[ZXspectrum]

In 2004 i wrote about how we should pay for Themes. Many people got extremely mad

http://forums.macnn.com/94/gui-custo...s-for-sale/11/

I hope that you guys learned your lesson. If You Don't Evolve, You Die! 4Yeras after Themeing is dead and so is this forum. I looked in my old GUI folder and i see over 100 themes...very sad

zxspectrum

btw - and no, 10.5 is not the problem.

[Sijmen]

What's your point?

[voo]

Originally Posted by ZXspectrum 

btw - and no, 10.5 is not the problem.

It's not...? then why is it 10.5 has been out for a year now and ShapeShifter isn't even Leopard compatible. Not even any signs of a beta, and as far as Unsanity goes, they said on their blog not to contact them about it.

[@pplejaxkz]

Voo is right!

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by @pplejaxkz 

Voo is right!

Right about what?
That "ShapeShifter isn't Leopard compatible"?

Well so what?
ZXspectrum is also right: "Themeing is dead and so is this forum."

Even Puma -> Tiger never matched the Kaleidoscope revolution of OS9 (and earlier).

[@pplejaxkz]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

Right about what?
That "ShapeShifter isn't Leopard compatible"?

Well so what?
ZXspectrum is also right: "Themeing is dead and so is this forum."

Even Puma -> Tiger never matched the Kaleidoscope revolution of OS9 (and earlier).

I never said that ZXspectrum wasn't right as well. I am just commenting that 10.5 is definitely part of the problem. Without an application to help theme your system, people are now handing editing resource files. Which in a lot of cases is too risky for some people.

So, yes, this themeing forum is now dead. But you can't say that 10.5 isn't part of the problem. Not everyone is willing to manually editing important files. There is no "END" to themeing. It's just depends on how much work and risk you're willing to put into it.

[Hal Itosis]

There is no "END" to themeing.

Hope you're right.
[maybe this "lull" is all part of the Bush recession.]

[linger]

Originally Posted by ZXspectrum 

In 2004 i wrote about how we should pay for Themes. Many people got extremely mad

http://forums.macnn.com/94/gui-custo...s-for-sale/11/

I hope that you guys learned your lesson. If You Don't Evolve, You Die! 4Yeras after Themeing is dead and so is this forum. I looked in my old GUI folder and i see over 100 themes...very sad

zxspectrum

btw - and no, 10.5 is not the problem.

Actually anyone could have told you that. BTW there is a new theme app that actually pays it's themers.

[linger]

Here you go

http://www.slightlypretentious.com/

Facade looks promising.

[linger]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

[Bush recession.]

Ahem. Not to bring politics into this (as you already have) but the recession was in the making before Bush got into office. The reason we had such a good economy was because of the over-inflated tech stocks. When those stocks burst, so did the economy. And it's been dipping ever since then. And it started before Bush ever got into office.
So while yes he was president when it went on, he wasn't in office long enough for it to be HIS. Not that it was Clinton's either.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by linger 

Ahem. Not to bring politics into this (as you already have) but the recession was in the making before Bush got into office. The reason we had such a good economy was because of the over-inflated tech stocks. When those stocks burst, so did the economy. And it's been dipping ever since then. And it started before Bush ever got into office. So while yes he was president when it went on, he wasn't in office long enough for it to be HIS. Not that it was Clinton's either.

 
Ooooh touchy.

If you know so much, why didn't you warn us beforehand?

[@pplejaxkz]

God I hate politics.

[TheZee]

I just "upgraded" from a G3 iBook running OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar to a MacBook Aluminum running OS X 10.5.5 Leopard and, in many ways, I am not only frustrated but disappointed that Mr Jobs forgot that one of the primary reasons people became devoted Mac enthusiasts was GUI Customization. I mean, so many customization aspects available in the previous OS X versions prior to Leopard have been taken away that, I am yearning for my OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar back, BIG TIME. Is Apple going the way of Windows OS versions where your stuck with what they give you, all prepackaged and fixed with the option to modify anything obscenely limited? Why? Due to this Intel switch? If that is the case, I say "SCREW INTEL !!!" Give me back the slower OS X Macs with more user options or opportunities to create personal mods and options any day. Oh yeah, and I agree with some of the previous posts here: WHAT THE F IS UP WITH UNSANITY UPDATES FOR LEOPARD? I am a registered and ecstatic user of ShapeShifter, MightyMouse, Xounds, Windowshade, and Application Enhancer. None of which, besides Windowshade, now work and even that appears to have bugs in OS X 10.5.5 Leopard Again, not only frustrated but very disappointed. Come on Unsanity, please get it done.

PS: I recently attempted to change the Airport.menu menubar icons from their boring original color scheme to a multicolored scheme as I had enjoyed in my previous OS X Jaguar but now the menubar item loads and is operational but no icons appear, just a blank space. Any ideas on how to resolve this? Thanks people.

Peace

[TheZee]

I just "upgraded" from a G3 iBook running OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar to a MacBook Aluminum running OS X 10.5.5 Leopard and, in many ways, I am not only frustrated but disappointed that Mr Jobs forgot that one of the primary reasons people became devoted Mac enthusiasts was GUI Customization. I mean, so many customization aspects available in the previous OS X versions prior to Leopard have been taken away that, I am yearning for my OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar back, BIG TIME. Is Apple going the way of Windows OS versions where your stuck with what they give you, all prepackaged and fixed with the option to modify anything obscenely limited? Why? Due to this Intel switch? If that is the case, I say "SCREW INTEL !!!" Give me back the slower OS X Macs with more user options or opportunities to create personal mods and options any day. Oh yeah, and I agree with some of the previous posts here: WHAT THE F IS UP WITH UNSANITY UPDATES FOR LEOPARD? I am a registered and ecstatic user of ShapeShifter, MightyMouse, Xounds, Windowshade, and Application Enhancer. None of which, besides Windowshade, now work and even that appears to have bugs in OS X 10.5.5 Leopard Again, not only frustrated but very disappointed. Come on Unsanity, please get it done.

PS: I recently attempted to change the Airport.menu menubar icons from their boring original color scheme to a multicolored scheme as I had enjoyed in my previous OS X Jaguar but now the menubar item loads and is operational but no icons appear, just a blank space. Any ideas on how to resolve this? Thanks people.

Peace Out,

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by TheZee

Is Apple going the way of Windows OS versions where your stuck with what they give you, all prepackaged and fixed with the option to modify anything obscenely limited? Why? Due to this Intel switch? If that is the case, I say "SCREW INTEL !!!" Give me back the slower OS X Macs with more user options or opportunities to create personal mods and options any day.

Personally, I think the fact that neither Unsanity, nor anyone else, currently has a Leopard-compatible themeing app on the market can be explained strictly in economic terms.

Apple have their own magical in-house appearance scheme editor which (1) allows them to break any 3rd party mods with ease, and which also (2) makes it legally difficult for 3rd party developers to release anything emulating that patented application. In a sense, there has been a scheme void since 2001, a void which allowed for the temporary existence of themeing hacks, and Apple have now filled/‘fixed’ that void. In the future, users will likely have to keep manually swapping out system files to achieve temporary effects that Apple can and will break/reset via minor system updates. One may continue to hope for Apple to release their internal tool to the public, but even if they do, I would expect them to exert a high level of control over what and if developers are allowed to release in the way of schemes, similar to what they are doing with the iPhone and the AppStore.

[hwojtek]

Originally Posted by TheZee 

Jobs forgot that one of the primary reasons people became devoted Mac enthusiasts was GUI Customization.

What? GUI customization has never been a feature of OS X and Macs. It has been a hack done by a 3rd party. You are shooting in the wrong direction here.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by TheZee 

:I am not only frustrated but disappointed that Mr Jobs forgot that one of the primary reasons people became devoted Mac enthusiasts was GUI Customization.

Really? I like many people became devoted to the Mac because of the hardware and software not because of GUI customization. In fact you were really limited to what you could do with the GUI until system 7 or Mac OS8 so a very large part of Mac History was w/o theming.

The OP is right that theming [for the mac] and this forum is dead. Its not because people tried to charge for themes but because apple didn't want it. They made it difficult for people to write applications to modify the look of OSX. SS used ape which was and is buggy.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Personally, I think the fact that neither Unsanity, nor anyone else, currently has a Leopard-compatible themeing app on the market can be explained strictly in economic terms.

Apple have their own magical in-house appearance scheme editor which (1) allows them to break any 3rd party mods with ease, and which also (2) makes it legally difficult for 3rd party developers to release anything emulating that patented application. In a sense, there has been a scheme void since 2001, a void which allowed for the temporary existence of themeing hacks, and Apple have now filled/‘fixed’ that void. In the future, users will likely have to keep manually swapping out system files to achieve temporary effects that Apple can and will break/reset via minor system updates. One may continue to hope for Apple to release their internal tool to the public, but even if they do, I would expect them to exert a high level of control over what and if developers are allowed to release in the way of schemes, similar to what they are doing with the iPhone and the AppStore.

To put a little perspective on this...

I wrote a theme changer for OS X called Duality way back when I was in high school. It got my a Powerbook, that was about it. I've already made more on an iPhone app that I only have royalty rights on.

The problem with theme apps is, as you stated, you're always fighting Apple, and you're always running support. It's simply not a fun market to be in. In addition, most your users are of the teenaged variety who do not have credit cards, so piracy runs rampant.

I've always felt that the best way to go is selling themes. It gets the artists some money, and taking a bit off the top like Apple does with iTunes would provide a permanent revenue stream that could go towards support. And that looks like the route the new kids on the block are taking.

However, there are a few major problems with this. First, it will peev off some users who think themes should always be free. Second, you can pile on all the DRM you want, but in order to install the theme you have to decrypt the entire theme and copy the decrypted files either into the system or somewhere else, rendering a DRM system impossible for themes. One could just go around and recollect all the files once a theme is applied and repackage the theme.

You could trust users not to redistrbute themes like Apple does with iTunes Plus, but I've already mentioned how piracy is rampant...