[MindFad]

Heya, dudes. OK, so I've been fiddling with the idea of actually learning how to theme (it seems easy, though terribly time-consuming). A kind of learn as I go thing, I was thinking of throwing together a little Zelda theme. Maybe nothing to really release, but just to play around with and use to learn.

But I've had a few problems. I tried changing the close widget, and after doing all the Photoshop work and then pasting it in ThemePark, I get weird purple artifacts in ThemePark. The same thing with the document stretch pxm. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.





Also, I do not know how to actually check how my theme looks and is coming along. I put the rsrc file in my themes folder and attempt to preview it, but it didn't show in the ThemeChanger list or the Duality list. I tried ThemeChanger, but the widgets are not changed when it previews.

I'm obviously doing something wrong here, or just going about it completely wrong, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

And now back to the Zelda icons.

[Patcarla]

Funny!! cause I decided recently also to learn how to theme..
I doing different variations of aqua (green, peach..) nothing to fancy to start with. It seems easy but IMHO it's not because you have to really figure out before you start how all those colors will fit and mix well..sometimes you've have a great idea that ends up being very disappointing when you see the final result. It's also very very time consuming. I have to say that actually that made me realize that Max and Swiz are doing a amazing job here..
About your widget problem it seems that it's because of the transparency (second column in theme park)..just try to replace them..
About your second problem, Get a theme from somebody else (file .dlta) open the package content and you'll see that ther is a file called ''Main.themescript" Open it with a text editor and you''ll see that that where the path of your .rsrc file need to be defined..
As you are, I'm still in the learning curve so it could be that there are better options for your problems..Anyway. have fun and show us the result when you're done..
I should be ready to post my first theme pretty soon..But god this is long...

[Atomic Rooster]

go here...

http://users.rcn.com/doc.enteract/charonsoft/

download metamorphx 3.1

change extras.rsrc to zelda.rsrc and just drop it on the metamorphx icon...worx up to and including 10.2.5

it's all i ever use...

[MindFad]

Thanks for the help, guys. Metamorph was a big help. But here, again, that odd purple artifact syndrome. Maybe I don't have a full grasp of the trnasparency, and all those different widgets.

(Don't mind the window end pieces -- I haven't gotten to that. I was just trying to implement a pearl and see if I was even changing the right pxm to make it green.)


Apparently it is my transparency, I guess. How exactly should I go about making the perfect transparency? Any tricks of the trade, so to speak? Thanks again, guys.

[Atomic Rooster]

try here...

http://www.geekspiff.com/software/themepark/tutorial/

and here...

http://www.desktopper.net/

[phillryu]

BTW Mindfad, you should consider making those pearls also cel-shaded, to match with the rest of the theme. (That's the overal look you're going for right? cel-shading?)

[Hi I'm Mike]

use the magic wand and selct just the widget, not the black backrough, make sure you have the entire widget selected, change the tolerance to 32 i believe, it is up on the bar under the apple menu bar, then hit the letter q or click on the quick mask button on the tool bar towards the bottom. I would go with just the letter q though. Nothing else.. then you will see the widget with a red background, select all and copy. then paste that into the theme file and see how it goes. with the inactive widgets i usually just take the widget and paste it over a white background and drop the opacity in Photoshop then premultiply it with Premultiplier. there are probably many other ways

[Mac Guru]

You need to premultiply those elements. The way that works for me is to take your widget, and make your mask on a new layer...

Since it's dark grey you need to apply a layer effect to get it to think properly...

Select the Multiply layer effect and you should now see your widget but darker.

Select all and Command-Shift-C to copy all layers. Paste the copy into the 'Opaque' slot it needs to be. If you did it all correctly it SHOULD work.

Keep in mind there are LOT's of other ways to do this, this is just the way I do it.

[smeger]

First, check out this section of the tutorial:
http://www.geekspiff.com/software/th...otoshopEditing

That describes how to move an image with transparency between ThemePark & Photoshop.

Also, you may need to premultiply your image. You can use the aptly-named ImagePreUnMultiplier for this.

Don't get discouraged - it gets easier.

Also, hit me up on AIM for another suggestion.

[wagmedia]

Originally posted by smeger:
First, check out this section of the tutorial:
http://www.geekspiff.com/software/th...otoshopEditing

That describes how to move an image with transparency between ThemePark & Photoshop.

Also, you may need to premultiply your image. You can use the aptly-named ImagePreUnMultiplier for this.

Don't get discouraged - it gets easier.

Also, hit me up on AIM for another suggestion.

Another way to premultiply your image is to do a color layer filter set to white in Photoshop. This also does the premultiplying...that's how I did it for my theme. Then you don't have to bust out different programs.

[Hi I'm Mike]

Originally posted by wagmedia:
Another way to premultiply your image is to do a color layer filter set to white in Photoshop. This also does the premultiplying...that's how I did it for my theme. Then you don't have to bust out different programs.

tell us how to get the perfect grey mask though for the inactive.

[wagmedia]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Mike:
tell us how to get the perfect grey mask though for the inactive.

My theme faked the fading for inactives. I didn't figure out the photoshop way of premultiplying until I was halfway through the theme and didn't really want to start over.

Maybe it would work by sampling the grey color apple uses and doing the same thing that I described with the white. I haven't tested that out yet..

[MindFad]

Colossal help, guys. Thank you very much.

[Hi I'm Mike]

you can't sample that one. Say i have blue widgets, why would apples mask work? well it doesn't it makes it like a yellow color maybe? maybe change the widget to greyscale(as to keep the general look) and then trying to somehow find the exact other grey to make it transparenty? I am not really clueless I am just wanting a really easy way to do it, instead of guessing what might work and what might not. unless there is someone out there that knows exactly how to do it no matter what. also. I now see no reason for premultiplier, what purpose does it serve? i mean when you paste the first image into themepark and then post the mask, does it not show you the outcome? what does premulitplying do? also i think themepark should put something into it like iconographer has, the editor, i think copy and pasting in and out of photoshop is getting ridiculous, if themepark made an editor somehow i think i would love to make themes instead of thinking it as a chore.

sorry for run ons and bluntness.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Mike:
you can't sample that one. Say i have blue widgets, why would apples mask work? well it doesn't it makes it like a yellow color maybe? maybe change the widget to greyscale(as to keep the general look) and then trying to somehow find the exact other grey to make it transparenty? I am not really clueless I am just wanting a really easy way to do it, instead of guessing what might work and what might not. unless there is someone out there that knows exactly how to do it no matter what. also. I now see no reason for premultiplier, what purpose does it serve? i mean when you paste the first image into themepark and then post the mask, does it not show you the outcome? what does premulitplying do? also i think themepark should put something into it like iconographer has, the editor, i think copy and pasting in and out of photoshop is getting ridiculous, if themepark made an editor somehow i think i would love to make themes instead of thinking it as a chore.

sorry for run ons and bluntness.

I did that originally. Just copied the layer with a selection and tried to guess the proper grey to use. And that's what I got, apparently I did something wrong. I'll try some more attempts.

Oh, and no theme suggestions, please. This isn't actually how it would look if I did it. I'm simply throwing stuff together to learn (i.e., the Zelda theme wouldn't have a shiny green titlebar ).

[MindFad]

Well, I tried a new technique of my own. I set down my opaque widgets to whatever opacity I desire. For example, my idle inactive window widget is at a 50% opacity. Already with a 19x19 black box ready, I then select that widget layer (command-click the layer) and drag over the selection to my black box. Since it's 50%, I set the gradient tool's (or bucket, I guess) color to 50% black and fill the selection (or over drag the gradient so it fills completely, actually leaving NO gradient). It's worked *almost* flawlessly so far. I'm not sure how well it would do where there are gradient shadow to worry about. Hmm. The only problem I found is that with a 25% widget, filling it's transprency layer with 25% black did not work. I had to up it to 30 and it worked. Odd.

Well, I've gotten two pearl widgets done with this weird technique.

[smeger]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Mike:
I am not really clueless I am just wanting a really easy way to do it, instead of guessing what might work and what might not. unless there is someone out there that knows exactly how to do it no matter what.

To the best of my knowledge, the technique in my tutorial always works.

I now see no reason for premultiplier, what purpose does it serve? i mean when you paste the first image into themepark and then post the mask, does it not show you the outcome? what does premulitplying do?

Premultiplication is a procedure that allows the OS to draw the image more quickly. OS X assumes that all themed elements are already premultiplied, so if they aren't, your theme can wind up with funky-looking "fringes". For more info, read the read-me that comes with ImagePreUnMultiplier - it's got example images.

also i think themepark should put something into it like iconographer has, the editor, i think copy and pasting in and out of photoshop is getting ridiculous, if themepark made an editor somehow i think i would love to make themes instead of thinking it as a chore.

Not gonna happen. It wouldn't be cost-effective to develop an internal editor for ThemePark.

I do plan to add toolbar buttons that move your selected ThemePark image to a nicely masked Photoshop one and vice-versa.

[MindFad]

Sounds cool, Smeger. Great work with the app. Oh, and I'd like to show off my widgets! I've opped my themeing cherry of sorts. Well, not yet, I guess. These widgets are just themeing foreplay. So ... here they are: the pearls from Wind Waker.

[MindFad]

I have another question (and probably plenty more) I'd like to ask without experienting and trying to figure out. After reading Smeger's tutorial, I'm wondering exactly how to go about my titlebar end pieces. I want the left end to be different looking from the right. Something like this from that tutorial:



Mine will be flat, but ... how exactly does the OS know where to separate the end pieces? The end tabs from the Extras resource look the same at each end, so I'm wonderif it has to be equal on each side like in the pxm, or ... ****. Because I wanted to add cartoony "wind" lines in Zelda style and see how it looks. The mockup is OK, I guess, but I'd rather test it out. One end would actually be pretty long, whereas the other only needs a tiny cap. Well, again, any help is greatly appreciated.

[Mac Guru]

Just stretch your titlebar endcaps dude.

If you open the extras.rsrc in my QNX theme you'll see just that. As long as they're of equal size they'll work.

Here's an example:



Mac Guru

[MindFad]

I figured as much. I was just worried about if the user resized a window to smaller than 160x160, for example, in the case of the caps you showed. I guess that wouldn't be a problem if the fills were the same, then. Thank you.

[Hi I'm Mike]

in the tutorial at http://www.geekspiff.com/software/themepark/tutorial/
is it gonna have clickable attributes on these?

Index 01:__Dialog Inactive Text Color
Index 02:__Alert Active Text Color
Index 03:__Alert Inactive Text Color
Index 04:__Modeless Dialog Active Text Color
Index 05:__Modeless Dialog Inactive Text Color
Index 06:__Window Header Active Text Color

to maybe show exactly where and what the colors are changing? I know some people may know what all of it means but there are some that don't. That would be a great help if they were links to an image or something.

[smeger]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Mike:
in the tutorial at http://www.geekspiff.com/software/themepark/tutorial/
is it gonna have clickable attributes on these?

Index 01:__Dialog Inactive Text Color
Index 02:__Alert Active Text Color
Index 03:__Alert Inactive Text Color
Index 04:__Modeless Dialog Active Text Color
Index 05:__Modeless Dialog Inactive Text Color
Index 06:__Window Header Active Text Color

to maybe show exactly where and what the colors are changing? I know some people may know what all of it means but there are some that don't. That would be a great help if they were links to an image or something.

I hadn't planned to, but I can. Those colors are titlebar text colors for different types of windows. 'Inactive' windows are windows that are in the background (i.e., not frontmost).

The tutorial is an open project - all contributions are welcome and credited.

[Hi I'm Mike]

Originally posted by smeger:
I hadn't planned to, but I can. Those colors are titlebar text colors for different types of windows. 'Inactive' windows are windows that are in the background (i.e., not frontmost).

The tutorial is an open project - all contributions are welcome and credited.

Yea I know what they are, but if they were more well defined and shown where they were that would make it even more awesome!
Also while you are here. Any chance on maybe making the zoom a little more in themepark? Like double what it is now perchance? Thanks.

[smeger]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Mike:
Yea I know what they are, but if they were more well defined and shown where they were that would make it even more awesome!
Also while you are here. Any chance on maybe making the zoom a little more in themepark? Like double what it is now perchance? Thanks.

In all of the editors, or just in the pxm# one?

[Hi I'm Mike]

just pxm, in case you have like one little dot here or there that, for us nit pickers, is a big deal we can see it and know where about it is so we can fix it. i wanna zoom in on some of my inactives also to see if there is any yellow in there. i know i can do this with os x by command option * but yea.

[smeger]

Whoop, I forgot - there isn't a limit on how large you can zoom pxm#s. Just make the editor column wider - the images won't zoom any wider than the width of the column they're in, but if you make the whole pxm# editor wider, you can get larger images.

Grab the vertical divider to the right of the pxm# editor and drag it rightwards - this increases the maximum zoom.

I don't know how useful this will be, though. The zooming is antialiased and seeing one pixel blown up 50x antialiased probably isn't very helpful.