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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > GUI Customization > I installed Crystal Clear 1.9 - restarted my computer - ...and now what do I do?

I installed Crystal Clear 1.9 - restarted my computer - ...and now what do I do?
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Ham Sandwich
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Mar 15, 2008, 11:14 PM
 
Hi, Musings from Mars � has just released Crystal Clear 1.9 for Leopard (I searched, I didn't see anyone else discussing this one).

Installation went with no problems, and I made sure to select the "Replace Graphics..." option during the installation.

And I restarted to make sure.

After restart... the only changes that I see are that my scroll bars are grayish. Everything else remains the same.

So, one of the points made in the documentation of the Crystal Clear Interface Package states:


"The Preferences panel has numerous options that you can control. For details on what these options are and how to use them, please refer to the "Help" document that accompanies this download."


Where is this panel? Is it in System Preferences? There is no application named Crystal Clear, as far as I can tell, and I do not see any place to access such a panel or preference in System Preferences. Also, the Help menu and other documentation, as well as the entire Musings website, do not tell me where to access the transparency controls and panels.

Since he is using Crystal Clear 1.9 and is providing it to us all, there must be some logical way to access all of these controls.

So, how do I use Crystal Clear?
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Mar 15, 2008 at 11:23 PM. )
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 16, 2008, 11:02 AM
 
I did the same thing, and I also want to know the same question. there's plenty of mention of this "preferences panel", but I don't know how to access it.
     
autumnrayne
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Mar 16, 2008, 03:01 PM
 
having just installed it and played with it for a little bit- the preference pane that it refers to in my opinion is application level. Notice the grey circle in your menu items? choose preferences from that. I don't see anything in the system prefs.
all we were, and are we have done- just zeros and ones.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 16, 2008, 03:44 PM
 
I'm confused.
What does "the grey circle in your menu items" mean?
I look around and see many gray circles, but I'm not sure if they are in the menu items that you reference.

If you mean the one in the upper-right corner of the screen, that's Spotlight. Nothing else resembles a grey circle in my menu bar.
If you mean the one at the lower right corner of each Finder window, then that's a resize icon, and double-clicking on it does nothing.
No pull-down menus have it.
If you mean the gray circle in System Preferences, then that's normally the green circle that is used to resize windows.
     
autumnrayne
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Mar 16, 2008, 05:44 PM
 
i uninstalled it. but iirc it went something like

"(apple menu) File Edit View History Bookmarks (circlething) Window Help"

in camino.
all we were, and are we have done- just zeros and ones.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 16, 2008, 06:16 PM
 
That doesn't show up anywhere for me... I tried TextEdit, Photoshop, Preview, Quicktime, Safari... nada. Edit: I see it on the Musingsfrommars website, but I don't have it.
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Mar 16, 2008 at 06:52 PM. )
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 16, 2008, 08:05 PM
 
i see it now. it's up there on the menu bar. i uninstalled after playing with the preferences. i like a little less transparency and a little more opacity in everything. just a little too hard to read.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 16, 2008, 09:30 PM
 
How did you get it to show up?

Besides switching to a different application,

Was there some kind of step that you had to do to access the preferences?
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 17, 2008, 05:40 PM
 
I didn't do anything it was just there while safari was open. but it was also there in mail and other things too (not finder tho i don't think...).

if it's stll not there, maybe you could uninstall and reinstall if you haven't tried that already. i don't think it's worth it personally. maybe wait until it's more solid.
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 17, 2008, 06:48 PM
 
okay i'm sorta angry about this, my scrollbars in safari, mail, pages, iCal and probably a few other programs are stuck in the transparent view and i've tried uninstalling and running GraphicsToggle like he says to on the download site, and i've restarted several times in between all this and nothings happening. how do i reset this??
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 17, 2008, 10:21 PM
 
okay i figured it out you just have to uncheck the box in the preferences under extras that says "use CrystalClear Interface Graphics: For all applications"
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 19, 2008, 07:05 PM
 
This better not be another one of those transparency issues that won't work on computers that can't display the transparent menubar.

My iMac G5 has a not-so-great graphics processor... what do you use?
     
autumnrayne
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Mar 19, 2008, 11:50 PM
 
could be.

i was trying it on a santa rosa MBP.

Did anyone else have issues getting their close/minimize/expand buttons back to default? Mine are still stuck in Crystal Clear mode and its starting to irk me.
all we were, and are we have done- just zeros and ones.
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 20, 2008, 01:57 AM
 
I'm running the same MBP.

My buttons were normal, it was just the scrollbars. Did you reinstall and change the prefs?
     
genius
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Mar 20, 2008, 02:46 AM
 
@Andrej: I also have the same problem. The installation went fine but than ... nothing. I'm using a mac book pro (early 2007). At the Mac Book of my girlfriend (end of 2007) we got cristal clear working.

I removed all other inputmanagers (Logitec-driver, ...) but without success.
     
FB Eye
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Mar 20, 2008, 09:09 AM
 
Contacting the author of Crystal Clear would be your best bet to solve your problems, don't you think?
     
genius
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Mar 21, 2008, 04:09 AM
 
This problem was discussed in some comments at the page of the author. He also has no idea how so solve it. So I hoped someone here found a solution.
     
Tyinturru
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Mar 23, 2008, 03:35 PM
 
Gah! It was slowing down my computer so in uninstalled, and now the scroll bar thing is back. It's still transparent and the arrows are black. I really want my computer back to normal but I can't figure out how. I deleted the pref. file and I used the GraphicsToggle but nothing is working. Autumnrayne did you ever fix your buttons?

They're not that ugly or anything it's just bothering me that there's some bit of it left that's messing with my new computer... it's just not cool.
     
marsmuse
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Mar 23, 2008, 09:24 PM
 
Hi,
I'm the developer of CrystalClear Interface 1.9 and wanted to help with some of the issues I've read about on this thread.

First, today I released an update to CrystalClear Interface (CCI) 1.9.1, which should take care of any uninstall problems you may have had. If you are still experiencing problems from CCI 1.9.0, I suggest you download CCI 1.9.1 and run the installer. If you see an "uninstall" option enabled, select it and run the uninstaller. On the other hand, if you run CCI 1.9.1 and see options to install, go ahead and select both options and install CCI 1.9.1. After this, if you want to uninstall, run CCI 1.9.1 again and select the uninstall option.

If you're still seeing bits of the CCI theme at this point, check the following folders on your Leopard system:
  1. /Library/InputManagers/
  2. ~/Library/InputManagers/
  3. ~/Library/Application Support/
If you see a folder for CrystalClear in any of these locations, delete it. You should also not see a folder called "SetAlphaValue" in any of these locations. If you do, I'd suggest you move it to another location on your system, and then log out and log back in.

If you still see some of CCI's theming after these steps, feel free to drop me an email at llscotts@ AT fastmail.fm

One last note... One of the writers here mentioned that CrystalClear Interface was "too transparent for me." This user apparently didn't locate the CCI Preferences window and discover that CCI gives users the ability to make Leopard windows as transparent or as opaque as they like, in whatever color they like. The default setup is nearly transparent, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Once you find the Preferences window, check out the "Colors" tab. You might also want to visit the "Help" tab to get an overview of what each tab in the Preferences window lets you do.

Speaking of the Preferences window, I've also updated the documentation to make clear how to find it.

Cheers,
Leland
Musings from Mars
     
roosta
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Mar 24, 2008, 01:24 AM
 
here's a thought, with crystal clear's controls you can make a fairly white os with customized buttons and so forth. what if it were possible to adapt the code in crystal clear to make the leopard os more customizable, say in being able to import elements like buttons, scroll bars, menubar mods and so forth. crystal clear has a ways to go, but it could become a really wonderful application if taken further.

just a thought mind. what does the brain trust here think?
     
marsmuse
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Mar 24, 2008, 10:44 AM
 
Quick update: The CCI 1.9.1 download I posted yesterday inadvertently still had the 1.9.0 installer.

I've now corrected that error... Sorry!
Updated CCI 1.9.1 download package.

Roosta... Regarding the future of CCI, I had hoped to take the software in that direction if I have the time and energy. It should be possible to let users choose among a variety of button/scrollbar/window styles, and even design their own and use those. As an InputManager, though, CCI will always put some additional stress on the apps in which it's running, so it requires a fairly recent model Mac. Also, inconsistencies in the way each app is built means there's a continuous requirement to modify CCI to account for those eccentricities. At the moment, it's optimized for the apps I use the most, but I know there are many others out there that are popular, but which haven't been tested and tweaked for. Nevertheless, there are many more commonalities than outliers, so it's not a major pain to fix once I identify the requirement.
     
roosta
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Mar 24, 2008, 08:38 PM
 
somebody at macthemes posted some very interesting info regarding theming leopard. here's a screenshot of my finder after applying a couple of terminal commands.

     
marsmuse
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Mar 25, 2008, 09:44 AM
 
Thanks, Roosta... that's very interesting stuff. I'm sure some new theming opportunities in Leopard will now be opened up!
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 26, 2008, 08:06 PM
 
Installed 1.9.1... but still don't have access to the semi-transparent menubar circle.
     
quandary
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Mar 29, 2008, 01:11 AM
 
hey!
     
Ham Sandwich
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Mar 29, 2008, 05:26 PM
 
Yes hi, do you know what's up?
     
   
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