[yukon]

Hi all,
after years of CRT usage, my eyes are going. I tried lowering brightness down to minimum and upping contrast to max, and my eyes actually got better after a year (yea!). Still, even on those settings, OS X is so bright......I've tried a number of dark themes (NeXT, FT500, etc), but none are high contrast, usually they're just all black (black text on black isn't fun. I've tried the Universal Access colour invert/negative, which is an awesome feature, but movies and pictures become useless, and finder icon and dock text turns to black on black again (with a black background).

I've tried making a theme, no luck. So, I'm requesting a High Contrast theme from the masters.

here's a good example from windows (bright green on black, 28k)-


here's two bad examples (not dark enough)-
mac-email.com/hotline/sh.jpg

[Cerbero]

Check out the "Switch to white on black" setting in the Universal Access preference pane.

[Glennfield]

Originally posted by Cerbero:
Check out the "Switch to white on black" setting in the Universal Access preference pane.

Originally posted by yukon:
I've tried the Universal Access colour invert/negative, which is an awesome feature, but movies and pictures become useless, and finder icon and dock text turns to black on black again (with a black background).

[solidfox]

Originally posted by yukon:
Hi all,
after years of CRT usage, my eyes are going.

So basically you should either dump the computer and get out in the sun (with your feather pen and ... scriptrolls (?)) or get a tft...or both...

You tried Shinobi?...it's kind of high contrast...if you're not happy with the black on black you can change the text colors of the system pretty easily, here's some instructions on that: http://www.geekspiff.com/software/themepark/tutorial/

Cause I really don't think anyone here would go through all that making a theme is about just for a high contrast theme...themes are built from your own ideas and visions...and it takes a lot of will to get it done...
Least that's what goes for me...

well...anyways...best of luck changing colors

[yukon]

heh, thanks for the advice. i've moved to LCD for reading things, like long essays...and i've been able to read books comfortably on it. But I still have to use a CRT, for quite a while (could you go without computing? ;-D ).

in fact, one of my friends is starting to suffer the same headaches and eyestrain. i've got him on the same high contrast low brightness high gamma thing (well, at least a low white point). He's got it easier on GNOME though, in Aqua everything is white, and the dark themes i've tried have made certain things unreadable.

a theme....well, as you can see from the windows screenshot, i'm talking totally devoid of artistic talent if necessary. i'm talking pure black images and generic widgets, pure and simple functionality. i had tried modifying a theme using themepark (a great app), but it seemed complex....that page you posted will help, thanks. Of course, someone who knows how to do a theme already could have it out fast and better than I could ever create (hence the request).

thanks for the help though, i'll copy that page to the laptop and read it :-)

[smeger]

Unfortunately, the text colors referenced by solidfox only work for Carbon apps. So, you can get half of your apps to have white text, but only half of 'em.

This is a bummer.

[Dace]

Have you tried ny theme Grey Jaguar?

Preview:


Screenshot:

Zoom in

It's what I use when I get tired of Jaguar's brightness.

Download GJ

[yukon]

smeger: damn, i was hoping that i could get white-on-black text everywhere.....oh well, thanks for the heads up, would have been quite the dissapointment

dace: hmm, nope, can't say i have. i'm downloading it now. "panther pro" is nice, though it used metal a bit too much, Rhapsodized was my previous standard, it's pleasant and neutral but bright as well. hmm, yes, this "Grey Jaguar" is better, it tones down brightness of unnecessary white space. not my eventual "no unneccessary brightness" solution, but it's much better than defualt yet still stylish, i'll use it from now on, thanks!

as a side note, i see now that i can only make the background darker in windows set to "icon view". does that ever suck. i hear of rumours of Panther's new theme, or a higher contrast setting...they're older rumours though i'm afraid, and panther's a bit of a ways off. here's hoping they have a theming surprise feature :-\

also, i just have to mention this application in case other's have my same problem. "Gamma Control", it's available on versiontracker. if you up the gamma to "1" or higher you get much better contrast, and you can set the white gamma to much lower, toning down all bright colours (though losing contrast). it's not a real solution though, it turns off once in a while (mplayer does this to me the most), and can be a bit annoying....though i find it very useful.

[diskobolos]

it's not a theme but you this app may be useful to you
http://www.adpartnership.net/DarkAdapted/index.html

[version]

Dace, nice theme, I like the darkness of it. One thing that gets me about themeing OS X, is that we can't change the backgrounds for the column, and list views. So we end up with too much contrast between a dark theme, and the white background, makes it hard on the eyes.

[yukon]

diskobolos- yep, that's much like Gamma Control,
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/9995
http://michelf-files.webhop.org/gamma-control.dmg

i seem to like GammaControl more, it offers more options, like changing the white gamma only (which cuts the offending brightness, though all bright objects as well). if anyone here has trouble with eyestrain, i'd suggest either of the two apps, though i'd personally reccomend GC.

one of the benefits of this darker theme, is that i don't need to turn down the white gamma as much, so the screen gets darker without interfering with images/movies as much as it used to.


I'll send in feedback to apple. Theming is part of the user experiance in customization...it's similar to "One-Button mouse, though works with any other mouse". I honestly don't know why they force themers to jump through hoops, themers do anyway, might as well make it better.

The colour inversion in the system prefs is too much, but it goes in the right direction....try it, and notice that almost EVERY GUI element turns black but with neon widgets that aren't too ugly, without loss of function (the problem is, again, with real images and some text).