[bOOzo]

[removed old preview..]

I've been working on this theme for a week or so and this is about how much that have been done. I would like to have some feedback so that I can improve it some more before releasing it.

I have tried to make the theme look as mucha s the original theme as possible. That is why I have the dark strokes under the menu and titlebar. I also had the around the progressbars before, but decided that they probably look better without them. As you can see the pushbuttons is not the same as in the original, this is because of a request by William Bart. He said that he did not like the original pushbuttons and prefered the bevelbuttons, and therefore the pushbuttons now look the same way as the bevelbuttons.

The theme will be an offical release with packing by William Bart and icons by Mikkel Madsen (mmicons.com).

But I'm not done with the theme yet.

Problem #1 is the tabs. In previous versions I marked the foreground tab with a 2 pixel dark stroke, like the bevel buttons. But that looked kind of weird, although it was easy to tell which tab was the frontmost. So I'm trying to figure out a way to make the tabs look good and still be easy to tell which is the frontmost. Perhaps the background tab should be darkened and the frontmost lightened?

Problem #2 is the titelbar buttons. The current ones are the same as the k-scheme, but they don't work well in OS X. I was thinking about using the regular X - + buttons with a round stroke around them. I will post a mockup later.

Any other comments is appriciated.

[Zimphire]

I've seen this theme before, who originially made it?

[swiz]

Looking reeeeaaaalll nice Max . For the tabs, I would just lower the contrast on the secondary tabs enough to de-emphasize them. The titlebar widgets dont bother me but you may be talking about the interaction though so I cant really say. This is going to be the most popular theme for X yet, no doubt.

[SwarmyCurve]

It looks to be everything I could have wanted in the BBX style.

Its amazing how the recreation is progressing!

[bOOzo]

I've seen this theme before, who originially made it?

William Bart, and don't worry, I have his permission to port it and his permission to post these screenshots.

Looking reeeeaaaalll nice Max . For the tabs, I would just lower the contrast on the secondary tabs enough to de-emphasize them. The titlebar widgets dont bother me but you may be talking about the interaction though so I cant really say. This is going to be the most popular theme for X yet, no doubt.

Glad to hear that! That's what I thought about the tabs, too. I'll see what I can do.

It looks to be everything I could have wanted in the BBX style.

Its amazing how the recreation is progressing!

[chezpaul]

I already have this theme max... ;-)

[Dace]

I like the way the buttons look too, except for the toolbar button....can't you make it as a square, like the close widget? And shouldn't the black outline go all around the menubar and titebar? I find the tabs are too far apart, but I would make the one in the back lighter. Finally, is that the original grey color, I find it looks darker....anyhow great progress.

[unlinear]

max,

any chance you can make that black line under the titlebar a bit smaller? like 1px high or something.

my main peeve about the old bbx was always the huge amount of thick black lines. i prefer more subtlety.

[swiz]

Should I be licking my screen while reading this thread?

[bbxstudio]

Looks good Max - I would have to agree that the fatter toolbar button blows hehe... I would suggest a minus dash for minimize and shuffle that arrow over for the toolbar button. Some other suggestions (which you can choose to ignore):

a. Because OSX lacks borders or any depth in the horizontal (pane edges, menu edges, toolbar edges, etc), the titlebars may look a little too dimensional - one way to compensate might be to see how they look with the side bevels shaved off by a pixel or so (?)

b. The tabs look great - in the original, there was a hard chiseled edge where the frontmost tab overlayed the bar - this was enhanced by the fact that the selected tabs were dark (which we can't do), but a very slight shadow might help.

c. I still think the scrollthumb should have a silver bevel on the outer edges - playing with masking in the pixm might allow the thumb bevel to line up directly over the scrollbutton edge bevel (the thumb pixels seems to over-ride anything underneath). The only drawback would be that the illusion would get wonky by a pixel or 2 just before the thumb hit the stop position(giving the illusion that the thumbward scrollbutton was elongating momentarily). Your call though (I just loved that continuous rail thing that Kaleidoscope made possible in the original).

d. new bevelbutton-derived pushbutton is much nicer than the original (no idea what I was thinking at the time) - good job

Overall very nice!

[mrtew]

Looks great as do most all your themes and no sign of blue anywhere! Good job (not that the world really needed another shaded grey theme or anything). You are a true pro when it comes to theming. How many hours do think you spend on a normal theme. The two I've done have taken me forever and they aren't even full themes like yours and you seem to just whip them out every two weeks.

P.S. Did you see my Quicktime skin thread Max? I want a theme for QT that will make it match your brushed theme that I use. It really bugs me how close it is without being the same. Do you know any way to modify QT6?

[chezpaul]

U need to make a beautiful boot for this theme...

By the way, your boot for Rhapsodized is cool appart from the thinking swigly thing (under the apple) that looks all dirty (as if the colors were mixed up).
Swiz had this happen in his Cappuccino theme and he fixed it somehow.

[bOOzo]

[removed old preview..]

Ok, some changes. Made strokes lighter, made tabs darker/brighter and updated titlbar buttons.

I already have this theme max... ;-)

Believe me, you don't. The old theme is nothing compared to the new one.

I like the way the buttons look too, except for the toolbar button....can't you make it as a square, like the close widget? And shouldn't the black outline go all around the menubar and titebar? I find the tabs are too far apart, but I would make the one in the back lighter. Finally, is that the original grey color, I find it looks darker....anyhow great progress.

The toolbar button was from the old port, I didn't bother to update it. The grey color (which is actually a purple color) is just like the original.

max,

any chance you can make that black line under the titlebar a bit smaller? like 1px high or something.

my main peeve about the old bbx was always the huge amount of thick black lines. i prefer more subtlety.

So I did, what do you think? Should I also make the outline around bevel and pushbuttons 1 pixel, or should that stay 2 pixel wide?

Should I be licking my screen while reading this thread?

Looks good Max - I would have to agree that the fatter toolbar button blows hehe... I would suggest a minus dash for minimize and shuffle that arrow over for the toolbar button. Some other suggestions (which you can choose to ignore):

a. Because OSX lacks borders or any depth in the horizontal (pane edges, menu edges, toolbar edges, etc), the titlebars may look a little too dimensional - one way to compensate might be to see how they look with the side bevels shaved off by a pixel or so (?)

b. The tabs look great - in the original, there was a hard chiseled edge where the frontmost tab overlayed the bar - this was enhanced by the fact that the selected tabs were dark (which we can't do), but a very slight shadow might help.

c. I still think the scrollthumb should have a silver bevel on the outer edges - playing with masking in the pixm might allow the thumb bevel to line up directly over the scrollbutton edge bevel (the thumb pixels seems to over-ride anything underneath). The only drawback would be that the illusion would get wonky by a pixel or 2 just before the thumb hit the stop position(giving the illusion that the thumbward scrollbutton was elongating momentarily). Your call though (I just loved that continuous rail thing that Kaleidoscope made possible in the original).

d. new bevelbutton-derived pushbutton is much nicer than the original (no idea what I was thinking at the time) - good job

Overall very nice!

I know that the old toolbar button sucks, how do you like the new one?

a) I did this now, I think it looks good.
b) I've made the contrast of the background tab lower and made the foreground tab a bit lighter.

c) I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you provide a mockup of it?

d) I agree.

Looks great as do most all your themes and no sign of blue anywhere! Good job (not that the world really needed another shaded grey theme or anything). You are a true pro when it comes to theming. How many hours do think you spend on a normal theme. The two I've done have taken me forever and they aren't even full themes like yours and you seem to just whip them out every two weeks.

P.S. Did you see my Quicktime skin thread Max? I want a theme for QT that will make it match your brushed theme that I use. It really bugs me how close it is without being the same. Do you know any way to modify QT6?

Thank you! I don't know how many hours I spend, but after I got a mockup, it takes about a week to assemble the theme. Since I know how the pxms are made up, it's easy for me to make new ones.

I did not see your quicktime thread, but I don't know anything about skinning it anway..

U need to make a beautiful boot for this theme...

By the way, your boot for Rhapsodized is cool appart from the thinking swigly thing (under the apple) that looks all dirty (as if the colors were mixed up).
Swiz had this happen in his Cappuccino theme and he fixed it somehow.

I have made a boot logo for the theme. I know that the load icon under the logo gets messed up sometimes. It never happens on my computer, but on a iBook I've seen it a few times. I don't know how to fix it, I use MacBoot to create the boot logos.

[SwarmyCurve]

Looks even better now. I like the new widgets.

With this theme, you can use the MMX icons from MMicons.com. I just checked, and there are 384 icons in the MMX series, among 12 unique sets!

[mrfrost]

*drools*

It's gorgious !

[dzhim]

A few things:
The radio button looks really good. It looks like it's really part of the window instead of slapped on over the window or cut into the window... You need to make the checkbox look differently though because right now there's no easy way to tell whether you can select more than one option or not, until after you select some.

The strokes under the menu and window headers still look a bit out of place. I think it would look better as a dark gray.

Toolbars look way too flat. In fact, so does the rest of the window. Don't know if that can be helped.

Scroll bars look a little awkward, I think because the scroll track is rounded out towards us, instead of hollowed out like OS 9 or aqua. If you flip the scroll track vertically, and maybe make the thumb a pixel smaller so it looks like it's resting inside the track, I think it would look better.

The stroke around little arrows is too much. The shadow around popup menus is too strong and draws too much attention. The stroke around default buttons makes those buttons look too flat, maybe an inner glow of the dark gray color would look better. Actually, the frame of the button in general looks a little too flat/sharp.

The selected Edit menu item looks strange. All the sudden at the edge there it goes from being rounded out towards the viewer to hollowed out.. I think it would look better rounded outward like the rest of the menu, just darker. The menu under Edit looks too flat, too.

Do you get to control the shadows any, behind windows and menus? If you do, I think it would look better if the shadows were "tightened" a bit and not as blurred.

The close/minimize/zoom window widgets look fine in the background but need some kind of depth (like the radio button perhaps) when their window is frontmost. They don't look very clickable as it is.

The tracks behind sliders are too deep. I think a regular bevel or at least just a dark gray instead of black would look better.

Good work.

[swiz]

I think the tab resolution works just fine now and I also use MacBoot to make my BootX file so I guess its just one of those chance things whether it will be corrupted or not.

[G0Ducks]

I love everything except the close, minimize, and grow widgets. I liked them the way they were. The new ones have a thin 1 pix line around them that seems way out of place. It makes the widgets look a bit dirty.
I really liked how the old ones were "painted" on top of the title bar. Maybe on the new ones they could be de-bossed (spelling?) or somthing, as if they were stamped into the title bar?

Also, the windows are starting to look kind of flat. In the old BBX, the windows seemed to "mound" above the desktop. Now it is as if just half of the title bar is.

Keep up the good work,

R


P.S. Keep in mind that the BBX icons are following most of the old BBX "rules." If you change too much, they may start to seem out of place, even as juicey as they are.

[headbirth]

I liked the old grow widgets better as well maybe even just a color change when the mouse is over them. I would also suggest making the menus lighter and adding a white one pixel border around them if that's possible. The menu bar clicked highlight could also use some work....needs to be more subtle and reversed.

[wreks]

here's another vote for going back to the widgets in the first screen. So many themes use circular widgets, that is one of the things I liked about your first screenshot, it had unique widgets.

Square, arrow, plus is cool too for the same reason that most other themes use X - +

[rgoer]

One more vote for the "old" widgets... the ones from your first screenshot. Maybe you could include both versions of your widgets, just in blue vs. graphite versions of the theme itself?

[bbxstudio]

Well, can't please everybody Max - a real hassle when you do an adaptation like this and everyone has expectations as to what it should look like.

1. I think the comments about the wide slider wells are valid, though - the thing that made the original 'sing' was the fact that there was line-weight balance between everything (window borders, widget stroke thickness, slider well depth, stroked elements like pressed buttons and tabs, etc) - because of the necessary shifts to a thinner line weight elsewhere, you may need to slim down on some of the elements that would have seem balanced in the original (like the slider well).

2. I really like the slimmer bevels on the window titlebars, much better

3. check your email for an explanation regarding the scroll bar effect I'm talking about - there's a bevel missing on the outer edge of the thumb where it nestles into the scroll track (email you how by tweaking pixm masks you can precisely duplicate the effect in the original)... I suggest you ignore previous comments regarding the possibility of a concave scroll track - wouldn't really be Mercury that way. (How do I get MacNN to let me post attachments? says I MAY NOT)

4. I like the new 'idle' state for the widgets, but the rollover glyphs aren't meaty enough (they have an even thinner line-weight than the titlebar text). I'd beef them up a bit (maybe not as much as the originals though). The only real problem with the original widgets you had was that the toolbar button was too fat - but I like the new direction (great call), so fattening the glyphs up a bit would probably be best (who knows?)...

[gdiddy]

I have to put in a vote for the old widgets. What is the problem with implementing them?

Oh, yeah. F... Zimflower.
What a scumbag. He just has to stir the pot....


Great work Max and William Bart. Very glad to see you two working together. I hope this is just the start of many great themes.

G.

[invisibleX]

Nice theme. I really think it should stay true to the original all the way. That is the idea of a port.

Gdiddy, I think you are a mindless moron. That said, I totally agree with you on this point. How dare Zimphire ask who made this scheme! The nerve of him to ask a simple question...

[SwarmyCurve]

I need this theme !!

anyways . . . MMicons just updated with an additional 80 MMX/BBX icons! They look great and while make this theme all the more better.

[bOOzo]

Ok, new small update:

[removed old preview..]

A few things:
The radio button looks really good. It looks like it's really part of the window instead of slapped on over the window or cut into the window... You need to make the checkbox look differently though because right now there's no easy way to tell whether you can select more than one option or not, until after you select some.

I agree with this, but I don't know how a square checkbox would look. Perhaps bbxstudio could make me one..?

I love everything except the close, minimize, and grow widgets. I liked them the way they were.

Ok, I had to give in to this request. Tell me what uou think of the toolbar button.
The only problem is that the buttons look weird when you hover over an inactive window or when one of them is disabled..

3. check your email for an explanation regarding the scroll bar effect I'm talking about - there's a bevel missing on the outer edge of the thumb where it nestles into the scroll track (email you how by tweaking pixm masks you can precisely duplicate the effect in the original)... I suggest you ignore previous comments regarding the possibility of a concave scroll track - wouldn't really be Mercury that way. (How do I get MacNN to let me post attachments? says I MAY NOT)

I'm having some trouble with this right now, I'll see if I can fix it..

I really think it should stay true to the original all the way. That is the idea of a port.

That's the hard part with this theme, because it has such thick borders and that causes trouble.. I still don't know what to do with the bevel/push buttons. Should they have the 2 pixel wide stroke? I don't think so, but I don't know what else to do..

[invisibleX]

I would say that it looks great without the strokes.

[gdiddy]

Originally posted by invisibleX:
Nice theme. I really think it should stay true to the original all the way. That is the idea of a port.

Gdiddy, I think you are a mindless moron. That said, I totally agree with you on this point. How dare Zimphire ask who made this scheme! The nerve of him to ask a simple question...

Hey invisible X: F.. you too.

If Zimflamer were a new member without an axe to grind then I would have been able to just keep my fingers from typing. But as you must know, this isn't the case. Come on. You've been around here for a while.

Ole' Zim was one of those to respond when Max did the unauthorized BBX port all those months ago. He knows who created BBX. He knows Max has permission to port it. He's just a snotty hag.

And I must agree with you about the mindless moron remark. You hit the nail on the head with that one. Just to bad this moron had to be the one to inform you as to the facts. If you learn something from a mindless moron, what does that make you?

(where's the "middle finger" emoticon?

G.

Max, Great work.
William Bart, Great concept and design.

[bbxstudio]

Wow - best screenshot yet, Max. It's really coming together now

1. I think the switch back to original-style widgets is best... I think the down-arrow for minimize and up arrow for toolbar might need a rethink... me, I'd use the one you're using for minimize for the toolbar and use the standard dash for minimize (just adapt from the +).

2. For the checkbox, just take the blank radio button and slap an X or checkmark on there (there may actually be alternative checkboxes in the original resource files, not sure - I can't believe I forgot to do checkboxes, must've been burned-out by that point).

3. I think the non-stroke or minimal-stroke effect needs to carry through to pushbuttons as well... the thick stroke seems out of place now, really.

4. Keep workin' that scrollthumb, baby

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
Wow - best screenshot yet, Max. It's really coming together now

1. I think the switch back to original-style widgets is best... I think the down-arrow for minimize and up arrow for toolbar might need a rethink... me, I'd use the one you're using for minimize for the toolbar and use the standard dash for minimize (just adapt from the +).

2. For the checkbox, just take the blank radio button and slap an X or checkmark on there (there may actually be alternative checkboxes in the original resource files, not sure - I can't believe I forgot to do checkboxes, must've been burned-out by that point).

3. I think the non-stroke or minimal-stroke effect needs to carry through to pushbuttons as well... the thick stroke seems out of place now, really.

4. Keep workin' that scrollthumb, baby

1. I'll think about it. Theup arrow for the toolbar doesn't make sense when the toolbar is up though, because then the toolbar comes down.. Perhaps a double arrow?

2. You did do the checkboxes, it's just that they are round and are easily mixed up with the radiobuttons. I was thinking it would be better to make the checkbox square instead.

3. You are right, I will see if I can come up with a solution on how to remove the stroke but still make it easy to see that it's pushed in.

4. Will do!

Glad you are happy with how this port is progressing!

[spitty27]

just a suggestion - the scroll bar looks awesome and all, but the path on which it scrolls also loks 3d (popping out) and might get confusing as to which the bar is the white part, or the black part. maybe you can change it and instead of a popping out 3d look, kind of an indentation...

[Dace]

I like how the widgets look now and I like the toolbar arrow even if it doesn't switch when you hide the toolbar.I say keep the up arrow. I know William made a K-Scheme with the square close widget on both sides, that is why I thought you could replicate the square as the toolbar button.

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by spitty27:
just a suggestion - the scroll bar looks awesome and all, but the path on which it scrolls also loks 3d (popping out) and might get confusing as to which the bar is the white part, or the black part. maybe you can change it and instead of a popping out 3d look, kind of an indentation...

Once the scrollthumb bevel is adjusted, there should be no confusion as to what's happening (I don't think) - the goal here is to create an OSX theme as faithful to the original as possible while making adjustments to compensate for OSX' limitations, not to design the ideal theme by commitee. For those who may be unfamiliar with the original, take a peek here at the 0S9 BBX Mercury preview:

http://homepage.mac.com/bbxstudio

[Groovy]

IMHO It can be a port and also made better than the original. I would rather see what you did as
the foundation for the theme and have Boozo make it even better for mac heads and OSX.
(I hope you want that as well)

Example: the checkbox. It needs to be square. This is what mac users expect.
Boozo's instincts are telling him to go square and he is right.

The thick lines are now thin. Also better and yes it changes the look a tiny bit but it is better. (IMHO of course)

Me I wish the art was softened a little bit since there is a hard line between shaded and highlight and
it is distracting. (Scroll thumbs, title bar, main menu, bottom progress bar)

IMHO Porting themes and apps etc... is way more than just bringing over what was done before.
Fix problems and make it better than the original if possible and in this case I think Boozo has done
that and can/should do even more. As long as the basic theme over all has the basic look and
feel as the original then I hope you are ok with it. : )

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by Groovy:
IMHO It can be a port and also made better than the original. I would rather see what you did as
the foundation for the theme and have Boozo make it even better for mac heads and OSX.
(I hope you want that as well)

Example: the checkbox. It needs to be square. This is what mac users expect.
Boozo's instincts are telling him to go square and he is right.

The thick lines are now thin. Also better and yes it changes the look a tiny bit but it is better. (IMHO of course)

Me I wish the art was softened a little bit since there is a hard line between shaded and highlight and
it is distracting. (Scroll thumbs, title bar, main menu, bottom progress bar)

IMHO Porting themes and apps etc... is way more than just bringing over what was done before.
Fix problems and make it better than the original if possible and in this case I think Boozo has done
that and can/should do even more. As long as the basic theme over all has the basic look and
feel as the original then I hope you are ok with it. : )

Hmmm - not sure if you realize this but the original IS a Mac theme, designed on a Mac by a megaMac-head (me) for other MacHeads (thousands on my mailing list alone)... it's all over the PC world now, but in a diminished form from unauthorized ports (some good, some bad). The BBX designs (and especially BBX Mercury) are amongst the most popular Mac interfaces ever - BBX Mercury and it's PC counterparts have been downloaded and enjoyed by many thousands of people.

Just for the sake of argument, checkboxes don't really need to be square - BBX fans expect these little differences and departures from the norm - it just needs to be different from the radio button.

I really have no problem with improving upon the original where necessary (ie. new pushbuttons) and making it a better experience in OSX - due mostly to limitations (ie. thinner lines throughout), but if the signature 'horizon' line (which I also find a little harsh and would probably never use in a new design now, it was 'softened' by the bold strokes in the original) were to change, then this wouldn't be BBX Mercury (and we'd have to change the logo, MP3 skins, desktops and hundreds of icons which also sport the 'horizon'... something I don't think anybody is willing to do at this point). If I was approached and asked if somebody could take the best pieces from Mercury but change the most-recognizable elements of it for the sake of improvement, I would have refused.

Taking liberties with an adaptation or port has it's limits - if one simply picks and chooses the best bits and recreates 'better' bits, then one crosses the line from port to convenient 'borrowing'. I don't believe that each individual designer's efforts should simply be thrown into the 'GUI cornucopia for the common good' - a vast resource to be borrowed from and improved upon by anybody and everybody. It's one thing when you're playing off of what's been supplied by Apple, but another thing entirely if it's the original work of an individual. Over the years, I've already seen the best bits from my work (and the work of friends) tweaked and strewn through dozens of seemingly unrelated UI designs (including Aqua, but that's another story and just makes me and others sound paranoid - hehe).

The goal agreed upon here by both Max and myself was to do our best to see that this pre-existing design be carried forward to the new system for BBX fans who've had to leave it behind - not design the ultimate OSX theme by borrowing from a previous design. There will be plenty of opportunities to design better designs from scratch without having to resort to the past (in fact, that seems to be something true OSX complience demands)...

If you're after the ultimate silver OSX theme, just wait - I've got more than one in the works right now that slay all of my past designs... and we have yet to see the best of what Max Rudberg can do.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:


Hmmm - not sure if you realize this but the original IS a Mac theme, designed on a Mac by a megaMac-head (me) for other MacHeads (thousands on my mailing list alone)... it's all over the PC world now, but in a diminished form from unauthorized ports (some good, some bad). The BBX designs (and especially BBX Mercury) are amongst the most popular Mac interfaces ever - BBX Mercury and it's PC counterparts have been downloaded and enjoyed by many thousands of people.

Just for the sake of argument, checkboxes don't really need to be square - BBX fans expect these little differences and departures from the norm - it just needs to be different from the radio button.

I really have no problem with improving upon the original where necessary (ie. new pushbuttons) and making it a better experience in OSX - due mostly to limitations (ie. thinner lines throughout), but if the signature 'horizon' line (which I also find a little harsh and would probably never use in a new design now, it was 'softened' by the bold strokes in the original) were to change, then this wouldn't be BBX Mercury (and we'd have to change the logo, MP3 skins, desktops and hundreds of icons which also sport the 'horizon'... something I don't think anybody is willing to do at this point). If I was approached and asked if somebody could take the best pieces from Mercury but change the most-recognizable elements of it for the sake of improvement, I would have refused.

Taking liberties with an adaptation or port has it's limits - if one simply picks and chooses the best bits and recreates 'better' bits, then one crosses the line from port to convenient 'borrowing'. I don't believe that each individual designer's efforts should simply be thrown into the 'GUI cornucopia for the common good' - a vast resource to be borrowed from and improved upon by anybody and everybody. It's one thing when you're playing off of what's been supplied by Apple, but another thing entirely if it's the original work of an individual. Over the years, I've already seen the best bits from my work (and the work of friends) tweaked and strewn through dozens of seemingly unrelated UI designs (including Aqua, but that's another story and just makes me and others sound paranoid - hehe).

The goal agreed upon here by both Max and myself was to do our best to see that this pre-existing design be carried forward to the new system for BBX fans who've had to leave it behind - not design the ultimate OSX theme by borrowing from a previous design. There will be plenty of opportunities to design better designs from scratch without having to resort to the past (in fact, that seems to be something true OSX complience demands)...

If you're after the ultimate silver OSX theme, just wait - I've got more than one in the works right now that slay all of my past designs... and we have yet to see the best of what Max Rudberg can do.

I see your point, and the fact is that you get used to the round checkboxes. If there is only one round checkbox, you know that it's a chekbox, because radiobuttons don't come alone (so to speak). And in other cases, the layout of the elements tells you if it's a checkbox or radiobutton. Also, one radiobutton is mostly prechosen.

Talking about being true to the original artist - I've updated all scrolls to look almost identical to the original.
I also came up with the (great ) idea (as an option, for graphite variation) to have "bubbles" in the scroll bars. Just like in aqua, subtle bubbles. I will post screenshots tomorrow or so.

[gdiddy]

Glad to see you two working together so well. With Max's understanding of the limitations of X and your creative genius the rest of us should just give up trying.

(Although I hear Martha Royer is developing some themes that should give you guys a run for your money!!!)

WB, I had thought you had fallen off the face of the earth. Glad to see you are still in the game and really look forward to your new theme for OSX.

G.

[nycdunz]

i love it! this theme is gonna kick ass, damn i love macs, we have the best themes and icons! good job william bart and max rudberg, i love you guys, damn the bbx theme looks tight!

[captphatsidy]

I know that OSX Windows handle folder information differently than OS 9, making it difficult to simulate that dark border under the title bar; but that was one of the things that I loved about the old one: The thick borders.

Reading the fourms, people sound like they are saying they like it thinner, but cast my vote for thick as you can get under the title bar. I know you can't match the thickness of the OS 9 Folder Info Bar, but I wonder what you might be able to do to match that in some way instead of ignore it.

Also cast my vote for a one or two color Apple Menu icon. The current icon feels too OS 9 to me. I like the simplified Aqua icon that is used in OSX. If that is too boring for you, try a two color design of your own like the TigerLaunch icon. I just think the menu icon should be simplified.

Can't wait to see the other things like the boot image and message windows.

Thanks,
Chris

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by captphatsidy:
I know that OSX Windows handle folder information differently than OS 9, making it difficult to simulate that dark border under the title bar; but that was one of the things that I loved about the old one: The thick borders.

Reading the fourms, people sound like they are saying they like it thinner, but cast my vote for thick as you can get under the title bar. I know you can't match the thickness of the OS 9 Folder Info Bar, but I wonder what you might be able to do to match that in some way instead of ignore it.

Also cast my vote for a one or two color Apple Menu icon. The current icon feels too OS 9 to me. I like the simplified Aqua icon that is used in OSX. If that is too boring for you, try a two color design of your own like the TigerLaunch icon. I just think the menu icon should be simplified.

Can't wait to see the other things like the boot image and message windows.

Thanks,
Chris

Well, seeing as the thick borders aren't possible anywhere BUT under the titlebar, we've pretty much abandoned the idea (I know, I know - it was a BIG part of the scheme). I like it both ways myself (but under the titlebar is the only place I'd want to see it, really)...

The one thing I can tell you about skinning OSX (especially when designing from scratch - but it applies here as well) is that the key to everything is this wierd visual balance driven by the 2-dimensional nature of most of the interface (lack of window/menu/toolbar/sheet borders). It's very easy to push the overall look&feel into disarray because you'll have these totally hyper-dimensional cool bits connected by or (resting on) featureless flat bits. Trying to get this to work with ultrarealistic sculpted metals is one of the reasons it's taken me almost a year to solve for the next round of BBX stuff (and abaondoned Mercury and handed it off to Max). Bottom-line: nobody will be 100% happy, this port is necessarily chock-full of compromises... but I still think it looks pretty impressive anyways

On that flat monochrome Apple... I agree, actually (at the time there was no proper 3D Apple icon so I made my own)... now that Apple's given us a better alternative, I say take Apple's graphite one and darken her up to the dark plastic of the other elements. My 2¢...

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:

On that flat monochrome Apple... I agree, actually (at the time there was no proper 3D Apple icon so I made my own)... now that Apple's given us a better alternative, I say take Apple's graphite one and darken her up to the dark plastic of the other elements. My 2¢...

Sounds cool, I'll try that. I've made it so that choosing Aqua blue gives you scrolls and progressbars like the original and choosing graphite gives progress and scrolls "bubbles" inside of them. Perhaps I can keep the original BBX apple for the Blue variation and make a black apple for the Graphite variation? That way the Graphite variation would be Mercury with an Aqua twist.

[gdiddy]

HOW....

MUCH....

LONGER???


ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[tiffer17]

Im really looking forward to this one max!
looks great so far!

eagerly anticipating,
chris early

[nycdunz]

me too, damn i have all my mmx icons ready to set up a nice looking desktop for this when it's released... also i heard William Bart is releasing a surprise for us on mmicons.com? Can't wait to see that as well! Damn!!! keep up the good work all you guys... hey also Max, will you be doing custom button set and Splash screen for Chimera as well? So it will blend in with the rest? Plz do! ))

[bOOzo]

Ok, a full screenshot preview of the recent look:

(click to zoom)

If you look closely you can see the bubbles inside the scrollbars. You can also see a suggestion for an alternative apple menu. Please suggest any improvement you can think of, it's really helpfull!

About the MMX Mercury icons - are they supposed to have such bad masking in smaller sizes? They look great from 49-128 pixels, but the other sizes look bad.

[nycdunz]

*drools* damn thats nice man! yes i also noticed that with MMX icons that under 48pixels they look choppy, why is that? is there a fix for this? and can Mikkel Manson make a complete replacement set for the default Jaguar icons? Like Snow-E icons did... i have no trouble replacing out all my system icons, cause Snow-E was complete... MMX icons are still missing some stuff that I need to complete my icon replacement with....

[smeger]

Wow - that looks absolutely phenomenal!

How did you change the Stop & Caution icons (in the Photoshop dialogs)? I noticed last night that the tic# resource in Extras.rsrc is being read, but it doesn't contain any icons.

[SwarmyCurve]

It looks just about ready for release... I hope...


Its a very nice theme to say the least.

[Phoenix1701]

Out of idle curiosity, is the slight variance of the brightness in the small progress bars intentional? I ask mainly because there is no such variance in the large progress bars.

Other than that, and the fact that the stop hand only has four fingers (freaky), ;) I think it looks really very nice. :)

[OwlBoy]

Looks sweet man, I'm Glad you got Williams O.K.

-Owl