[goMac]

I'm happy to report public beta 3 was ok'd this morning by our lead programmer.

The following new features have been added to Duality:
• The save sheet has been vastly improved. You may now browse the contents of a theme and save individual files. Also, you may still have the theme as an XScheme.
• Application exclusion has also been added. You may tell Duality to not theme certain applications. Currently this requires a log out to take effect but this will be changed in later betas.
• A new options sheet has been added. You can now tell Duality what parts of a theme you do not wish to use. This list is user modifiable. Users may add their own controls. The list of controls is at ~/Library/Application/XTender/OptionsSettings and is user editable.
• Preview is being re-implemented.
• A status dialog now shows when a theme is being imported.

The following bugs have been fixed:
• A bug the could make Duality crash if themes are removed to quickly.
• A bug that could give the wrong status during a theme change.
• (Private betas) A bug that could prevent the options dialog from closing if the OK button is clicked (however hitting enter works).

XTender and ThemeKit have not been modified for this release.

More information and a download is available at:
http://carpestellarem.com/Products/D.../Duality5Beta/

The download is 540k in size.

[:dragonflypro:]

honestly, a bump of an existing thread will do.

[Frisbee]

Originally posted by :dragonflypro::
honestly, a bump of an existing thread will do.

Whenever SS updates are released, there's a new thread...

[fireside]

three problems with the installer:
1) Asks for authorization. not cool.
2) Tells me i need to quit everything to install (and i don't)
3) "Optimizing" takes too damn long

[goMac]

Originally posted by fireside:
three problems with the installer:
1) Asks for authorization. not cool.
2) Tells me i need to quit everything to install (and i don't)
3) "Optimizing" takes too damn long

I'll respond using numbers of the corresponding issue:

1) XTender installs in places that require authorization (/etc). The specific file is the file that tells XTender to launch on startup. We could put it other places, but Apple is warning if you don't put the required file in /etc, you risk being made incompatible in a later OS version (i.e, they're going to be cutting out other access methods).
2. This is an Apple issue. All we tell the installer is that we need logout. Apple fills in the words for us. This is something they need feedback on.
3. We're looking at optimizing. On my Powerbook it takes about 2 minutes, but on my G3 it takes 5. We don't know why its taking that long.

[quandarry]

Originally posted by :dragonflypro::
honestly, a bump of an existing thread will do.

get a life...

[jokell82]

Thanks Colin, can't wait to try it out!

[jokell82]

BTW, I'm having a problem with it. This occurred in both this beta and in the previous. Take a look:



This is using the Milk from the Duality beta site. I get the same thing if I try to convert a guikit. It just doesn't change the finder buttons at all. Everything else works great.

[goMac]

Originally posted by jokell82:
BTW, I'm having a problem with it. This occurred in both this beta and in the previous. Take a look:



This is using the Milk from the Duality beta site. I get the same thing if I try to convert a guikit. It just doesn't change the finder buttons at all. Everything else works great.

Here's the explanation of the problem, its pretty big.

Duality has to override the Extras.rsrc BEFORE the application begins to load. This is called early-load patching. Early load patching must happen quickly obviously. So the info that is passed into the application must be very small.

Adding more things to theme would bog down the early load patch so it would miss the early patching required.

The solution to this is to create a separate plugin to patch everything that can be patched at normal load, so that early load patching can still occur.

So this is an issue with our XTender engineer. I forwarded him a list of everything I want functioning for the next beta today. This list included:

Finder buttons
Icons
iTunes
iChat
Safari
QuickTime Player

iChat, Finder, Safari, are complete on my end, the code is ready for creating the data to send into XTender. Icon code is near complete right now and will be in for sure by the next beta. Dave was doing research and prototyping for iTunes today. QuickTime Player we see as minor at this point and is currently only in planning.

Dave is about to completely re-write XTender from scratch over the next few days to enable on-the-fly plugin enabling/disabling and improve compatibility. This Friday/Saturday/Sunday Carpe Stellarem is getting together to tackle program compatibility.

Your short answer is it should be working in the next public beta, most of it is recycling of older code, but we still need to write the proper XTender code.

[jokell82]

Originally posted by goMac:
Here's the explanation of the problem, its pretty big.

Duality has to override the Extras.rsrc BEFORE the application begins to load. This is called early-load patching. Early load patching must happen quickly obviously. So the info that is passed into the application must be very small.

Adding more things to theme would bog down the early load patch so it would miss the early patching required.

The solution to this is to create a separate plugin to patch everything that can be patched at normal load, so that early load patching can still occur.

So this is an issue with our XTender engineer. I forwarded him a list of everything I want functioning for the next beta today. This list included:

Finder buttons
Icons
iTunes
iChat
Safari
QuickTime Player

iChat, Finder, Safari, are complete on my end, the code is ready for creating the data to send into XTender. Icon code is near complete right now and will be in for sure by the next beta. Dave was doing research and prototyping for iTunes today. QuickTime Player we see as minor at this point and is currently only in planning.

Dave is about to completely re-write XTender from scratch over the next few days to enable on-the-fly plugin enabling/disabling and improve compatibility. This Friday/Saturday/Sunday Carpe Stellarem is getting together to tackle program compatibility.

Your short answer is it should be working in the next public beta, most of it is recycling of older code, but we still need to write the proper XTender code.

Sounds good. I didn't know if it was a bug or not. Thanks, and great work so far!

[Link]

Yeeah this means gomac and team are kicking serious butt

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by goMac:
1) XTender installs in places that require authorization (/etc). The specific file is the file that tells XTender to launch on startup. We could put it other places, but Apple is warning if you don't put the required file in /etc, you risk being made incompatible in a later OS version (i.e, they're going to be cutting out other access methods).

The documentation is wrong. SystemStarter is not deprecated, and the bootstrap servers approach is only really recommended for mach servers.

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by goMac:
Dave is about to completely re-write XTender from scratch over the next few days

I don't want to slam you Colin but with the slowness in which this is progressing isn't this going to seriously push back the release date. Xtender is the "ape-like" engine is it not? I would assume this type of change would affect your application across every boundry.

Originally posted by :dragonflypro::
honestly, a bump of an existing thread will do.

Come on, this is a new beta, so a new thread is warrented. If that was the case there would only be one SS thread but do a search, there's tons of them.

Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
The documentation is wrong. SystemStarter is not deprecated, and the bootstrap servers approach is only really recommended for mach servers.

No, what I refer to are login plugins. SystemStarter items are also not per-user, so they are not what we should be using. Mach startup items are per user, and are the replacement for login plugins.

Apple has already stated that other systems are being depreciated.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
I don't want to slam you Colin but with the slowness in which this is progressing isn't this going to seriously push back the release date. Xtender is the "ape-like" engine is it not? I would assume this type of change would affect your application across every boundry.

Dave is extremely quick and has been researching this for the past several weeks. He has been programming for 30 years and he has made prior re-writes very quickly. I think a re-write will probably be ready for the next public beta.

I don't know if hes modifing the plugin layout for XTender, but I don't think Duality's plugin for XTender is going to require much changing at all.

[rhythmicmoose]

Originally posted by goMac:
So this is an issue with our XTender engineer. I forwarded him a list of everything I want functioning for the next beta today. This list included:

Finder buttons
Icons
iTunes
iChat
Safari
QuickTime Player

iChat, Finder, Safari, are complete on my end, the code is ready for creating the data to send into XTender. Icon code is near complete right now and will be in for sure by the next beta. Dave was doing research and prototyping for iTunes today. QuickTime Player we see as minor at this point and is currently only in planning.

Interesting... This would be the equivalent of ShapeShifter's appskins, correct? If so, I might actually try out your next beta.

Two questions:
1. Would the appskins from a translated guikit get applied by Duality?
2. Do you have any plans for more direct guikit compatibility (either by adding built-in translation or full guikit compatibility)?

[goMac]

Originally posted by rhythmicmoose:
Interesting... This would be the equivalent of ShapeShifter's appskins, correct? If so, I might actually try out your next beta.

Two questions:
1. Would the appskins from a translated guikit get applied by Duality?
2. Do you have any plans for more direct guikit compatibility (either by adding built-in translation or full guikit compatibility)?

1) Yes.
2) Dave has been looking through all the feedback and thinks this is an important feature. I can't really give a good reply on whether or not it will happen because this is something Dave is looking at. As far as I would say in my programming experiance, no, but Dave could possibly do it.

[Komisar]

Updates to duality 5 beta 3:
Name has been changed from 2 to 3

Lets face it people, there is nothing new.... they are just not taking the time to consider all the problems

[jokell82]

Originally posted by Komisar:
Updates to duality 5 beta 3:
Name has been changed from 2 to 3

Lets face it people, there is nothing new.... they are just not taking the time to consider all the problems

Actually, if you had bothered to try out either, you'd know that there is a difference. Great post troll.

[iOliverC]

I still get a crash when I try adding a theme. I've only tried the Milk theme but it just crashes System Prefs. Also tried a reinstall.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Komisar:
Updates to duality 5 beta 3:
Name has been changed from 2 to 3

Lets face it people, there is nothing new.... they are just not taking the time to consider all the problems

I listed the new features above. Everyone else is seeing the new features. If you had trouble installing the new prefpane feel free to contact me for help.

[goMac]

Originally posted by iOliverC:
I still get a crash when I try adding a theme. I've only tried the Milk theme but it just crashes System Prefs. Also tried a reinstall.

Two things to try:

1) If you have ThemeKit in your ~/Library/Frameworks trash it.
2) Check the permissions on the ~/Library/Application Support/XTender/XTender Themes. Make sure Duality can write to that file, or the XTender folder.

[Komisar]

I really didn't notice a difference i was having the same problems i did before installing themes getting the themes to perform correctly... im not doubting you software... maybe a reinstall is in order

[fireside]

i can import most themes, but when i tried to import a .dlta, it didn't really crash, but it wasn't really doing anything either. it was just showing the progress bar. after about a minute or so, it made the system slow down. i finally had to force quit System Prefs.

edit: the .dlta in question is SmoothStripes Square. its 42megs. could that be a problem?

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by Komisar:
Updates to duality 5 beta 3:
Name has been changed from 2 to 3

Lets face it people, there is nothing new.... they are just not taking the time to consider all the problems

Scroll to the top of the thread you will see the new features/changes/fixes.

Originally posted by goMac:
I'm happy to report public beta 3 was ok'd this morning by our lead programmer.

The following new features have been added to Duality:
• The save sheet has been vastly improved. You may now browse the contents of a theme and save individual files. Also, you may still have the theme as an XScheme.
• Application exclusion has also been added. You may tell Duality to not theme certain applications. Currently this requires a log out to take effect but this will be changed in later betas.
• A new options sheet has been added. You can now tell Duality what parts of a theme you do not wish to use. This list is user modifiable. Users may add their own controls. The list of controls is at ~/Library/Application/XTender/OptionsSettings and is user editable.
• Preview is being re-implemented.
• A status dialog now shows when a theme is being imported.

The following bugs have been fixed:
• A bug the could make Duality crash if themes are removed to quickly.
• A bug that could give the wrong status during a theme change.
• (Private betas) A bug that could prevent the options dialog from closing if the OK button is clicked (however hitting enter works).

XTender and ThemeKit have not been modified for this release.

More information and a download is available at:
http://carpestellarem.com/Products/D.../Duality5Beta/

The download is 540k in size.

[goMac]

Originally posted by fireside:
i can import most themes, but when i tried to import a .dlta, it didn't really crash, but it wasn't really doing anything either. it was just showing the progress bar. after about a minute or so, it made the system slow down. i finally had to force quit System Prefs.

edit: the .dlta in question is SmoothStripes Square. its 42megs. could that be a problem?

I actually wrote an entry on this issue in my blog:

http://gomac.blogspot.com/2004/06/meanwhile.html

Its about half way down.

While its an interesting read, I'll do the quick summery. DLTA import speed is a bit slow, but Duality translates everything into XScheme format on import (the reasons are given in the blog). I can try to speed it up, but larger DLTA's do wear it down.

[jokell82]

Colin - I'm not sure if this is related to something you're working on for the next beta, but I've found another problem:



That's using SimpleX.guikit. The brushed metal is supposed to be blue... The rest of the theme seems to work, though.

[goMac]

Originally posted by jokell82:
Colin - I'm not sure if this is related to something you're working on for the next beta, but I've found another problem:



That's using SimpleX.guikit. The brushed metal is supposed to be blue... The rest of the theme seems to work, though.

I'll save SimpleX back out from Duality and check out the pxm's to see whats up.

It might be a rendering issue with Panther. There was that color issue when Panther came out. If thats the case I'll send a request to Dave to patch that.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by goMac:
It might be a rendering issue with Panther. There was that color issue when Panther came out. If thats the case I'll send a request to Dave to patch that.

Looks exactly like the Panther problem. (ShapeShifter was the first to fix the problem) You should see how textures work too.

[goMac]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Looks exactly like the Panther problem. (ShapeShifter was the first to fix the problem) You should see how textures work too.

Do you have a link to any better information on the problem? If Apple is just flagging windows a certain way it would be pretty simple to fix.

[fireside]

Originally posted by goMac:
I actually wrote an entry on this issue in my blog:

http://gomac.blogspot.com/2004/06/meanwhile.html

Its about half way down.

While its an interesting read, I'll do the quick summery. DLTA import speed is a bit slow, but Duality translates everything into XScheme format on import (the reasons are given in the blog). I can try to speed it up, but larger DLTA's do wear it down.

ah, i see.

any thoughts on making the app a prefpane rather than a standalone app? i'd much rather see a stand alone app than a prefpane, for space issues, and size of the window. you can't really stretch it in a prefpane.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by goMac:
Do you have a link to any better information on the problem? If Apple is just flagging windows a certain way it would be pretty simple to fix.

I'm just aware of what it looks like, (being one of the first to port dlta themes to Panther) I'm no programer though.

[Link]

That's the panther issue where finder windows only show up in grayscale. Odd problem, that.

[goMac]

Originally posted by fireside:
ah, i see.

any thoughts on making the app a prefpane rather than a standalone app? i'd much rather see a stand alone app than a prefpane, for space issues, and size of the window. you can't really stretch it in a prefpane.

I actually have XCode set up right now to build a app version and prefpane version. The problem is that they use two seperate nibs (the file containing the interface). To keep the versions in sync I have to re-do the pref pane interface a second time on the app, so so far the prefpane version has been receiving the updates.

We might have an app version. Its not a matter of code, rather one of moving the interface over again. Duality 4 actually had adaptive code that allowed you to toy with the interface, so that made really easy to build a completely separate interface for the app vs. the prefpane, even though we ditched the prefpane in the end.