[Mike S.]

I've been really tempted by some of the recent themes that have come out in the last few months but I've just heard too many conflicting reports about the quality of Shapeshifter. I'm not trying to start another flame fest here, I just want to get a general idea of how many people have issues vs. don't have issues.

A minor issue would be considered something like a slight decrease in performance or some applications that would become unstable or refuse to work.

A major issue would be severe performance degradation, numerous applications becoming unstable or otherwise unusable or anything that prevented the normal operation of your daily tasks.

A complete disaster is something that required you to re-install your OS or other, equally heinous things that would get you to swear something off.

[Frisbee]

Whenever I've had a problem, I was able to pinpoint it myself, and fix it myself. It was always caused by another app, therefore I put over 3 months with no problems. I bought it the first day I saw it posted here on the forums, a day or two after it came out. (Can't live without muh customization....)

[Sage]

<3 months, no problems. Bought my copy in late March/early April, and haven't had a hitch. Well, Safari and Mail are a little choppier when scrolling, but it's fairly trivial. Otherwise, I'm 100% happy with it &ndash; And note that I'm not one of those people who never has trouble with anything... When I used MetamorphX and ThemeChanger way back when, I had many, many problems, including not being able to boot on several occasions (thank goodness for Aquafix's ability to run in the command line). I never worry about SS though.

[wibs]

Originally posted by Sage:
When I used MetamorphX and ThemeChanger way back when, I had many, many problems, including not being able to boot on several occasions (thank goodness for Aquafix's ability to run in the command line). I never worry about SS though.

Back in the Duality days I spent more time in single user mode getting AquaFix to run than I did actually changing themes. I've never had a problem with SS.

[NetworkShadow]

Where's "never had a problem"? I've been using SS since releace with no problems.

[jokell82]

I've installed ShapeShifter (and APE along with it) three times. Every time I've done it it renders my machine completely unusable. After a restart my machine will hang at login. Every time. I submitted a report about it and never heard a peep from a dev. Decided then that I wouldn't try it again.

I just tried the Duality beta and it runs just fine on my system. I'm just hoping all the kinks will be worked out soon...I haven't been able to use themes for a while.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by jokell82:
I've installed ShapeShifter (and APE along with it) three times. Every time I've done it it renders my machine completely unusable. After a restart my machine will hang at login. Every time. I submitted a report about it and never heard a peep from a dev. Decided then that I wouldn't try it again.

I just tried the Duality beta and it runs just fine on my system. I'm just hoping all the kinks will be worked out soon...I haven't been able to use themes for a while.

Give Jason a try, he's always been fast to respond and really good about tech support, I think his email is his name at unsaity's mail server. I'm sure you haven't heard from a dev because you haven't contacted them directly.

[Apfhex]

I've only seen the Safari rendering bug (not that annoying) and experienced problems logging into the iTMS when iTunes 4.5 came out. Other than that, no major problems that I know of...

[jokell82]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Give Jason's email a try, he's always been fast to respond and really good about tech support: smeger AT geekspiff.com I'm sure you haven't heard from a dev because you haven't contacted them directly.

Thanks, but I've just given up for now. When I had the problems for the second time I contacted support@unsanity.com. After it happened the third time I posted here but did not email support. Themes aren't that important to me so if I can't get it to work I don't mind so much...

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by jokell82:
Thanks, but I've just given up for now. When I had the problems for the second time I contacted support@unsanity.com. After it happened the third time I posted here but did not email support. Themes aren't that important to me so if I can't get it to work I don't mind so much...

Jason is the one in charge of SS, so you'd get a better response than the Unsanity support email.

[iNeusch]

I don't know why people are so upset about ShapeShifter and APE... everything works as described and it is perfectly safe

[Fonzie]

I have used ShapeShifter since it was published. And I trusted the authors when they said that it was safe. And it was! I have never had a problem with it. I never had any problems with ThemeChanger either(for a short period of time). I've never used Duality.

I have also used APE for awhile and never had issues. Except when it tried to eat all my bananas

[Maflynn]

No problems here; ts worked flawlessly. I've used it since its release.

Mike

[jokell82]

I'd say 99% of the people don't have a problem with it. But since it's hosed my system three times I'm gonna stay away. I may email Jason to see what he says...

[TheZee]

I must concurr with the original post and advise a level of caution when using Shapeshifter. I have used it for awhile now and I really dig it. However, it does have flaws, major flaws. For instance, after applying a theme Shapshifter restarts the Finder. Well, sometimes, with certain themes, the Finder does not return. If you don't catch it before you quit out of the system preferences you'll be screwed and have to performw an archive and install to get the Finder back. Apparently, under certain theme applications using Shapshifter, certain files become invisivble and other oddities becom invisible. If you don't know this, you think, 'where the hell did that go?' Also, not all theme changes stick. Many, resort back to whatever original theme came before it. Just some words of caution. Overall, I really dig the app but I think that more people should be aware of these certain flaws with it.
Peace,

[Rosyna]

Originally posted by TheZee:
I must concurr with the original post and advise a level of caution when using Shapeshifter. I have used it for awhile now and I really dig it. However, it does have flaws, major flaws. For instance, after applying a theme Shapshifter restarts the Finder. Well, sometimes, with certain themes, the Finder does not return. If you don't catch it before you quit out of the system preferences you'll be screwed and have to performw an archive and install to get the Finder back. Apparently, under certain theme applications using Shapshifter, certain files become invisivble and other oddities becom invisible. If you don't know this, you think, 'where the hell did that go?' Also, not all theme changes stick. Many, resort back to whatever original theme came before it. Just some words of caution. Overall, I really dig the app but I think that more people should be aware of these certain flaws with it.
Peace,

Huh? If the theme is bad and crashes the finder, SS will auto disable itself for the finder. Thus preventing any infinite loop of restarting. And you can disable the restart of the finder by unchecking the box in the preference pane.

It is also possible that after x amount of time, the Finder will cease to auto launch. You can fix this by just clicking on the Finder icon in the dock.

[smeger]

Originally posted by TheZee:
I must concurr with the original post and advise a level of caution when using Shapeshifter. I have used it for awhile now and I really dig it. However, it does have flaws, major flaws. For instance, after applying a theme Shapshifter restarts the Finder. Well, sometimes, with certain themes, the Finder does not return. If you don't catch it before you quit out of the system preferences you'll be screwed and have to performw an archive and install to get the Finder back. Apparently, under certain theme applications using Shapshifter, certain files become invisivble and other oddities becom invisible. If you don't know this, you think, 'where the hell did that go?' Also, not all theme changes stick. Many, resort back to whatever original theme came before it. Just some words of caution. Overall, I really dig the app but I think that more people should be aware of these certain flaws with it.
Peace,

Absolutely no way. As Rosyna said, ShapeShifter is designed such that if Finder crashes on launch, SS disables itself for Finder. If, for some reason, Finder doesn't auto-relaunch when SS applies a theme, give it a click in the Dock and there ya go. ShapeShifter doesn't modify any files, so even if somehow everything goes to hell, choose System Prefs from your apple menu and turn off ShapeShifter. Once it's off, everything goes back to where you began. Worst case scenario, use the APE Manager prefpane to temporarily disable APE and you're back to a virginal system. Or hold down "shift" as you boot and log in.

There is absolutely nothing that ShapeShifter can do that would require an archive/reinstall.

I strongly suspect that you've applied a theme using ThemeChanger or an early version of Duality, both of which do! modify system files, and that you didn't do a good Aqua Restore before beginning to use ShapeShifter. There's a very good reason that the very first thing ShapeShifter does the first time you launch it is to tell you to make sure you do this.

Can you be more specific about how in "certain theme applications", "certain files become invisivble and other oddities becom invisible"?

Regarding your claim that not all theme changes stick, remember that when you apply a theme using ShapeShifter, it only takes effect for newly launched applications. You should log out/in after you apply a theme, otherwise, newly launched apps will have the new theme and apps that were already launched before you applied the theme will still have the old one.

Remember, if you have issues, this is what Unsanity tech support is for.

[TheZee]

Dude,
I am a happy owner of Shapeshifter believe you me. It's not like I enjoy pointing out flaws in it. Lord knows we all have flaws. I was merely describing the glitches I have found using the Shapeshifter. I am fully aware that theme changes won't show up until running apps are closed. I log in/out after every theme change. However, the fact remains that, no it wasn't another program that caused the Finder to disappear and not reappear. Let me give you the facts: Fact - after applying a theme, Shapeshifter restarts the Finder and the menu extras right? Right. When this takes place, the FInder disappears for awhile as does the image of the Hard Drive and any other desktop items visible. Well, one time those items disappeared and never returned. I am not familiar with Duality or Theme Changer. Never used em. I, with the help of the MacFixIt Forums and AppleCare techs we narrowed down to Shapeshifter. My HD, desktop icons the Finder, all of which Shapeshifter makes invisible while it attempts to restart them, they never reappeared. I had to perform an archive and install to get my HD & Finder back in good working order. Nowadays, whenever I apply a theme, Ibefore clicking OKAY I wait to make sure that the HD image any desktop icons and the Finder reappear. I am not sure about yours but with my Shapshifter, after certain themes the Finder does not come back so then I must choose another theme and then, guess what, the Finder etc. reappear. Other files that disappear or do not show up are, for an example, anything that I downloaded from the internet did not show up on my desktop as being expanded. I forget what theme I was using but when I changed then theme, BAM, all the files that I had downloaded and couldn't figure out where they went, all of them, reappeared after switching themes. So, is it the themes or is it ShapeShifter? Splitting hairs. Like I said before, I really dig Shapeshifter but to say that it can in now way cause the issues I have described above is rediculous. Oh yeah, another thing; quite often, I have applied a theme, logged out/in, restarted, etc and the theme is fine. Then, after, let's say, 10 restarts, the theme has left the building and the boring original Aqua theme appears again. Doesn't happen all the time but enought times to be of concern. What really freaks me out is the Finder and Desktop images being affected. I'm telling you, whenever I change a theme, I cross my fingers and pray that after making those items disappear that Shapeshifter will make them reappear. Hope this enlightened you a bit.
Peace,

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by TheZee:
Dude,
I am a happy owner of Shapeshifter believe you me. It's not like I enjoy pointing out flaws in it. Lord knows we all have flaws. I was merely describing the glitches I have found using the Shapeshifter. I am fully aware that theme changes won't show up until running apps are closed. I log in/out after every theme change. However, the fact remains that, no it wasn't another program that caused the Finder to disappear and not reappear. Let me give you the facts: Fact - after applying a theme, Shapeshifter restarts the Finder and the menu extras right? Right. When this takes place, the FInder disappears for awhile as does the image of the Hard Drive and any other desktop items visible. Well, one time those items disappeared and never returned. I am not familiar with Duality or Theme Changer. Never used em. I, with the help of the MacFixIt Forums and AppleCare techs we narrowed down to Shapeshifter. My HD, desktop icons the Finder, all of which Shapeshifter makes invisible while it attempts to restart them, they never reappeared. I had to perform an archive and install to get my HD & Finder back in good working order. Nowadays, whenever I apply a theme, Ibefore clicking OKAY I wait to make sure that the HD image any desktop icons and the Finder reappear. I am not sure about yours but with my Shapshifter, after certain themes the Finder does not come back so then I must choose another theme and then, guess what, the Finder etc. reappear. Other files that disappear or do not show up are, for an example, anything that I downloaded from the internet did not show up on my desktop as being expanded. I forget what theme I was using but when I changed then theme, BAM, all the files that I had downloaded and couldn't figure out where they went, all of them, reappeared after switching themes. So, is it the themes or is it ShapeShifter? Splitting hairs. Like I said before, I really dig Shapeshifter but to say that it can in now way cause the issues I have described above is rediculous. Oh yeah, another thing; quite often, I have applied a theme, logged out/in, restarted, etc and the theme is fine. Then, after, let's say, 10 restarts, the theme has left the building and the boring original Aqua theme appears again. Doesn't happen all the time but enought times to be of concern. What really freaks me out is the Finder and Desktop images being affected. I'm telling you, whenever I change a theme, I cross my fingers and pray that after making those items disappear that Shapeshifter will make them reappear. Hope this enlightened you a bit.
Peace,

The disappering of icons on the desktop also occurs to me from time to time. The simple solution is to just restart the Finder by clicking on it in the Dock. I've done this many times. Have I understood you correctly ?

[TheZee]

I agree that that would be the first thing to try. Here's the kicker though. When I did click on the Finder icon in the Dock the finder would appear then disappear again. Like it was struggling to open but something was impeding it. Seems like an metaphor for life sometimes. Fortunately I was able to perform the archive and install and then create a new user account and the isues was resolved. What bothers me though is when I change a theme, the theme is aplied, the Finder and menu extras restart, any images/icons on the desktop disappear then I am holding my breath waiting for my Hard Drive and the Finder to reappear. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't then I choose another theme to see if that theme will make the Finder and HD reappear. Usually on the second different theme attempt the finder and the HD and my desktop icons reappear and everything's cool. This scenario has never happened to you? I know I'm not the only one. When that whole disappearing finder and HD happened I became part of a rather long thread here at MacNN which focused on this issue. I think it's an issue that should be addressed or at least a heads up on the topic. For now I suppose I will continue to cross my fingers when applying themes. Maybe i should reinstall ShapeShifter to see if that does anything. Like i said before, I do dig the app. Later . . .
Peace,

[MacDog]

I'm just guessing, but it might have something to do with thee fact that you're running a really old version of the OS, on an old Mac, with barely enough RAM to run OSX.

[Frisbee]

Originally posted by TheZee:
I agree that that would be the first thing to try. Here's the kicker though. When I did click on the Finder icon in the Dock the finder would appear then disappear again. Like it was struggling to open but something was impeding it. Seems like an metaphor for life sometimes. Fortunately I was able to perform the archive and install and then create a new user account and the isues was resolved. What bothers me though is when I change a theme, the theme is aplied, the Finder and menu extras restart, any images/icons on the desktop disappear then I am holding my breath waiting for my Hard Drive and the Finder to reappear. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't then I choose another theme to see if that theme will make the Finder and HD reappear. Usually on the second different theme attempt the finder and the HD and my desktop icons reappear and everything's cool. This scenario has never happened to you? I know I'm not the only one. When that whole disappearing finder and HD happened I became part of a rather long thread here at MacNN which focused on this issue. I think it's an issue that should be addressed or at least a heads up on the topic. For now I suppose I will continue to cross my fingers when applying themes. Maybe i should reinstall ShapeShifter to see if that does anything. Like i said before, I do dig the app. Later . . .
Peace,

Keep clicking on the finder over and over again, and SS will disable itself for the finder. When I've had experience with other applications crashing the finder, SS usually disables itself after 3 or 4 restarts...

[Rosyna]

Originally posted by Frisbee:
Keep clicking on the finder over and over again, and SS will disable itself for the finder. When I've had experience with other applications crashing the finder, SS usually disables itself after 3 or 4 restarts...

It disables itself after a very quick relaunch (which indicates a crash).

Not quite sure what TheZee is talking about as he claims that ShapeShifter "makes the desktop and HD images invisible", per normal course...

[TheZee]

I tried continuously clicking on the Finder but it kept on appearing for a millisecond then disappearing. As far as all the desktop icons, including the HD disk image disappearing; I mean that they no longer appeared on my desktop. If I opened Disk Utility, the HD appeared but if you were looking at my desktop, there were no icons on it. The menubar and the dock were still active but any file or disk image that were previously present on my desktop were invisible. because of their invisibility, I could not access them. Once I performed an archive and install, deleted the previous user, created a new user, everything returned to normal.
Peace.

[Rosyna]

Originally posted by TheZee:
I tried continuously clicking on the Finder but it kept on appearing for a millisecond then disappearing. As far as all the desktop icons, including the HD disk image disappearing; I mean that they no longer appeared on my desktop. If I opened Disk Utility, the HD appeared but if you were looking at my desktop, there were no icons on it. The menubar and the dock were still active but any file or disk image that were previously present on my desktop were invisible. because of their invisibility, I could not access them. Once I performed an archive and install, deleted the previous user, created a new user, everything returned to normal.
Peace.

And you have a crash log? ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/

Look for the Finder one. What you describe is a crash...

They were not invisible. The finder was not running. Therefore, no icons...

[TheZee]

Your theory sounds very interesting. The crash log did show that the Finder was crashing. However, why, when the Finder would appear for a brief moment din't the desktop icons appear for that same brief moment? I think you are probably correct with your assumption that the FInder was crashing. Still, the issue remains that it was ShapeShifter which caused the Finder to crash and caused me to have to archive and install. Luckily I was able to solve the issue that way. Otherwise I would have lost very important data. Thankfully, though, that did not happen. Still, I am cautious when changing themes. I really dig ShapeShifter, really I do. I just don't trust it 100%. Thanks for all your knowledge concerning this issue. I think that these forums are one of the most valuable Mac assets there is. Talk at cha . . . .
Peace,

[agent79]

after reading some of the posts here i have a few questions. i am interested in SS, have dled it, and am excited that there is a quality theme changer for OSX. i have a G4, 466MHz processor running OSX 10.2.6 w/512Mb RAM. i know that on the SS website it requires that you have at least OS 10.2. so i should be alright. but when i want to preview a new theme i get a caution window saying:

"This mod was created for a newer operating system. You can probably use it anyway, but there may be visual inconsistencies or other issues if you do."

i have noticed that when previewing these themes (Digital Device 3-10, which came with SS; and Latium 2) that the close, collapse, and expand buttons on the window do not change to the modified theme buttons of said theme. rather they stay the same stoplight red, yellow and green aqua spheres.

so, has anybody else had these occurances? are they normal? is it alright for me to run this prog on my system with the stats stated above? i believe i ran the theme changer Xpression on my system back when i just had 10.2 and it resulted in complete failure of my hard drive. reducing me to blue screen of death, reformatting, and re-installing. ouch. dont want that to happen again.

thanks

[smeger]

Originally posted by agent79:
after reading some of the posts here i have a few questions. i am interested in SS, have dled it, and am excited that there is a quality theme changer for OSX. i have a G4, 466MHz processor running OSX 10.2.6 w/512Mb RAM. i know that on the SS website it requires that you have at least OS 10.2. so i should be alright. but when i want to preview a new theme i get a caution window saying:

"This mod was created for a newer operating system. You can probably use it anyway, but there may be visual inconsistencies or other issues if you do."

You're seeing this message because themes designed for 10.3 use different resources than those designed for 10.2 ShapeShifter will port forwards, but it won't port back, so you can use 10.2 themes on 10.3 pretty nicely, but 10.3 themes tend to look crappy on 10.2.

I don't think that there's anything unsafe about running 10.3 themes on a 10.2 system, but we consider it to be an unsupported configuration, partially because the results are ugly and partially because we haven't done a lot of testing to make sure that there aren't any "gotchas". As I say, I don't think you'll have any problems, but I can't guarantee it.

Resexcellence has a large archive of themes designed for 10.1 and 10.2. Any of those should work peachily with ShapeShifter on your Jaguar machine, and more importantly, will look nicer than trying to use a theme that was designed for 10.3.

[smeger]

Originally posted by TheZee:
Your theory sounds very interesting. The crash log did show that the Finder was crashing. However, why, when the Finder would appear for a brief moment din't the desktop icons appear for that same brief moment? I think you are probably correct with your assumption that the FInder was crashing. Still, the issue remains that it was ShapeShifter which caused the Finder to crash and caused me to have to archive and install. Luckily I was able to solve the issue that way. Otherwise I would have lost very important data. Thankfully, though, that did not happen. Still, I am cautious when changing themes. I really dig ShapeShifter, really I do. I just don't trust it 100%. Thanks for all your knowledge concerning this issue. I think that these forums are one of the most valuable Mac assets there is. Talk at cha . . . .
Peace,

ShapeShifter is designed to disable itself for the Finder if the Finder crashes. You can then go into <your home directory>/Library/Application Enhancers and trash ShapeShifter.ape, and you're back to the state you were at before you installed SS. No archive and reinstall necessary.

Or, reboot while holding the <shift> key. Or, use the Apple Menu to launch System Preferences and use either the APE Manager preference pane or the ShapeShifter preference pane to turn SS off. No archive and reinstall necessary.

I noticed that you mentioned in this thread that you'd used Duality to install a DLTA theme. And that your post in that thread was the day before your post in this one. As I mentioned above, I very strongly suspect that Duality changed operating system components in your filesystem when you did this, resulting in an unbootable Finder. This is a known issue with older versions of Duality and was one reason I wrote ShapeShifter in the first place.

[agent79]

hey thanks smeger, i figured that the themes in question were written for 10.3 but i wasnt totally sure. since my last post i have been to Resexcellence and indeed found some 10.2 themes and am thusly happy...until i get 10.3, lol.

in regards to TheZee, my finder stalled after applying my first theme with SS. i simply force quit it, relaunched it and bingo it was back. havent had a problem since. obviously you found it ok to omit the fact that you had indeed installed Duality on your machine, even after someone asked you specifically if you had. shame shame. cant take you seriously now. people come to these posts looking for honest evaluations and troubleshooting. in reading your posts i had second thoughts about going with SS, but luckily everyone else in here had nothing but great things to say about it. i'm glad i listened to them and now you.

thanks again smeger