well I suspect you couldn't stomach them. And they're nice and flat.

This is now a nice theme. I actually like the darkish-coloured menus: good contrast with the windows.

The difference between active and non-active windows is very hard to see. But I think this is the fault of Panther.

Brad, "later tonight" the maker of ThemePark will release a new version that might make it possible for you to change things like the highlights and dark menus. It will "have support for multiple theme variants" and will do other usefull stuff too, no doubt.

On a different note: Exposé is extremely usefull to me.

Brad, just now I put the Power Metal widgets in the GUiPod theme.
They look really well.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how to do that. Any quick tips?

Brad, Max Rudberg explains how to do this.

Go to maxthemes.com. Hit the 'support' button. Choose 'Frequently Asked questions'; there you'll find a passage about a 'ThemePark trick': that's it.

So: 1. install the Power Metal theme; 2. open ThemePark; 3. choose 'File' - 'New Theme' 4. You'll see a window that's divided in three parts: select 'Elements' - 'Global Elements - Window Titlebar Buttons; 5. Click on 'Theme' in the menubar and choose 'Merge with installed Elements' 6. Save as what you like; "PowerMetal widgets" for example.

Then install the GUiPod theme. Open Themepark. Open the theme you just saved. Select "Elements' (this time you're selecting all the elements of GUiPod except its widgets) and click on 'Theme" - Merge with installed Elements'. Then do the same for Description' 'Name'and 'Preview' (you won't have a preview but that's okay). Save your theme and then choose 'File' - 'export as DLTA' This DLTA File can be handled by Shape Shifter: just put it anywhere you like and double-click it.

Note: besides DLTA there are two other choises. Maybe they work as well, I don't know.

I hope the above is clear and will work for you.

One more thing. At the second stage, when you have GUiPod installed and have hit 'Elements' - Merge with installed Elements', a sheet will pop out asking you - I don't remember what; - hit 'cancel' and then click on 'Description', : another sheet will pop out: this time hit 'save'. Repeat for 'Name' and 'Preview'.

Holy shit, Jan. It worked! Nice instructions. Let's not compare IQ's anytime soon, okay?

I was in the vacinity of doing the right thing - and I'm making allowances for my own stupidity - but that process is just a bit convoluted (but not your instructions).

Many thanks. I owe you one. Or two.

Jan - again - thanks for taking the time to make those instructions. When you find some more time in the future I hope you can email me a screenshot of your modified them (when you get done adjusting it). Agreed...I probably wouldn't like those scroll bars but utility and clarity are king as far as I'm concerned.

And you're right. GUiPod doesn't do a good job showing the active window, although the weird shadows around the PowerMetal windows widgets (in inactive windows) sort of does the trick. Of course, that must be a side-effect of not using the PowerMetal titlebars, eh?

And "Ding, Dong, the mind metal is dead!" GUiPod really cleans up the Finder and Safari, although it adds some other problems of its own.

Glad it worked, Brad.

I'm going to sleep now. See you tomorrow.

I just tried it. ShapeShifter affects responsiveness it's like kaleidoscope. I don't know how good that is...

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I just tried it. ShapeShifter affects responsiveness it's like kaleidoscope. I don't know how good that is...

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I would have thought that on my slower machine (300 MHz) I would have noticed that but I haven't. Actually, you should find that menus are snappier with themes that use opaque menus.

People will forever want to muck around with the look of their computers with programs such as Kaleidoscope. It's the customizing gene. But this program, Shape Shifter, would seem to offer the means to do so safely, easily and quickly. Now all we need are some really tight Pro themes to replace the worst features of Aqua. GUiPod has some nice features but I've yet to run across a theme that didn't add as many problems to the UI as they fix. I'm hoping some theme designer out their will get serious and produce just one great theme that might not scream "Hello Kitty" but will get the job done - elegantly, gracefully, and most of all, logically.

It may be ugly as hell, but it's just an experiment. If the damn caps matched the middle then it might make some sense.



Oh, and I don't know why the window widgets get shrunk. But I can tell you for sure that this theme-making stuff, no matter how good the tools, make a multi-layered project in Photoshop look like child's play. My hat's off to those who can make the damn things.

After I posted here I disabled shapeshifter. Today I went to maxthemes.com/ to get the aluminumalloy theme. It's installed now, but the degradation in responsivess is obvious!!! It's realy visible when dragging windows around. I'm on a 600 G3, with no quartz extreme. I suppose I'll have to wait for my G5 to use aluminum alloy

Crap! scrolling and expose are severely affected too!

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Originally posted by Trifid nebula:
Crap! scrolling and expose are severely affected too!

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You're right on both counts, Trif. I didn't notice it before because I was doing some other things for a while.