[goMac]

There have been some changes with themes in 10.4. Themes still apply fine but there have been some changes in the layout of files, specifically some files dealing with the Finder. I'm doing some work to correct this.

Sorry I'm not being very specific. I know a lot of people here have Tiger but I don't want to tempt Apple legal.

[rezonate]

I'd forget about Tiger, focus on getting your app working, and out the door for Panther. Then nearer the time of Tiger, start addressing those issues. Even when Tiger is released, many won't be upgrading to it straight away. It could be a year till it's released.

[Tarambana]

I agree. If I have got to wait until January at best, and it is still 6 months ahead from now, in order to use Tiger, most of the coding effort you might put on it right now seems to me misdirected. I'd rather have Xtender working before January, than have a version which is fully compatible with Tiger.

So please. At least for now. Forget about Tiger and make sure we won't have to wait for much too long before it is released.

Regards.

Edit: Forgot to mention that it is also probable that Tiger's UI will see some changes in future builds, and that might make even less useful the actual build which you are using for test purposes.

[goMac]

If we can make changes will 10.4 changes, there won't be one mad rush before release to make changes so everytihng work.

Just the way I'm looking at things. It's far easier to do small baby steps.

[olorin15]

Originally posted by goMac:
If we can make changes will 10.4 changes, there won't be one mad rush before release to make changes so everytihng work.

Just the way I'm looking at things. It's far easier to do small baby steps.

Why don't you make changes to an app that already works??? Do you have some kind of a disorder that makes you crave public attention constantly? This is getting absolutely ridiculous. Announcement after announcement of "work in progress", and the end result is that we still have not seen a working version of Xtender ... Now you can use Tiger as an excuse to push the release date back for 1000's time?! Whatever ...

[Anubis IV]

Honestly, I tend to agree with them on this one. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the fact that you are keeping us updated on it (and I could care less even if you are seeking attention...I like updates, and you give them, so I've been enjoying your topics), and you and your team maintained a good correspondence with me when I noticed a bug in beta 3, trading e-mails back and forth with me until we figured out the cause of the problem, so I respect you guys for that, but I currently have no plans to upgrade to Tiger the minute it comes out (if ever), and I know that I'm not alone.

If you have a program that is nearly fully-functional now (or at the very least is mostly done), then there's no point in holding off on the release of it for another six of months. Why not release a Panther version, then, after Tiger comes out, release a new version? It's standard practice in the industry (at least from what I've seen) for there to be a delay after a new OS comes out before the applications catch up with it, so if it takes you a month or two after Tiger comes out, so be it, but I doubt it would take you guys that long since it seems as if you all know what you're doing, and if you can get a Panther release out the door now that'll be just that much less weight on your shoulders, allowing you to be able to take a break and really focus on a Tiger release when the time comes for that.

You have plenty of time to recode it for Tiger. You can get a great product into the hands of the end users now and start earning a share of the market, or you can postpone a few more months and doubtless lose that opportunity for new users. While I understand the idea of taking baby steps, if the baby can already walk and is only required to walk, why wait for it to be able to run?

[Tarambana]

I totally agree with Anubis, but wanted to add that maybe focusing on Tiger has some undesirable side-effects.

First, Because it will probably delay the final release of Xtender and that might make you face a market that has an even higher number of ShapeShifter users that wont probably buy a second application to do more or less the same (except if you bring some killer features).

Second, because you have earned a reputation (I don't care if deserved or not, because these people are your customers) amongst some of the users of theses forums (I haven't been around for so long, so I have yet to form my own opinion) of delaying things, over-hyping them, and under-releasing; and if you choose to make more engineering efforts towards Tiger, which is at best 6 months away from now before release, they will accuse you of those same things. Also, remember that the first dead-line for your product which was set, if IIRC, in march, has already come and passed (and, really, I don't either care about the problems your are facing, which might be great, but cannot be used to convince users that it is fine to fail to meet a date, that shouldn't have been seet in the first time). Point is, having to wait will piss many of your potential buyers.

So, if you can, concentrate on your product so that it will be fully functional the sooner the possible, and don't worry for Tiger compatibility at least until you have a definitive version of Tiger with all the GUI changes in.

I wouldn't mind having to wait for a Tiger release of your app. But, the more I have to wait to use it (and don't tell me about betas, as by no means would I install beta software on my machine) the less interested I am about it.


Regards.

[wibs]

Just to make sure I understand correctly... are you saying that the next release of Duality will be when Tiger is out the door?

[Tarambana]

I sure hope not. Of course, it is GoMac that must answer that question, but I came to the conclusion that what they are doing is putting engineering resources on making Xtender Tiger compatible (as I said, I might weel be wrong), which I don't see useful right now.

[Fonzie]

this whole deal reminds me of Panic's Audion(new) release. "we're working on it" "it's coming soon" or something.

You're not a restless teenager are you, goMac? Start on one thing, finish that. Start on the next thing, finish that. And so on and so forth.

Pisces and love.

[dws]

Originally posted by Fonzie:
You're not a restless teenager are you, goMac? Start on one thing, finish that. Start on the next thing, finish that. And so on and so forth.

The longer this goes on, the more I think that Fonzie might be onto something. goMac is acting just like a typical American teenager (short attention span, the next thing is always better than the current, ect.)! [On the flip side, I can certainly understand why some of Tiger's features might easily solve problems the Xtender team might be having.]

The developer in me is thrilled with the advancements in Tiger. The realist in me thinks that yet another significant delay in getting a final (and feature-rich) version of Xtender out the door (and no, an "interim" Panther version won't cut it; since it's clear that you are redirecting your coding efforts toward Tiger!). If you dare to put out a Panther version of Xtender that is little better than the betas, while promising that the Tiger version will be the bomb; you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

Tarambana made a very good point. The longer you delay in getting a final version of Xtender out, the more people who will purchase ShapeShifter; resulting in fewer interested in whatever you eventually decide to put out.

It is inevitable that people will wonder if goMac is using Tiger as an excuse to not release software that has turned out to be not all that he might have wished. Personally, I prefer to not believe this and simply think that he is getting a little carried away with the thrill of the next great thing. I think that we all should offer our support for goMac and the rest of the Xtender team; to help them keep on track for a Panther release of a feature-rich product.

ps
I doubt that "a lot of people here have Tiger." The number of people who steal software, especially when the download size is as huge as this one would have to be, must be extremely small; especially from among those who visit this forum (highly-intelligent people don't see the need to steal). I believe that most of the people who frequent this forum won't have Tiger until after it is sold by Apple. We might be riveted by each little tidbit of information about Tiger, but will not resort to theft. The fact that goMac assumes that "a lot" of us are thieves is insulting.

[d4nth3m4n]

if youre still 9 months off, then you might want to scrap the whole project. there is already a working system to change themes.

[Frisbee]

Originally posted by dws:
I doubt that "a lot of people here have Tiger." The number of people who steal software, especially when the download size is as huge as this one would have to be, must be extremely small.

It's called "broadband".

[Zimphire]

We need a app that slaps Jobs in the face every time he releases a OS upgrade with stripes still in it.

[MacDog]

I am now completely convinced that you are a complete moron, and this "product" you're constantly talking about doesn't exist outside of your own imagination.

The "beta" you released is nothing more than a shotty GUI on top of useless code that does absolutely nothing but sit there... I hardly call that a beta, most developers call it "design stage" or at the most, "Alpha."

Why don't you stick with something a little more your speed... like desktop photos! On second thought, don't do that either, we would hate to see half a photo with the promise of the other half at the next OS update.

[cube3]

seriously though, I feel for your programmer, he has recoded more times then then themes available.

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by cube3:
� more times then then themes available�

heah?

[Anubis IV]

Originally posted by MacDog:
The "beta" you released is nothing more than a shotty GUI on top of useless code that does absolutely nothing but sit there... I hardly call that a beta, most developers call it "design stage" or at the most, "Alpha."

Not that I support his delays or anything (in fact, I said as much in my last post here), but I think that last post was a bit unfair of you. The last beta of theirs that I checked out (beta 3) seemed to work pretty well for me. It had one or two minor issues (didn't change font colors or certain widgets) but it did handle the vast majority of the themes that I threw at it with a good degree of success. It's not perfect, but it was certainly worthy of being called a beta and not an alpha. If you're just pissed at him, leave him alone, but if you have some genuine problem with his release, let him know. I don't understand why people are taking all of this so personally. I mean, your lives don't hinge on the release, or lack thereof, of Duality 5, so if it never comes out, why do you care? And if it comes out next week, why do you care? I can understand people that want it released so that Shapeshifter has some competition, or people that don't trust Carpe Stellarum because they have been a bit wishy washy in the past with releases, but what I can't understand is someone that has decided to make it their personal crusade to attack something that they quite obviously don't really care about. It's obvious some people are taking this whole thing way too seriously, and it boggles my mind since I can't understand how personal feelings come into a situation like this one. With me, I just try to do the part of a faithful beta tester when the betas come out, and in the meantime try to not let the trolling for no apparent reason bother me that much. I could care less if Duality ever sees the sun, but I don't like people being attacked for something that is obviously of very little importance to the person doing the attacking.

[Fonzie]

From goMac's blog:

Apparently Duality 5 has garnered some fame at Apple. A Apple engineer apparently exclaimed "Oh! You're the guys who are writing the new Duality!' Dave sat down for an hour with an Apple engineer and got our issues worked out with the XTender SDK. Creating a new project in XCode always turned out a bundle that would not inject code for some reason. This apparently got fixed in the session with Apple (Thank you Ed Wynne! You're our new god!)

Things just keep getting better and better. Don't they?


Let us all hope that they integrate Duality into Tiger. Oh wait! That would mean that we have to wait untill the year 48593859353535AD - and then it wont even be finished 'cause something new and exciting has come up.

[goMac]

Originally posted by wibs:
Just to make sure I understand correctly... are you saying that the next release of Duality will be when Tiger is out the door?

No, definitely not. Duality will support both 10.4 and 10.3. Compatibility with 10.4 is being addressed as it comes.

The only reason a new beta isn't out yet is because Finder theming only works on 10.4 (which was not intentional).

ThemeKit is going pretty well. A second group has picked up ThemeKit and are coding a theme creation and theme changer with it. I don't think if Duality runs late our theme projects will crumble. With other groups picking up XScheme and ThemeKit it gives us the support we need. We're just calmly fixing problems as we go.

Just because Duality isn't finished doesn't mean the underlying technology isn't done.

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by goMac:
No, definitely not. Duality will support both 10.4 and 10.3. Compatibility with 10.4 is being addressed as it comes.

The only reason a new beta isn't out yet is because Finder theming only works on 10.4 (which was not intentional).

When I tried Duality5 Beta (some number)- Finder themeing worked just fine. The old Watercolor theme even had the right size titlebar-buttons, unlike ShapeShifter which makes the buttons bad.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Fonzie:
When I tried Duality5 Beta (some number)- Finder themeing worked just fine. The old Watercolor theme even had the right size titlebar-buttons, unlike ShapeShifter which makes the buttons bad.

The titlebar buttons (Back/Forward, action, etc) should not be themed. Duality has not supported this until recently.

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by goMac:
The titlebar buttons (Back/Forward, action, etc) should not be themed. Duality has not supported this until recently.

I'm not sure what you call them. Call them widgets/gadgets/buttons. You know, the max/min/close buttons/widgets/gadgets.

[wibs]

gomac is talking about toolbar buttons, fonzie the window widgets .

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by wibs:
gomac is talking about toolbar buttons, fonzie the window widgets .

that's the word; window widgets. So confusing these days. btw, alot of things are widgets these days :S

[Tarambana]

Originally posted by Fonzie:
When I tried Duality5 Beta (some number)- Finder themeing worked just fine. The old Watercolor theme even had the right size titlebar-buttons, unlike ShapeShifter which makes the buttons bad.

Hi, Gomac!

This sounds great! If what Fonzie says is true (and I have no reason to doubt it, but I haven't tried your betas, as I am waiting -paitiently, should I say- for the final release), would that mean that I could use the 10.2 themes with the widgets of the right size (close, minimize, etc.) without being shrinked as it happens with ShapeShifter?

If that's the case, sign me in , as I would happily pay Duality's 5 fee (I have got a ton of themes that I modded back in 10.2 and being able to use them without having to convert them myself would be great, mostly as the opportunity cost of me doing it would exceed 20-50 $ price range of your product).

Also, does that mean that we can use a bigger size mask for those widgets with Duality without worrying about different spacing in Cocoa and Carbon Apps?


Cheers.

[Link]

Dude! Please hold off the tiger features until it's tiger time. An INSTANT or pre release would be far more effective than a delayed panther release >_<

No offense but this almost sounds like that jackass who keeps proclaiming BBX omega is going to be the best theme ever! But wait.. no it'll come out on the next shapeshifter version.. no wait the next one, ok I'm wrong the next one.. oh wait it'll be released when tiger comes out...

Just don't do that

[goMac]

Originally posted by Link:
Dude! Please hold off the tiger features until it's tiger time. An INSTANT or pre release would be far more effective than a delayed panther release >_<

No offense but this almost sounds like that jackass who keeps proclaiming BBX omega is going to be the best theme ever! But wait.. no it'll come out on the next shapeshifter version.. no wait the next one, ok I'm wrong the next one.. oh wait it'll be released when tiger comes out...

Just don't do that

Duality isn't getting a 10.4 delay.

I'm saying Catalyst 1.0 will not be released until Tiger is out. This doesn't say anything for Catalyst .1 to Catalyst .9. But the final complete product will be built for Tiger.

[Maflynn]

GoMac Its been a while since you first "unveiled" your theming application.

What is Catalyst and why does it have to wait until tiger?

If you could (perhaps in a new thread) describe all of the components that will make up your theming package.

Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
GoMac Its been a while since you first "unveiled" your theming application.

What is Catalyst and why does it have to wait until tiger?

If you could (perhaps in a new thread) describe all of the components that will make up your theming package.

Mike

Sure.

Duality is our theme changer. It's pretty much the mainstay program. XTender is the engine behind it that drives it. If we were using a ShapeShifter analogy, Duality is ShapeShifter, and XTender is APE. Most delays in Duality are not actually in Duality, but in a function of XTender not performing properly.

Catalyst is our theme editing software. We're still pretty secretive about it. I have stated before it can edit multiple variations at once, edit XScheme, and edit icons. I've also said we're working on using OpenGL with our OpenGL framework, and the final version will make use of Core Image (making it require 10.4)

Here is a Catalyst screenshot I put together tonight:
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/CatalystScreen.jpg

ThemeKit is our common code that our theme programs share. You could compare it to OpenDoc on Mac OS 8. ThemeKit handles file generation, OS issues, the XScheme format, pxm rendering and creation, and importing from other formats. This code is open source and on SourceForge.

In addition there are two other 3rd party products coming down the pipe that are built on ThemeKit. I can't say much right now as they aren't my programs, so I'll leave any revelations to the programs creator, but a 3rd party does have another ThemeKit based changer and a ThemeKit based editor in development. Duality and Catalyst share a bulk of their code with these programs.

[dws]

So... Duality works, Xtender doesn't work right & Catalyst will require 10.4.

The reason that ShapeShifter is so popular is because APE, ShapeShifter and ThemePark work; and work well. Even if you get Xtender to work any time soon, you're admitting there won't be an editor for a long time to come. Without an editor, you've got nothing that people can actually use!

I've often thought that the negative comments placed into this forum about your team's efforts were over the top, but it is now clear that your development process is a mess; and all the negativity has been well-deserved.

I hope that you will take the long time between now and Tiger to step back from all your grandiose plans and come up with a project that is a little more manageable.

I wish you and your team well, but you've inserted your foot so far in your mouth that your toes stick out the 'other' end!

[goMac]

Originally posted by dws:
Without an editor, you've got nothing that people can actually use!

There's two editors in development, and Duality works with guiKit. There's no major issue here.

I am simply not giving a time table for Catalyst right now. I would assume there would be a public release of Catalyst at or before Duality goes final. Obviously no one is going to be making icon sets with ThemePark. Catalyst has been around for a very long time and would likely be usable as a creation tool now.

XTender is not an easy thing to create. The problem isn't crashing, its simply patching at the right time. If you don't patch early enough there are certain things you will miss, such as the Finder.rsrc. In code Duality themes the Finder.rsrc, the theme does simply not get inserted at the right time to actually theme the Finder.rsrc.

Saying that there is nothing people can actually use in Duality is a pretty broad overstatement considering there are already people using Duality with guiKit themes...

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by Frisbee:
It's called "broadband".

I believe some people can get tiger legally.

[deej5871]

Originally posted by dws:
Catalyst will require 10.4.

Apparently you didn't read this post.

[Minch_Yoda]

i herd there was a duality beta but i cant find it so are there any apps compatible with tiger available at this moment?

[goMac]

Originally posted by Minch_Yoda:
i herd there was a duality beta but i cant find it so are there any apps compatible with tiger available at this moment?

The current Duality 5 beta has actually expired, but it works with Tiger.

The current build I have fully supports Tiger, including Finder theming (which does not yet work under Panther). There are a few slight artifacts but I'm going to be updating ThemeKit to clean those up and move some resources around. Dave and I talked about it and we may release it without Finder theming for Panther right now. I have to back everything up to my iPod today though as my Powerbook is going in for service, so we'll see if I can get it out soon.

[SafariX]

I don't mean to rain on anyones parade, but I agree with other posters when I say get Duality/Xtender out there for 10.3 in perfect form. Worry about 10.4 later. Every day your competitor is on the market is 1 more lost customer. I want to see the theming community thrive with options for tools/implementations, and it just drives me nuts seeing people "announce" something over and over and over. Get this badboy done!

[Minch_Yoda]

i think they should have a a public beta put a expiration date that is later on and then leave the one for 10.3. to be main priority

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by goMac:
The current Duality 5 beta has actually expired, but it works with Tiger.
.......snip.... Dave and I talked about it and we may release it without Finder theming for Panther right now. I

What !? no Finder theming ? It's just what we all look at day in and day out !

Better save the release for next year

Otherwise I think the project sounds promising.. somewhat... I think

[Tarambana]

Originally posted by goMac:
The current Duality 5 beta has actually expired, but it works with Tiger.

The current build I have fully supports Tiger, including Finder theming (which does not yet work under Panther). There are a few slight artifacts but I'm going to be updating ThemeKit to clean those up and move some resources around. Dave and I talked about it and we may release it without Finder theming for Panther right now. I have to back everything up to my iPod today though as my Powerbook is going in for service, so we'll see if I can get it out soon.

I also think Finder theming is a must. I don't think Duality will get even with SS if it can't make the finder look right.