[brza]

In trying to make my own mod in Themepark, I want to change the colour of the Finder window frames. In Extras.rsrc I can change the gradient as well as the brushed metal texture layered over the grey, but I can't find where the data is stored that tells the window to be a solid grey which those images are layered over.
I know it's possible, can anyone help? Thanks

[digitaljames]

global elements/metal windows/metal window bevels and masks

[brza]

could you be a little more specific? Is this a directory path? Something within a .rsrc file?

upon googling what you gave me, it seems that this is something that would be within a .rsrc file, but which one??? If it's the Extras.rsrc file, all I have is the clr#, ppat and pxm# and there's nothing about "global elements"

thanks

[eyevaan]

Literally it is the path in TP. Theme/Elements/Global elements/metal window - MOD the pieces. If you are editing the Extras.rsrc - and replacing it directly instead of creating a GuiKit and using ShapeShifter to apply - be careful. If you do a search here for "Help I snowed my system!" you will find that making the correct backups is a must and knowing what you are doing is not an option. Check out this tutorial. following to the letter will get you through a whole lotta headaches.

[brza]

(dont take this as attitude. reading online doesn't always get the right tone of voice across)

I'm well aware about making backups and have modded many things including the Extras.rsrc, and backups are one of the things I make sure to have.
I dont like the idea of using Shapeshifter; i'd rather learn how to do it (it being anything) myself. that way if shapeshifter dies one day, i can still revive old settings. it's why i'll spend hours learning where a single file is rather than rely on programs

[brza]

Okay, there's clearly some confusion.

People have been giving me that path and telling me Ican do it there, but not realizing what i want.

i want to change the fact that the Finder windows have GREY FRAMES. That's all I can't figure out. This path eyevaan digitaljames gave me is just what ThemePark gives as an easier method of maneuvering around the resource file. It isn't giving me any more ability to edit the metal windows than I was given before.

The resource file ONLY contains (from what I have been able to find over hours of searching) the metal GRADIENT and the brushed metal TEXTURE. It doesn't contain the grey colour which these are layered on top of. I tried modifying the texture just to be sure, but same thing: it only layered it as a texture overtop of the grey window.

[digitaljames]

You apparently are trying to edit the rsrc file directly with Themepark. See this screenshot for the rsrc element (pxm#). It's still the metal window bevels that make up the outer frame of the finder window.

screen

[brza]

Haha, i dont think we'll ever figure it out. It's not the outer frame, it's THE Frame. the brushed grey metal.
yes, im changing it directly, but the labels that are there are enough that i know what's what for the most part. i went in to the 'themepark paths' and it's just a more structured version of what i was using.

i just want to reiterrate that in the Extras.rsrc file you can change the brush texture and the gradient, but those are layered over a solid colour of grey which ultimately is the colour and is what i want to change

[digitaljames]

You're not relying on Themeparks preview function to see the finder changes are you? You'll have to save the changes, replace the extras.rsrc and restart to see the changes.

[brza]

I know this... believe you me, i've made many modifications to the gradient and the texture and the underlying grey colour isn't changing.
Maybe i'm missing something here... i would even screenshot the process for you but I've got a video encoder going and I've set it to get full cpu priority so until that's done, no dice.

edit: the two elements that people have been telling me to edit are 4460 and 4450. and as i said in the above paragraph, i've done that. in Photoshop I made a brown texture and replaced the grey metal brushed with my brown metal brushed. all it did was overlay it on the grey so that the grey had the same texture but ignored the brown colour. It's a form of blend, possibly Screen (if you know photoshop in the least you know what i mean)

[smeger]

brza, ShapeShifter does not change resources manually for you as you seem to think. It does things at runtime, meaning that if (as you put it), it were to "die", your operating system would return to its default unthemed state. The only files that ShapeShifter modifies on your filesystem when you apply a new theme are in <your home directory>/Library.

The reason that you can't change the gray color in Finder metal windows is that it's hard-coded by the operating system. ShapeShifter changes them at runtime to be whatever color the theme specifies, but it is not possible to change them by editing the Extras.rsrc file - you need to use ShapeShifter to do it.

Sorry for the bad news!

[eyevaan]

I think I am with brza - finally - I have run into this with every theme I have created yet in for instance White Shinobi and others - the themer has successfully changed the metal windows to white. How did they do this? I have replaced every element in the metal panes with flat white objects and nuthin' changes.

Smeger - while I am willing to accept that it is hard coded, I mostly want to know what kungfu they are using to make the changes.

[smeger]

eyevaan, the API that Apple uses to set the colorspace when drawing the metal window background in Finder is the grayscale colorspace. This means that any subsequent drawing is done in grayscale. ShapeShifter modifies it on the fly and turns it into the RGB colorspace. So there's no image to hack and no bit to flip, it actually requires modifying the code.

And actually, in Tiger it's even worse because the image transforms Apple uses to draw the gradient and texture assume grayscale images. In Tiger, ShapeShifter replaces the drawing completely and uses its own implementation.

The result is that the themer can just specify whatever color gradient/texture they want and, if they're using ShapeShifter, it'll "just work". There's a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes to make it "just work", though.

[eyevaan]

t h a n k y o u very much, perhaps I may have been over thinking it all along. I'll give this a shot and thx for the heads up for Tiger [I still have not migrated - don't ask - I dunno why]