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ThemeChanger: my theme switcher (Page 2)
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ambush  (op)
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Dec 13, 2002, 07:55 PM
 
Originally posted by goMac:


I thought you had already omplemented it so I didn't send you the specs. Back on my "to-do" list.
v10 is like ready............................
but we're *still* waiting for the specs... *sigh*
     
Angus_D
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Dec 13, 2002, 08:33 PM
 
Originally posted by ambush:
v10 is like ready............................
but we're *still* waiting for the specs... *sigh*
Well it appears to be working with every dlta I'm throwing at it, and the parser is a lot cleaner than the "official" one.
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 13, 2002, 10:47 PM
 
The CHANGELOG for v10 is

- Rethought architecture ( now based upon a central class : TCTheme )
- DLTA Support ( even multi themes are supported ( e.g.: Rhapsodized ))
- Preview fixed ( ultra-secure now )
- OS Version check & warning
- Finder relaunching after theme switch
- Lots of minor bug fixes.

I think we can say that TCv10 is the best theme switcher out there.
It'll be released tomorrow, probably.

Colin: Take your time.
     
scaught
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Dec 13, 2002, 11:29 PM
 
does themechanger allow for easy reverting back to aqua? does candybar get in the way of anything?
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 13, 2002, 11:38 PM
 
Originally posted by scaught:
does themechanger allow for easy reverting back to aqua? does candybar get in the way of anything?
Yes it allows easy aqua reverting if you have the Swiz Aqua Restore .theme in your ~/Library/Themes directory.

TC could get in CB's way if the theme TC installed REPLACES SYSTEM ICONS ( i know bbx does that. ) But of course, you can choose to install it or not ( the theme component )
     
scaught
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Dec 14, 2002, 02:55 PM
 
ah yes, my man. its all about choices.
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 14, 2002, 04:56 PM
 
v10 is avail.
http://www.clichesw.com/themechanger


CHANGELOG

-FIXED PREVIEW
-ADDED DLTA SUPPORT
-FIXED A LOT OF MINOR BUGS
-RETHOUGHT ARCHITECTURE
-NEW INTERFACE
-OS VERSION CHECK + WARNING


A Must have!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
swiz
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Dec 14, 2002, 05:49 PM
 
Originally posted by ambush:
v10 is avail.
http://www.clichesw.com/themechanger


CHANGELOG

-FIXED PREVIEW
-ADDED DLTA SUPPORT
-FIXED A LOT OF MINOR BUGS
-RETHOUGHT ARCHITECTURE
-NEW INTERFACE
-OS VERSION CHECK + WARNING


A Must have!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is that the correct file available? It looks like its the same one...?

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SwarmyCurve
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Dec 14, 2002, 05:58 PM
 
It is supposed to be a 121 kb download? I can't see my themes when I start the program...

Sounds great though! Do more wait one extra second with Duality.
     
Angus_D
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Dec 14, 2002, 06:04 PM
 
Originally posted by swiz:
Is that the correct file available? It looks like its the same one...?
Don't follow you here... The site links to here which is indeed the correct version. Run it, the interface should be different with a lock icon instead of an "AUTH" button, and a split view, and lots of changes. What do you mean by "it looks like its the same one"?

Originally posted by SwarmyCurve:
It is supposed to be a 121 kb download? I can't see my themes when I start the program...

Sounds great though! Do more wait one extra second with Duality.
You have to put your themes into ~/Library/Themes for ThemeChanger to see them, not /Library/Themes as Duality requires. We should probably search both, actually. In the meantime, you could probably create a symbolic link if you know how.
     
swiz
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Dec 14, 2002, 06:35 PM
 
Originally posted by Angus_D:


Don't follow you here... The site links to here which is indeed the correct version. Run it, the interface should be different with a lock icon instead of an "AUTH" button, and a split view, and lots of changes. What do you mean by "it looks like its the same one"?
When I followed the link Ambush posted it took me to the Theme Changer website where the old file was the only one linked to.

Thanks for the new link Angus.

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swiz
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Dec 14, 2002, 06:44 PM
 
Does it have to show the popup window when I want to preview a theme. This is the thing I hate about preview options in theme switchers, they either work clumsilly or theres some non seemless aspect to it. I would assume if you didnt have to patch system files the warning wouldnt be needed, SO; why not just increase the size of the little inset image so the user can see a larger version to get a better idea of the themes feel? I dont even use the preview option but I just want to provide feedback for it in case someone else feels like I do but doesnt submit feedback.

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Angus_D
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Dec 14, 2002, 06:54 PM
 
Originally posted by swiz:
When I followed the link Ambush posted it took me to the Theme Changer website where the old file was the only one linked to.
Perhaps your browser had cached it?

Originally posted by swiz:
Does it have to show the popup window when I want to preview a theme. This is the thing I hate about preview options in theme switchers, they either work clumsilly or theres some non seemless aspect to it. I would assume if you didnt have to patch system files the warning wouldnt be needed, SO; why not just increase the size of the little inset image so the user can see a larger version to get a better idea of the themes feel? I dont even use the preview option but I just want to provide feedback for it in case someone else feels like I do but doesnt submit feedback.
It does patch system files. It temporarily patches Extras.rsrc, launches a preview application, then patches back again.
     
Mediaman_12
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Dec 14, 2002, 07:39 PM
 
Originally posted by Angus_D:
You have to put your themes into ~/Library/Themes for ThemeChanger to see them, not /Library/Themes as Duality requires. We should probably search both, actually. In the meantime, you could probably create a symbolic link if you know how.
Considering Themes are a cross user thing. i.e. if another user logs in, it does not revert back to Aqua. Then the Themes don't really belong in the users folder.
Unless this new Switching app does do Themes on a per user basis, then this would be the correct behavior.
     
macmike42
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Dec 14, 2002, 08:39 PM
 
Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
Considering Themes are a cross user thing. i.e. if another user logs in, it does not revert back to Aqua. Then the Themes don't really belong in the users folder.
Unless this new Switching app does do Themes on a per user basis, then this would be the correct behavior.
Themes are still applied system-wide, but since all theme switchers do is install (and now, possibly patch) files in the /System/Library folder, it is really a moot point where you put them. You could keep them on your iDisk, for example, and your current theme would not stop working because you pulled out your ethernet cable.

Too me, stricly enforcing where themes are stored is kind of like an error saying "This application cannot be launched because it is on your desktop. Please move it to the proper location and try again."

On a related note, one could make a hack to make themes seem to be a user-selected preference. It would have to be done by a setuid tool, so it would have to coded very carefully. Interestingly enough, the loginwindow allows you to specify a tool to run at login and logout, so you could even revert to Aqua on logout. This would make having boot and login panels in your theme kind of useless, though. See here for details (scroll down, first screenfull is sissy GUI stuff). Bear in mind that I for one would most certainly want to look at all the code that is doing this on my system (including installing/removing loginwindow hooks), so unless Duality is going opensource anytime soon, I won't be using a version of Duality that does this.
"Think Different. Like The Rest Of Us."

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Athlon XP 2500+/1.83GHz | 1GB PC3200 | 120GB | Windows XP
     
scaught
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Dec 14, 2002, 11:30 PM
 
ambush.

very nice. works as advertised. i cant believe you "threw" this thing together in less than a couple days. awesome.
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 14, 2002, 11:39 PM
 
Originally posted by scaught:
ambush.

very nice. works as advertised. i cant believe you "threw" this thing together in less than a couple days. awesome.
Actually we threw it
Me and Finlay, mainly.

Thanks, I want to know if you guys want any additional features...

I was thinking about adding a "net theme" feature or something like that (I'm already working on that, actually.)

I tought that a "Launch App with Theme" feature would be cool too
E.g. If you want to launch iChat with Max's brushed metal theme but you want rhapsodized in the background.
     
scaught
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Dec 15, 2002, 12:01 AM
 
well. at first it seemed to be doing what i wanted, (installing BBX without the icons) but after a restart or 2 the bbx icons have taken over and i cant get rid of them. aquafix didnt restore it either. i dont know if candybar got in the way or what. its not that big of a deal, and i think i can reinstall the system folder with the 10.2 CDs and get everything back to normal (cant i?)
     
Angus_D
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Dec 15, 2002, 07:06 AM
 
Originally posted by macmike42:
Too me, stricly enforcing where themes are stored is kind of like an error saying "This application cannot be launched because it is on your desktop. Please move it to the proper location and try again."
Well exactly, it doesn't really matter, and we can improve that later. It's not important.

On a related note, one could make a hack to make themes seem to be a user-selected preference. It would have to be done by a setuid tool, so it would have to coded very carefully. Interestingly enough, the loginwindow allows you to specify a tool to run at login and logout, so you could even revert to Aqua on logout. This would make having boot and login panels in your theme kind of useless, though. See here for details (scroll down, first screenfull is sissy GUI stuff). Bear in mind that I for one would most certainly want to look at all the code that is doing this on my system (including installing/removing loginwindow hooks), so unless Duality is going opensource anytime soon, I won't be using a version of Duality that does this.
LoginHook and LogoutHook are a bit broken, but it is possible to use the SystemConfiguration framework to get notifications of logins/logouts. Would need a daemon running in the background, and I think there would be issues with a few things -- certain panels (about this mac, force quit, log out and shut down spring to mind) are owned by the loginwindow. loginwindow is launched *before* any user logs in (as you might guess from its name, it displays the login window), so if you changed the theme at login, it would have already read the theme files. also, i'm not sure how quickly you'd be able to change the theme back after logout, so you might end up having a login window with the last user's selected theme. Would be interesting to see how well it could be made to work, though...
     
headbirth
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Dec 15, 2002, 10:26 AM
 
Do you have to switch back to aqua between theme switches with this app as you had to do with Duality?
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 15, 2002, 10:33 AM
 
Originally posted by headbirth:
Do you have to switch back to aqua between theme switches with this app as you had to do with Duality?
It'll be optional in the next release, do it if you want in this build; it's always better
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 16, 2002, 05:04 PM
 
Can anyone tell me where I can download PUBLIC domain cool chime sounds.. for the app ? thanks
     
swiz
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Dec 16, 2002, 11:31 PM
 
Theme Changer qutis on launch now. It will launch normally if I remove my Aqua Restore theme from the themes folder. The only thing which has changed about the Aqua restore is I added another resource to it, but I also added the same resource to the new SimpleX and that has no problems.

Also, I changed the "editable" option to false on all of the resources as a test, could this be telling me that the test failed and I cannot do this?

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ambush  (op)
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Dec 17, 2002, 07:50 AM
 
Originally posted by swiz:
Theme Changer qutis on launch now. It will launch normally if I remove my Aqua Restore theme from the themes folder. The only thing which has changed about the Aqua restore is I added another resource to it, but I also added the same resource to the new SimpleX and that has no problems.

Also, I changed the "editable" option to false on all of the resources as a test, could this be telling me that the test failed and I cannot do this?
I need a copy of this theme. What resource did you add? It could be a problem if you MANUALLY edited the theme.. maybe you made a mistake that makes the theme unparsable... I need that theme

jolivierld AT clichesw DOT com
     
swiz
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Dec 17, 2002, 01:35 PM
 
Originally posted by ambush:


I need a copy of this theme. What resource did you add? It could be a problem if you MANUALLY edited the theme.. maybe you made a mistake that makes the theme unparsable... I need that theme

jolivierld AT clichesw DOT com
LOL!!!!
You'll never guess what caused it... Im such a tart.
When I changed all of the editables to false, I actually changed them to "flase".

Move along.... please stop laughing at my dumbass..
heh

Its all good now of course.

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llee
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Dec 17, 2002, 01:50 PM
 
Thanks for the great theme changer! And that Finlay! I sure hope Apple never hoses him over again! Bravo!

Laine

http://www.txdirect.net/users/llee/res/themes.html
     
ambush  (op)
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Dec 17, 2002, 06:21 PM
 
It was posted on VT minutes ago!
Wheeeee! http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17504

Go write a review if you want
Thanks for your support, macnners!
     
 
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