[Dragon T]

I have assembled most of a new theme in ThemePark.... =)
but when previewing them I have found a few unthemed bits.
Are these a hangover from an earlier osx version, or parts of the scheme that I have missed so far?
eg. in the 'Carbon and Cocoa Theme Previews' the 'Active Rounded and Square Bevels', and in the 'Cocoa Theme Preview' the lower 'Popup Buttons' in the two lefthand rows.
As yet I haven't found where in the ThemePark hierachy they might be.

Also under 'Text Fields' I have modified the 'Round Text Fields'. This works well in the Finder window. However the 'Rounded Text Field' in the 'Cocoa Theme Preview' doesn't display the themed image.

Can anyone please help my understanding of ThemePark in these areas?

I have a few other questions that are related specifically to ThemePark 1.3... but I will do some more experimenting with it first.
Thanks again...
Dragon Tongue

[WICKEDfour]

Okay, I have some answers for ya .

The round text box resources for Cocoa are in the Obsolete category for reasons unknown (oh Jason...). They're labeled "Jaguar Round Text Field" (Left cap, right cap, stretch).

I'm not sure about the rounded and square bevel buttons; if you haven't replaced them (you didn't make it particularly clear whether or not you did), the resources are labeled "Bevel Button" and "Butted Bevel Button".

As to the popup buttons, I'm not sure what you're describing. Note that the popup buttons have 3 sizes and 2 separate resource groups for Carbon applications and Cocoa applications.

Hope this helps; if not, I'm sure someone else will be able to help you out as well.

[Dragon T]

Thanks for that WICKEDfour... =)
Tis handy to now know about the round text box hiding in the obsolete category.
I wonder if there are any other still active bits sitting in there? =)

"Bevel Button" and "Butted Bevel Button" are just about the only bits I haven't done.
That will explain why the rounded and square bevel buttons don't work.
So the 'Bevel' must the 'Rounded', and the 'Butted' must be the 'Square' Buttons. =)

Popup Buttons:
I have completed the large and small popups in both Cocoa and Carbon, but haven't done the Mini popups yet. (Max's Theme Button Template didn't seem to cover that one.)
However, the strangly themed popups in the Cocoa Theme Preview don't seem to match the mini popups. The popups I am questioning are the 5th and 6th popups from the first and second rows of the Cocoa popup panel.

thanks for the help so far
DT

[wibs]

Originally posted by WICKEDfour:
As to the popup buttons, I'm not sure what you're describing. Note that the popup buttons have 3 sizes and 2 separate resource groups for Carbon applications and Cocoa applications.

I think what he's talking about are the bevel button popup buttons. Personally I've never seen them actually used, but the popup button doesn't require any special work; it uses the same graphics as the Bevel Button.

[Dragon T]

Ah! =)
that would explain why I can't find it.
thanks wibs =)

[smeger]

I don't know much about the actual mechanics of what resources theme what element, so I can't answer most of your questions. But, as always, if you find stuff in ThemePark's template that's in the wrong place, like WICKEDfour's round text button resources, don't hesitate to let me know about it so I can fix it.

And, FYI, ThemePark's theme preview doesn't use any of ShapeShifter's abilities to work magic with the operating system, so things like customized text colors, window titlebar transparency, and colored metal windows won't show up as you expect in ThemePark's preview. ShapeShifter's preview, however, will show you exactly what the final theme will look like.

Overcoming this ThemePark limitation is rather nasty for me to do, especially since it would probably make having ShapeShifter installed a requirement of using ThemePark, which is something I'd obviously like to avoid.

[Dragon T]

Now.... more questions on ThemePark 1.3:
(apologies in advance for all the questions... I hope to be answering many soon)

I imported my '1.2 theme in progress' into ThemePark 1.3 to gain access to the extra features. Actually, I did it twice (for some unknown reason) and got different results. (goodness knows why)
The differences showed up in the 'Menubar and Menu' section. New handy resources from 'Aqua menu divider' to 'Graphite Root Menu Item' appeared in one version but not in the other.
These new resources give access to do some very cool 'kaleidoscope like' things, mainly because of the seperate 'Caps' and 'Fill' feature. However the previous 'Menu Backgrounds' and 'Selected Items' (among others) are still there.
The menu background had been tileable... is it now sitting behind the new fills?
In other words... if I make a new fill 100% transparent, will the Menu background be visible behind the fill?
The new fill appears to be now stretchable, not tileable.

I ask this because, at the moment I have not been able to 'send to' or 'receive from' Photoshop CS, and so not yet able to experiment with transparencies now that the transparency mask is inaccessable in 1.3.

Now, another question:
The pulldown menus now have new handy 'caps' for the left and right edges....
but is there any way to access top, bottom or corner caps for them?
They would be extremely handy! =)

Thanks again
DT =)

[wibs]

Originally posted by Dragon T:
The menu background had been tileable... is it now sitting behind the new fills?
In other words... if I make a new fill 100% transparent, will the Menu background be visible behind the fill?
The new fill appears to be now stretchable, not scaleable.

you've got it figured out. the only things this doesn't hold true for are selected items (both within menus and root menu items themselves). In other words, if you have a 100% transparent fill for the Root Menu Item's selected graphic, it will just show the menubar behind it rather than the Menu Title Selected graphic. That said, the nifty caps and fills are ignored for menu items (like the clock and volume in the upper right), so you'll still need to do something for the Menu Title Selected unless you want the aqua appearance just for the right side of the menubar's selected items.

Hm, I hope that made sense... always gets a little confusing when the same words are used over and over again to describe slightly different things

Now, another question:
The pulldown menus now have new handy 'caps' for the left and right edges....
but is there any way to access top, bottom or corner caps for them?

afraid not =-\. but as long as we're on the subject, it's worth pointing out that the Menu Background, rather than the menu item caps and fills, is used behind the label picker (when right-clicking on a folder/file in the Finder) as well as for a couple of pixels at the top and bottom of every menu. To make it especially fun the Menu Background tiles, while the menu item fills stretch, so there isn't any way to match up their right edges. If you want a border on the right side of your menu, you're going to have to deal with it not going all the way to the top or bottom, as well as disappearing in the label picker section of the menu. Getting a continuous border on the left is easy though - just make the Menu Background really really wide, so it won't be tiled, and put whatever border you want on the left. Combining that with the menu item caps will give you an unbroken left border.

Hope this helps...

[Dragon T]

thanks for that wibs. =)
yup, I had to read that a couple of times =) LOL
(my brain is slowing down.... tis nearing midnight here) =)

The right hand menus seem to be treated in quite a different way from the others... including the font colour (which I can't seem to change)
And the 'Root Menu Items Selected' graphic seems to be treated in an odd way on most of the right hand menus. I cant quite work out how... but my guess is that the 'Selected Root Menu ' graphics for 'os9', 'modem', 'battery', 'clock', etc use the same graphic for their own 'Caps' which we don't as yet have access to. I'm guessing that because the pattern I'm using in that position is 'ghosting' (repeating) on the edges.

The Account switching Menu also does something really weird!
It uses the 'Selected Root Menu' graphic down in place of the 'Menu Background Selected' graphic.
OSX musta been constructed by committee. LOL =)

Lining up the left edges with the background is a good tip. =)
thanks
=)
DT

[smeger]

Dragon, the menus on the right side of the menu bar aren't "real" menus. They fall into two categories: the ones owned by Apple are called Menu Extras. A variety of hacks let third party Menu Extras work as well. You can tell which ones are the Menu Extras because if you command-drag them, you can reorder them.

The non-Menu Extras are called NSStatusItems. These are a publicly available API that any developer can use to put something up there, but for a variety of reasons, a lot of developers prefer to use the hack to get into Apple's private Menu Extra space instead.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that all of those right-side menus (which I'll collectively call Menu Extras just because that's what most people call 'em) are all owned by some application process - in the case of actual Menu Extras, by the SystemUIServer process, and in the case of NSStatusItems, each is its own process.

Anyway, the point of the point above is that these things aren't actual menu items. They all use a bit of hackery to basically draw text or a picture into the menubar, which drops down a menu when clicked, as opposed to actually putting a menu up there. Hence, what you see on your screen doesn't have the standard root menu caps & fill.

What this all means, first off, is that if you want to see how a theme affects these guys, you need to relaunch whatever process owns the Menu Extra first. ShapeShifter will relaunch the SystemUIServer ones for you if you have "Restart Menu Extras After Applying" checked in the first pane of the SS prefpane. ShapeShifter also does a bit of hackery to make the standard Apple Menu Extras appear in the same text color as the rest of the menus.

The standard Apple menu extras that use images instead of text can be themed in ThemePark. They're in (surprisingly enough) the Menu Extras category.

I went sorta crazy with the depth of the explanation here, hope it all makes sense.

[Dragon T]

Thank U for that smeger....
yes it made a lot of sense =)

time for sleep here
I'll be back tomorrow =)
DT

[Frisbee]

Well, since this seems to be a mini themepark support thread...

WTF if going on with my menus? All the full sized menus are fine, but the smaller ones have that white on either side...

[wibs]

have you resized your menu caps? this only tends to happen to me with nonstandard caps and weird transparencies.

[Frisbee]

The root menu caps or the menu item caps? And I don't have any transparency in my menus.

edit: Nevermind, there was transparency; Fixed. Thanks.

[Dragon T]

it would appear, that "Max's Theme Button Template 1.1" no longer works with ThemePark 1.3. since Max's template creates a 3 panel wide opaque image, and Themepark now wants a 2 panel wide transparent image.
I wonder ... what is everyone else using now to input their buttons?
DT

[Dragon T]

smeger:
When ThemePark actions the "Retrieve from PhotoShop" instruction, may I ask what it is actually doing?
(by the way... mine is working now) =)
Is it flattening the image, or merging down, or what?
and are there any limitations to number of layers or size etc?
also... does it take into account layer masks and layer styles?
thanks
DT
=)

[smeger]

Originally posted by Dragon T:
smeger:
When ThemePark actions the "Retrieve from PhotoShop" instruction, may I ask what it is actually doing?

It's basically saving the file as a TIFF with transparency and without layers and then opening the TIFF. So, it's saving a flattened version in the working colorspace that includes transparency.

[Dragon T]

Previously, before ThemePark 1.3:

�To import a graphic, I would create all the various states (eg. aqua, pressed, graphite, inactive, etc) in Photoshop, using a specific 'style layer' for each state. (Sometimes with a covering 'colour' layer to help all the components conform to a particular hue.)
(Background layer set to match the scheme background.)

�For buttons, I ran Max's Theme Button Template 1.1, copied and pasted the resulting panels into the correct positions in ThemePark.

Then I went back to Photoshop, turned the Aqua layer into a Mask layer, (using a preset 'style' that matched the transparancy of the Aqua layer) and ran Max's Theme Button Template again. I then copied the resulting aqua components, and pasted them into the correct Mask columns in ThemePark.

I then copied each Aqua column from ThemePark, pasted them into a new document in Photoshop, then copied the new Mask column from ThemePark, and pasted it over the Aqua column in photoshop and set it to 'multiply'.

�Then, as I also did for many graphics other than buttons, I ran a script that flattened all visible layers, copied (into memory), and then undid the flattening action, (ready for the script to be run again without loosing any layers.)
I then pasted back into the ThemePark Aqua column. (this avoided the aqua graphic ever being lighter than the mask graphic.)

�Well.... that was my little complicated way of creating some of my new theme.

�With the new ThemePark 1.3, I will need to find another (hopefully less complicated) way.

Does anyone else have a less complicated way?
(even a 'more' complicated way would be interesting) =)

Thanks
DT
=)

[Dragon T]

I must admit... my complicated little technique would have been so much harder without ThemePark. In fact... I probably would have given up.

[Frisbee]

I have a much less complicated way!

1. Click the graphic you want to change in themepark, then click "send to photoshop."

2. In photoshop, create your graphic on top of the aqua one.

3. Delete the aqua graphic layer, and go back to themepark.

4. Click "retrieve from photoshop."

5. BAM! You've changed something.

PS. I hate carbon push buttons.

[Dragon T]

Thanks for that smeger =) that helped me figure something out.

That's nice and simple Frisbee =)
not sure it would work for me though... I tend to use layer 'styles' for many things.

However... I think I have worked out a solution for me:

�After creating the layer 'styles' for each state,
I merge each style layer down into their own empty layer...
(to set each style and transparency in place)
Remembering to copy the previous layer names into the newly created layers,
(so the following scripts will still work.)

Everything now appears unchanged... exept, we now have no styles applied.

Then, I run 'Max's Theme Button Template 1.1', and wait...
...when completed, I work through the resultant images one at a time.
[list=A][*]I select the mask column (2), [*]copy,

(insert numbered instructions from below)
[*]then select the aqua column (1),[*]double click the layer (background),[*]rename it anything, (any random letter will do)[*]click the 'add layer mask' button (circle in square),[*]option-click the new mask thumbnail (right thumbnail),[*]paste, (the copied mask image should now appear in the right mask thumbnail),[*]use left arrow to align mask column over the aqua column,[*]click the left thumbnail (to veiw the aqua column),[*]crop the image down to the single aqua column, (image/crop)
(so that ThemePark retrieves just the one column)[*]double click the right mask thumbnail... (check that opacity is set to 100%),[*]then go to ThemePark, Click "retrieve from photoshop."[/list=A]
Yay!... done... complete with transparency! =)

.........
I found the need to insert some extra steps...
the Mask was not as effective as it should be,
So... between steps B and C, I now insert these steps:[list=1][*]paste,[*]change new layer from normal to multiply,[*]merge down. (this doubles the effect of the mask)[/list=1]

[Dragon T]

Ok, before I release these first 2 Themes for beta testing...
I have what appears to me to be a bit of bug. Can anyone help me?
I have saved 2 Themes into one guikit. (They are about 99% complete)
however, some of the graphical elements from one theme are not showing up after being installed by shapeshifter.

These themes are not designed to be stunningly good looking. I'm using them to help me get to know my way around themeing in OSX.
Would anyone be interested in pointing out to me what I'm doing wrong if I send them a copy of my Theme?
Thanks
DT
=)

(moved to new thread)

[bOOzo]

I know it sucks that the theme template no longer works with ThemePark, I'll see if I can take some time and remake it so that it works with the Popup buttons at least..

[Dragon T]

Thanks bOOzo,
that would be really handy.
=)
DT