[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Link:
I hate to break it to you, but 99% of the mac themes out right now SUCK... seriously, all they are is a bunch of either super-beveled themes or completely flat "trendy" things.

They almost all look the same. Blah I say There are a few nice creative ones but those are few and far between.

Hey that's my own opinion though ok? If you think the mac themes rawk and want to pay $20 to the $40 the person who made the theme paid to use it, hey that's fine with me. Keep in mind here we should be paying the theme makers not the people who decide to get rich by making a program that exchanges files.

You do realize that you should not bother posting here anymore, right?

At first, only I and a few others hated you. Now, everybody hates you. You rarely make a post that does not get you yelled at by somebody who reads it. You have turned into a troll. A troll who uses a Mac, but a troll nonetheless.

You say you go to many forums, maybe you should take this one off of your list since you are not exactly 'clicking' with anybody else who posts here.

[Link]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
You do realize that you should not bother posting here anymore, right?

At first, only I and a few others hated you. Now, everybody hates you. You rarely make a post that does not get you yelled at by somebody who reads it. You have turned into a troll. A troll who uses a Mac, but a troll nonetheless.

You say you go to many forums, maybe you should take this one off of your list since you are not exactly 'clicking' with anybody else who posts here.

As I would rather respond to this than let it go, after all since everybody hates me, the buck stops here. Well according to you, at least.

My posts are a mix of 'rimshots' (aka +1, quick few words, etc), and informative "drop my 2 cents here" posts. As with just about any other board a good 80% is opinion. I can't recall exactly how many times I said [b]IN MY OWN OPINION[b] or That's my 2 cents in my posts, but it's quite often.

Opinion isn't necessarily right OR wrong. I feel what I feel and that's it. Traditionally that can be a measure of contradiction OR agreement, and many times the contradictions are powerful and have a lot of controversy, don't they?

Any person who develops a hate for another person due to their opinion is simply a moron. As far as I'm concerned, you've proven this true about 20 times now. Did you notice the some-20 times I said that open standards would be a welcome difference but WAS INDEED my opinion? Sheesh.

And so the fact that some people here just can't have people disagreeing with them and feel they need to harass and slander those who don't is probably just going to get this thread locked, closed, deleted, whatever.

As far as the actual topic of this thread goes, it's nice to see someone appreciate a program, one which I don't feel is worth it but that's just me.. and I'm sure others will agree there. I don't have a single thing left to say.

I WILL go out on a limb and say the majority of my "follow up responses" in this thread were simply because someone decided to throw out a few nasty words becasue my opinion contradicted that of so many. I'm both in disbelief and dissapointed that so many people would be overzealous over a PROGRAM that they had to harass someone who had differing opinons than theirs over it.

[Link]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
I think 60 to 75% is a more realistic number for themes that suck... I don't even really even count some of the themes on ResEx as themes, they just suck too bad. Maybe if you account for the bad ones on ResEx it might be closer to 80% of OS X themes suck.

BTW I think I can agree with you on that Sorry for the extreme exaggeration.

I wonder if it's still possible to resume this thread from it's now completely derailed state. The annoying thing is that I'm going to get the blame because my opinion is so wickedly different than everyone else. Is it my fault I'm not a sheep in what is supposed to be KNOWN as the platform of CREATIVE AND DIFFERENT people?

Hehe fun part though.. judging themes right now can sometimes be similar to judging cars. ADMITTEDLY they've gotten better with time though.. well the themes at least. Watching the videos and pictures from the Geneva auto show I found it nearly impossible to tell which brand of car was which because they all looked alike.. except for the logo on the hood heheh.

Anyway I might as well add this: Why switch to a PC? The PC themes can be quite..... erm... original at times but many look like they were made in MS paint

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Link:
...I'm both in disbelief and dissapointed that so many people would be overzealous over a PROGRAM that they had to harass someone who had differing opinons than theirs over it.

Ahahahahahaha!

Are you trying to be funny? You might wanna go back and read your own posts Linky.

[Fast iBook]

Shapeshifter sucks. It is not worth a cent.

[olorin15]

First of all, Link is 17 - give him a break - he's got no idea what he's talking about ... give him a couple years to mature He sounds like every other teenager before they go off to college and find out they are not the hottest thing on this planet by a long shot.

Second, goMac's starting to piss the hell out of everyone again. The guy's amazing ... I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he throws it away, comes back here and bashes SS, even though he's got nothing to present to us that'll back up his words ... What an ass ... MAKE YOUR XTENDER WORK Colin, then come back here. Although at this point, I'm pretty sure I'll ignore it even if it does eventually see light of day. Just out of principle. Just cuz you are acting like an ass. Over and Over. Enough said ...

[NetworkShadow]

What's the point to this topic again? Everyone keeps restating the same things over and over again and going as far as calling each-other names over it.

� I say who gives a s#it if SS is the only option at the moment?! IT WORKS GREAT AND IS GETTING BETTER!!!
� I don't give a damn if guiKit is an open format, why should anyone care that much?!
� Who gives a damn if someone loves SS? Let them!
� Xtender. Bring it on! We'll see if it's a good thing or not, until then SS is it.
� .dlta is dead, forget about it!
� Free changers, I wouldn't mind if an open source SS alternative came out. But I don't see any, so once again SS is IT.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Fast iBook:
Shapeshifter sucks. It is not worth a cent.

Constructive


..

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
Keep playing with fire. One day you'll hose your machine and it won't boot. Then we won't have to listen to you in the forums.

That isn't playing with fire when you know what you are doing.

The only people I have seen hose their system, really had no clue. I also keep a backup of any of my original files.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
Wrong.

What are you saying, without SS there is no themeing ability in OS X?

I sure hope you aren't saying that.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
Oh, boo hoo. Max will be greatly hurt by you not using his guiKITS when you don't use them in the first place, and when he is giving them to us out of the goodness of his heart. It is something he likely does for HIMSELF, and fine, if others enjoy it, so be it. But I have a feeling he would be just as happy keeping them to himself, for his own personal enjoyment, and content not to twist your arm into anything.

Max is going to offer both versions. Read his post.

He isn't as petty as some in here.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by olorin15:
First of all, Link is 17 - give him a break - he's got no idea what he's talking about ... give him a couple years to mature He sounds like every other teenager before they go off to college and find out they are not the hottest thing on this planet by a long shot.

You really have no room to be talking here. Esp with the way you have been acting.

[Altix]

It seems pretty simple to me, and I can see, and agree with both Zim's point of view, and others.

SS offers the advantage of using a quick and easy way to get your system themed, with the added bonus of getting those menu extras, and so on themed too, easily. This is great for when I want to sample a number of themes without mucking around with the extras.rsrc file, swapping them back and forth. So, in that case, SS is just perfect.

Also, I know what Zim means by wanting to be able to just get hold of those resource fikes so he can simply swap them in, without wanting the features of SS. I do that too, if I'm mucking around with an extras file, changing elements.

So I guess the solution is to just merge the files outputted from guiKitty, with your installed extras file.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Altix:
So I guess the solution is to just merge the files outputted from guiKitty, with your installed extras file.

What would be cool would be for them to make a app that automatically does that for you.

Well THEY wouldn't have to make it, someone else could.

[Altix]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
What would be cool would be for them to make a app that automatically does that for you.

Well THEY wouldn't have to make it, someone else could.

Yup, definitely, especially if theme makers don't have the time to make available the components that go to make up their SS theme.

Have all things equal, SS theme for those who want that, and files such as the extras.rsrc for others who want the benefits of having those.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Altix:
Yup, definitely, especially if theme makers don't have the time to make available the components that go to make up their SS theme.

Have all things equal, SS theme for those who want that, and files such as the extras.rsrc for others who want the benefits of having those.

Exactly. No one should have a problem with this at all.

[fireside]

Originally posted by olorin15:
Second, goMac's starting to piss the hell out of everyone again. The guy's amazing ... I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he throws it away, comes back here and bashes SS, even though he's got nothing to present to us that'll back up his words ... What an ass ... MAKE YOUR XTENDER WORK Colin, then come back here. Although at this point, I'm pretty sure I'll ignore it even if it does eventually see light of day. Just out of principle. Just cuz you are acting like an ass. Over and Over. Enough said ...

so he's pissing the hell out of you because he wants to set the facts straight and defends himself?

Colin's part of XTender is completed. he's waiting for someone else's part of XTender to be completed so it can be released. its amazing that since Colin is just part of a group he has no control over when things are going to be done, unlike Jason who codes ShapeShifter all by himself.

[olorin15]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
What would be cool would be for them to make a app that automatically does that for you.

Well THEY wouldn't have to make it, someone else could.

I believe Theme Fur does exactly that and has been around for ages ... http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8750
I though Zimphire that you, having claimed on many occasions to have been in the themeing business for some time now, would have known of it's existance. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like guikitty and theme fur is what you want.

[olorin15]

Originally posted by Zimphire:

You really have no room to be talking here. Esp with the way you have been acting. [/B]

Really, and how is that? Care to elaborate? I thought I have plenty of room - silly me ...

[olorin15]

Originally posted by fireside:
so he's pissing the hell out of you because he wants to set the facts straight and defends himself?

Colin's part of XTender is completed. he's waiting for someone else's part of XTender to be completed so it can be released. its amazing that since Colin is just part of a group he has no control over when things are going to be done, unlike Jason who codes ShapeShifter all by himself.

If Colin's side is complete, then maybe he should wait till the others are done too, and then come back here? He's not setting anything staright here until he gives us the final product to download and try out. And attacking SS is a very very stupid thing to do for someone in his position, plagued by the infamy of Duality and known for cancelling projects before they ever see light of day ... I don't see your point.

And this one's for Smeger: do you really code all of SS alone?!

[kwyjiboy]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
What are you saying, without SS there is no themeing ability in OS X?

I sure hope you aren't saying that.

No. I have told you many times. Theming in Panther is crippled without Shapeshifter.

[phillryu]

Originally posted by olorin15:
If Colin's side is complete, then maybe he should wait till the others are done too, and then come back here? He's not setting anything staright here until he gives us the final product to download and try out. And attacking SS is a very very stupid thing to do for someone in his position, plagued by the infamy of Duality and known for cancelling projects before they ever see light of day ... I don't see your point.

And this one's for Smeger: do you really code all of SS alone?!

And ThemePark. And MightyMouse. And if you think about it, apps like SafarIcon and stuff too. He's working pretty hard to say the least.

[kwyjiboy]

Originally posted by deej5871:
Second, you septuple posted, there has got to be some rule against that crap. Maybe you should learn to put more than one quote in a single post.. It pisses me off and I swear you only do it to raise your post count.

You inspired me to create a signature. It's art.

[fireside]

Originally posted by phillryu:
And if you think about it, apps like SafarIcon and stuff too.

actually, Jason didn't code SafarIcon.

[wibs]

this seems like a good place to mention it: ProLCD is available in DLTA format (unsupported, but it exists).

[fireside]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
No. I have told you many times. Theming in Panther is crippled without Shapeshifter.

if you consider always having rounded shadows "crippled."

[goMac]

Originally posted by olorin15:
If Colin's side is complete, then maybe he should wait till the others are done too, and then come back here? He's not setting anything staright here until he gives us the final product to download and try out. And attacking SS is a very very stupid thing to do for someone in his position, plagued by the infamy of Duality and known for cancelling projects before they ever see light of day ... I don't see your point.

And this one's for Smeger: do you really code all of SS alone?!

Actually Fireside is right on. I don't write the Xtender engine, I have no control over it, and thats where the hold up is. I write the theme plugin for Xtender and I get builds of the engine as I go. I don't even actually have the source code for the engine. Thats managed by Dave whos spends a lot of time hacking away getting it working. Recently I've taken on writing a login plugin to launch the Xtender terminal daemon, and I am writing the installer for Xtender to set everything up. Thats the limit of my involvement with the engine.

I would like to see a clean, fast engine for Xtender before I release it with the theme plug in. Thats up to Dave.

[iOliverC]

Originally posted by fireside:
actually, Jason didn't code SafarIcon.

Read it again..

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by olorin15:
I believe Theme Fur does exactly that and has been around for ages ... http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8750

That takes old themes and converts them to new ones. I am not SURE it works with the SS files.
If it does, GREAT.

I though Zimphire that you, having claimed on many occasions to have been in the themeing business for some time now, would have known of it's existance.

Yes, I have been in the "thememing business" for awhile.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like guikitty and theme fur is what you want.

If it works cool.

[wibs]

Originally posted by fireside:
actually, Jason didn't code SafarIcon.

what Phill means is that Jason has taken the function of SafarIcon and put it into ShapeShifter, in addition to adding ThemePark support, so it's really as if he made a SafarIcon of his own.

To be fair though some themers helped a lot with hunting down resources for app skins. Max especially did a crazy amount of the work. But Jason did all of the coding.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
No. I have told you many times. Theming in Panther is crippled without Shapeshifter.

Ok, how? You told me many times. But you haven't said WHY.

I have themed Aqua to my specifications without SS.

If what you mean is, "You can do things with SS, that you cannot without it" I agree.

I was never arguing that.

[fireside]

Originally posted by olorin15:
If Colin's side is complete, then maybe he should wait till the others are done too, and then come back here? He's not setting anything staright here until he gives us the final product to download and try out. And attacking SS is a very very stupid thing to do for someone in his position, plagued by the infamy of Duality and known for cancelling projects before they ever see light of day ... I don't see your point.

why should Colin stop posting and setting the facts straight because you're having a fit of disbelief?

And this one's for Smeger: do you really code all of SS alone?!

Colin already said that coding a theme switcher like XTender (which SS is) isn't too hard to do.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by olorin15:
Really, and how is that? Care to elaborate? I thought I have plenty of room - silly me ...

I am speaking about your abusive posts in which you act a bit immature. Telling people that don't agree with you to shut up.If you'd like me to quote you on these times I can.

But I really don't think that is necessary.

[olorin15]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
I am speaking about your abusive posts in which you act a bit immature. Telling people that don't agree with you to shut up.If you'd like me to quote you on these times I can.

But I really don't think that is necessary.

I did not tell anyone to shut up - I told people like you to stop bitching about SS, that's all. There's a difference. If you think yelling that the world is unfair over and over and over on these forums is mature, well I can't argue with you then ...

[kwyjiboy]

Originally posted by fireside:
if you consider always having rounded shadows "crippled."

Yes. It irritates me more than I can explain.

[kwyjiboy]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Ok, how? You told me many times. But you haven't said WHY.

I have themed Aqua to my specifications without SS.
If what you mean is, "You can do things with SS, that you cannot without it" I agree.
I was never arguing that.

This is the funniest thread I've ever read. People are so angry at each other over something so small. And I'm not excluded. I feel very strongly about Shapeshifter, obviously.

To answer your question, without SS, we won't have shaped shadows so that theme authors can have titlebars shaped differently than the default Aqua shape. We wouldn't have everything smeger said:

� Application skinning;
� Auto-updating of Jaguar themes for Panther;
� Color metal windows on Panther;
� Non-hardcoded window titlebar transparency and window shadows on Panther;
� Background patterns larger than 8x8 pixels in Cocoa applications;
� Changes to text colors in places other than in menus;
� Ability to change Finder's icon text colors;
� Changing the color of textual Menu Extras;
� Ability to use large metal window bevels in Safari;
� Ability to change etched text foreground and background colors in many different apps;
� Automatic handling of language localization issues;
� Ability to exclude individual applications or easily turn off theming altogether;
� Per-user themes;
� Safety;
� Something that gets better and adds more flexibility with every release!

The last thing he listed is of particular interest, considering the flexibility we're familiar with in Kaleidescope and the creativity of smeger. It's my hope that one day we'll be able to have custom window borders, so that things like a truly OS9-ish skin can be made, or widgets in different locations. Sure, someone is going to say again that we'll have ugly themes appear -- that's already happening. That will always happen. It's the NICE themes I'm interested in.

As far as what SS allows right this instant in Panther, that normal theming does not, that's what I'm grateful for. If all you want to do is modify Aqua, I still think SS is the safest way to do so. I do not want to ever apply a theme, reboot, and be greeted with a flashing question mark and a dead Mac again. It has happened to me and it's not fun.

It sounds like SS is not targeted toward you, if you only want to use an Aqua mod.

[Link]

You're simply overreacting. Screwing up your extras.rsrc file will cause loginwindow to fail loading. What it won't do is screw up your boot sector and cause the mac to be stuck at a flashing ? (or crossed out O). I can't believe you want to put that much fear into people.

Rolling your own theme can screw up your OS but it's not hard to fix (either boot off the OS9 CD and swap the extras.rsrc with the backup or do a reinstall of OS X itself)

Note: whooo 2000th post!

Hey btw, before you bring on the flame thrower.. just chill, k? No need to overexaggerate how unsafe stuff is

[goMac]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:

� Application skinning;
� Auto-updating of Jaguar themes for Panther;
� Color metal windows on Panther;
� Non-hardcoded window titlebar transparency and window shadows on Panther;
� Background patterns larger than 8x8 pixels in Cocoa applications;
� Changes to text colors in places other than in menus;
� Ability to change Finder's icon text colors;
� Changing the color of textual Menu Extras;
� Ability to use large metal window bevels in Safari;
� Ability to change etched text foreground and background colors in many different apps;
� Automatic handling of language localization issues;
� Ability to exclude individual applications or easily turn off theming altogether;
� Per-user themes;
� Safety;
� Something that gets better and adds more flexibility with every release!

I hate to keep coming in like this but incorrect information REALLY annoys me.
� Application skinning existed long before SS.
� Duality updated Jaguar themes for Panther automatically. So did ThemeChanger.
� Duality automatically handled language localization.
� SS uses the same safety measures as all other theme apps. This is nothing special. It still can bring down apps, note the iTunes 4.5 issues.
� Per-user themes wasn't anything he had to do extra coding for. This is something that is part of APE. Ditto with the excluding.
� Changing the color with textual menu extras I've never had an issue with. Care to elaborate?

[deej5871]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
I am not here to participate in this invisible, purile posting contest that exists solely in your head.

So is that why people have posts purely consisting of "+1" in topics (including this one)? Because they don't care about their post count?

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
I am here to voice my opinion. I will quote a reply TO THAT REPLY, and not to someone else's, just to appease some kind of obsessive-compulsive neurotic desire of yours.

All you have to do is what I have just done, which is reapply the quote tag to a different part of your post, it isn't that hard..

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
I find it offensive that you did not read anything I have posted, and simply refer to it all as "crap".

What I was referring to as "crap" was the very fact that you septuple posted, not the content of your posts (even though I do think they were crap, because two of them consisted of just "Wrong.")

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
I will not read a 4 page long forum at the interval you specify, make a list of things in a word processor, then come back and collect responses to 20 some peoples' posts into one long-winded, 20 screen long post. That is inane and just plain absurd. No. I think I will click the reply button to the individual posts AS THE FORUM CONCEPT WAS DESIGNED.

Putting all your quotes in one "long-winded" post actually keeps the forum having less pages because the forums separate the thread into pages at 50-post intervals, so the more posts, the more pages, which is one of the reason I dislike your septuple posting. Since you seem to dislike having to read a 4 page long (5 pages now) topic, maybe you shouldn't contribute to the problem by septuple posting.
BTW, I don't use a word processor when I do posts like this, simple copy-pasting works just fine..

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
I hope this shuts you the hell up, but I doubt it.

I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:
You inspired me to create a signature. It's art.

Actually, I do find that signature funny (surprising, seeing as I hate the septuple-post so much).

Originally posted by olorin15:
If Colin's side is complete, then maybe he should wait till the others are done too, and then come back here? He's not setting anything staright here until he gives us the final product to download and try out. And attacking SS is a very very stupid thing to do for someone in his position, plagued by the infamy of Duality and known for cancelling projects before they ever see light of day ... I don't see your point.

As fireside said, I saw no SS bashing at all by Colin. All he did was set the facts straight. He never even said anything negative about SS. As he just said, incorrect info annoys him, and I have to agree. I hate it when people post things that are just wrong..

[ender2002]

One word:


OMEGA

[RedStar]

Originally posted by ender2002:
One word:


OMEGA

Please, oh please, don't go there.

[Adam Betts]

This thread really need to be locked before it gets out of control again.

[wibs]

on the plus side, even if this turns into another The Theme That Shall Not Be Named thread, it won't be a whole lot worse.

[swiz]

Originally posted by fireside:
Colin already said that coding a theme switcher like SS (which Xtender is) isn't too hard to do.

Fixed it for you, although until Xtender is even at par with SS this is a moot argument.

[digitaljames]

Originally posted by kwyjiboy:

Nice sig!

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by olorin15:
I did not tell anyone to shut up - I told people like you to stop bitching about SS, that's all.

Basically telling anyone that was bitching about SS to shut up. As if you have any authority in this forum. You need to chill.

Not that it matters, it looks as if the themers will be releasing the files, and not just a SS file.

So the problem is solved.

[Dave-o�]

uuuugggghhhh.. i just spent over 30 minutes reading this entire thread..

i feel dirty.

[kwyjiboy]

Originally posted by digitaljames:
Nice sig!

Thanks. That means a lot to me.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Max is going to offer both versions. Read his post.

He isn't as petty as some in here.

I didn't say that, I said I offered Smoothstripes and Aqua Extreme as dlta.

[fireside]

Originally posted by swiz:
Fixed it for you, although until Xtender is even at par with SS this is a moot argument.

if they're both alike, it wouldn't matter what order they were in. the TRUTH is that XTender and SS do the exact same thing, so it doesn't matter what was first. and what are you saying XTender isn't at par with SS? can it not swap themes with out physically replacing files? can it not change text color? the only thing SS has over XTender is theme support.