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goMac · Jun 2, 2003, 02:21 PM

I'd just like to say that I've been going over Duality's source and working out a lot of issues that I have found and others have noted. 4.02 also has a slightly different interface and a pref pane version. Expect a beta in a few days.

Additionally, Conundrum is being folded into another software company. As soon as that other company goes live expect an announcement. I will still have control of Duality although it will no longer be a Conundrum product. Hopefully this will provide more options for me and Duality users as Duality expands.

unlinear · Jun 2, 2003, 02:35 PM

i sorta feel like a dick since this is one of the most down-to-earth, modest announcements you have made, but...

":secret project: (Project Leader), :secret project (Group member)"

that kinda sounds silly. it's like.. 'look at me, i'm developing secret stuff you dont know about.'.

If you're trying to come off as a mature developer (which you started doing a lot better when you dropped some of the pretentiousness)... then that should go.

imho.

otherwise..
i hope this'll be as good as themechanger.

zazou · Jun 2, 2003, 02:58 PM

here we go....

ambush · Jun 2, 2003, 03:34 PM

Will the announcement be broadcasted, by any chance?

Angus_D · Jun 2, 2003, 04:04 PM

Welcome back Colin, I'd been missing your hype machine. It's still as amusing as ever

BTW, did I somehow miss the groundbreaking new functionality in Duality 4?

unlinear · Jun 2, 2003, 05:19 PM

jezus, forget I said anything.

I wanted to give gomac some postive advice (after having been sceptical for a while) and out comes the childlike behavior brigade.

I guess I should've used private messaging, eh.

if theme changer developers past and present had HALF as much decency as theme developers, this world would be a better place.

goMac · Jun 2, 2003, 05:42 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Will the announcement be broadcasted, by any chance?

Yes. It will host it on my Power Mac G3. Sure, I have a 56k connection and a dynamic IP, but feel free to tune in.

ambush · Jun 2, 2003, 09:40 PM

Originally posted by unlinear:
jezus, forget I said anything.

I wanted to give gomac some postive advice (after having been sceptical for a while) and out comes the childlike behavior brigade.

I guess I should've used private messaging, eh.

if theme changer developers past and present had HALF as much decency as theme developers, this world would be a better place.

Childish? Dude this is like the 10th Duality 4.something announcement in this forum. I think Collin knows we're joking.

Decency? Scuse me sir, we don't lack decency. We spent countless hours working on themechanger - and we didn't get paid or anything - to give you guys a free themechanger that "does the job". No strings attached, no revolution or nothing. This is what decent people call "decent".

NetworkShadow · Jun 2, 2003, 11:11 PM

Oh come on, Themechanger isn't that good... Themechanger has been doing this lockup thing on me for the past few months, after the theme changes it just sits there. I've been using Duality 4 since then. It is a bit slower, but works and hasn't given me any problems.

We all love free things, but it's been some time since there have been any updates to Themechanger. At least goMac is still trying to improve Duality. Even if it "does the job" there always is room for improvement.

goMac: I look forward to the update.

TheIceMan · Jun 2, 2003, 11:57 PM

Come on fellas, must we keep bickering about this is better than that? I used Duality, and when it didn't work I switched to ThemeChanger. I'm sure the new Duality will be great. Just use what works, we don't have to be nasty to people who develop these programs, especially when it's free. I, for one, am very grateful that there are 2 products from which I can choose to switch out my themes. Thanks guys for creating Duality (goMac) and ThemeChanger (ambush). Now, can't we all just get along?

tikki · Jun 3, 2003, 12:19 AM

the bickering of these threads does entertain me.

Looking forward to testing out the latest duality.

jessejlt · Jun 3, 2003, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Oh come on, Themechanger isn't that good... Themechanger has been doing this lockup thing on me for the past few months, after the theme changes it just sits there. I've been using Duality 4 since then. It is a bit slower, but works and hasn't given me any problems.

We all love free things, but it's been some time since there have been any updates to Themechanger. At least goMac is still trying to improve Duality. Even if it "does the job" there always is room for improvement.

goMac: I look forward to the update.

When it hangs like that, click the "About" tag, it'll wake the app back up

jesse ;-)

Angus_D · Jun 3, 2003, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Oh come on, Themechanger isn't that good...

Of course it isn't. I don't think it is, and I wrote the damn thing. It's free, it's a hack. Theming in general is a hack. I wouldn't say we put "countless hours" into ThemeChanger, actually, that's not correct. ThemeChanger is quick'n'dirty. There's no two ways about it.

Themechanger has been doing this lockup thing on me for the past few months, after the theme changes it just sits there.

I know some people have been getting this, but I have not yet been able to reproduce it (not that I've tried too hard, see below for reasons). I suggest everyone uses Duality, I'm just ribbing Colin because he has a habit of over-hyping Duality. It's not really anything special, it's just he has more time to devote to it than I do to ThemeChanger.

We all love free things, but it's been some time since there have been any updates to Themechanger.

Actually, I had 0.5.1 sitting and ready to go months back, but at the time I was just getting continual "get an icon!" feedback. I persued several options, it looked like we'd have one in a few weeks, but the plans fell through for various reasons and I got sidetracked, not wanting to go chase one of the big boys for the icon (in fact, I did briefly, they were all either fully booked or didn't get back to me). More time went on, and then I got sidetracked with various personal issues and then other projects. I have thought about updating it, but I'd rather wait I have some idea of where things are headed as far as Panther and everything goes. Also, at that time we'd only had something like 5 donations, which wouldn't even have been enough to cover a designer to pay for an icon. We've since had a few more, but it's still <10, I think.

If you like ThemeChanger, feel free to continue using it. If you don't, feel free to use something else. I'm not claiming it's better than Duality. I think some of the features of Colin's new format are nice, but I also think there are some things I would have done differently. I didn't, so Duality, while far from being the Ultimate Theme Changer (as Colin's hype may have had you believe

), is probably your best bet.

olorin15 · Jun 3, 2003, 02:05 PM

Both Duality and ThemeChanger have problems. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Like I said before on this forum - why doesn't everyone just use then damn Installer.app!!!

It ALWAYS works. I'm so glad at least the Japanese theme developers recognize that ...

bbxstudio · Jun 3, 2003, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by olorin15:
Both Duality and ThemeChanger have problems. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Like I said before on this forum - why doesn't everyone just use then damn Installer.app!!! It ALWAYS works. I'm so glad at least the Japanese theme developers recognize that ...

I know I would if I knew how, but I don't and I doubt there are instructions floating around. The Japanese guys are crazy, God knows how they figure this stuff out. Not that I've put an ounce of effort into figuring it out, mind you. It looks hard, though. Maybe I'm just dumb.

Angus_D · Jun 3, 2003, 04:06 PM

There are plenty of reasons not to use Installer.app, but feel free to use it. It's not difficult to make .pkgs, just RTFM PackageMaker.

smeger · Jun 3, 2003, 04:36 PM

I recommend not using installer.app. There are several good reasons to use a dedicated theme changer. You get an automatic Aqua restore (when it works properly), you get to see all of your themes in one place and in one consistent interface, and the soon-to-be released ThemePark exports dlta and xscheme themes.

NetworkShadow · Jun 3, 2003, 04:55 PM

Ya I don't trust installers for themes...

olorin15 · Jun 3, 2003, 05:25 PM

Well, I guess it's a matter of preference ... I personally do not trust the theme changers

Speaking of writing Installers being hard, I wrote an email to Daisuke (FT-700 theme maker) asking him to provide a custom Installer, and he made one for me in less than a day - so i'm guessing it can't be that hard

As to Aqua backups ... well most people end up using AquaFix anyways ...

And as to seeing previews of your themes ... I always use the screenshots on the web to figure out whether I want a theme or not. I don't really care much for theme changers providing a tiny preview window ...

Angus_D · Jun 4, 2003, 02:32 AM

Not to mention, with installers it's highly unlikely that there will be any version checking whatsoever. They'll probably start stomping over random binaries causing problems (SystemUIServer anyone? How about BootX? Would you like an unbootable system?). Anyway, granted, theme changers aren't as "safe" as they could be, but they're a darned sight safer than installers. And there's possibility for improvement, of course

swiz · Jun 4, 2003, 09:03 AM

I started with installers way back and now I use theme changers. Installers are not at all difficult to use or make but they are a pain in the ass when everyone else uses a different format.

bbxstudio · Jun 4, 2003, 11:58 AM

But installers would be a handy way to patch things like Calculator, iPhoto, iTunes - then again, I guess if a user's going to push it that far, they should know how to show package contents and follow directions. It would be nice to install the theme, sounds, desktops and all the mods in one 'super installation' all at once - reboot and you're totally transformed. But the biggest plus (for me) would be the ability to intercept installation with a end-user agreement, forcing the user to agree not to alter and redistribute etc. Would force those wishing to do unauhorized ports to build them from screenshots rather than actual resources (unless there's a way they can pick through the installer in Windows, who knows). With my other releases guys would just pick through the Mac directories and repost bits and pieces without paying any attention to the read-me - sucked considering some of the stuff was copyrighted.

NetworkShadow · Jun 4, 2003, 01:43 PM

Well you can do agreements on diskimages as far as I know... You could do that with you're theme maybe?

olorin15 · Jun 4, 2003, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Not to mention, with installers it's highly unlikely that there will be any version checking whatsoever. They'll probably start stomping over random binaries causing problems (SystemUIServer anyone? How about BootX? Would you like an unbootable system?). Anyway, granted, theme changers aren't as "safe" as they could be, but they're a darned sight safer than installers. And there's possibility for improvement, of course

Angus - the lack of version checking is a problem with ThemeChagner as well ... at least it was for me.

Of course one could write a bad Installer ... but why would you do that??? How's that any different from writing a theme for a specific 10.2.x release??? You just let peopole know that your Installer only works with a given version, the same way people do with .dlta or whatever themes now. I see no difference whatsoever ...

Anyways, theme changers have messed with my system, while Installers from Izawa and DSKY have not.

olorin15 · Jun 4, 2003, 01:57 PM

Originally posted by swiz:
I started with installers way back and now I use theme changers. Installers are not at all difficult to use or make but they are a pain in the ass when everyone else uses a different format.

I guess I misunderstand something ... how does format of themes affect Installers? I thought you just tell the Installer.app which system files to replace ... I'm not sure I understand what you meant by that.

quandarry · 02:05 AM

__

Angus_D · Jun 5, 2003, 10:35 AM

Originally posted by olorin15:
Angus - the lack of version checking is a problem with ThemeChagner as well ... at least it was for me.

TC at least warns you (actually, its warning is slightly broken because I misunderstood how the dlta format was meant to work because Colin never supplied me with specs, but I digress). It should refuse to install broken components like BootX, but that issue has passed now anyway. I'm not saying theme changers are perfect at the moment, but they could (and should) be a darned sight better than installers. Smeger has some ideas on how to do it nicely, for example, but nobody has had the time to implement them yet. TC does a few things badly, I have admitted that over and over again, I'd do it differently if I started over again. I'll be honest with you: when I started writing it, I wasn't up to speed with the issues involved, I didn't use themes and I was pretty clueless. I still find it amusing that ThemeChanger is as good as it is given that, and the fact that it has had nowhere near the amount of time spent on it as some of the, uh, competition

And if anything particularly bothers you about it you can always fix it yourself, it's open-source. The only good thing about me doing that, AFAICT, has been that people from all walks of life (or at least Mac OS X programming) have a nice real-world example of a decent(ish) implementation of Apple's guidelines on how to use Authorization Services. I didn't really expect anybody else to work on it, but it would have been nice if I'd had at least some code contributions.

Anyway, if ThemeChanger doesn't work for you, as I've said, use Duality. I'd say Duality is better than an installer, or at least it should be, I haven't looked at Duality 4.

smeger · Jun 5, 2003, 06:17 PM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
But the biggest plus (for me) would be the ability to intercept installation with a end-user agreement, forcing the user to agree not to alter and redistribute etc.

While doing the DLTA exporting for ThemePark, I noticed that you can specify a "msgbox" tag that I assume lets you do something like this. I suspect that neither Duality nor ThemeChanger actually implement this since I've never heard anything about it, but I've been wrong lots of other times.

Angus_D · Jun 6, 2003, 05:36 AM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
But the biggest plus (for me) would be the ability to intercept installation with a end-user agreement, forcing the user to agree not to alter and redistribute etc

You can do this with disk images. User has to agree before they can mount it.

swiz · Jun 6, 2003, 07:35 AM

Originally posted by olorin15:
I guess I misunderstand something ... how does format of themes affect Installers? I thought you just tell the Installer.app which system files to replace ... I'm not sure I understand what you meant by that.

I just mean that I was using installers while all the other themers were using .dlta and .theme with theme switchers. I received alot of feedback asking me to move to this specific theme format instead of installers to keep everything consistent.