[raduga]

I'm new to the whole themeing thing. Is there a way to change the color of text input boxes in OS X 10.3? I found a nice theme, but since the menus are dark, the menu text is light gray, and now all my text boxes (like the one I'm typing this in) are light gray on white! No good. For that matter, isn't there an app to let me change the color of any GUI element or font in the system?

thanks

[wibs]

here's the newbie primer, hope it's helpful

to change the font you're going to need Silk. no other way that i'm aware of =-\.

which theme is it? some of them simply don't do text colors very well, largely because text color support isn't really done yet, heh.

to change gui elements, you're going to need ThemePark. Here's how to modify a theme:

1) apply it in ShapeShifter
2) launch ThemePark, create a New guiKit Package, and hit the Add button to add a variant.
3) Hit the options button, enable MenuEnhancer.
4) navigate to Themes > variant name > Elements
5) go into the Theme menu, select Merge With Installed Elements

now you have a full editable copy of whatever theme you want to mod. If the theme includes app skins, you're going to have to add those before merging with installed elements. just navigate to themes > variant name > elements > application skins, and then select all of the applications that the theme has skins for (that info is usually on the theme's web page)

to change text colors, go to global elements > text colors. from there you have to figure out which color it is you want to change exactly, which can get a little annoying because the built in ThemePreview uses apple default text colors. To view your color changes, you're going to have to export the theme and load it in ShapeShifter. To export, go to File menu > Export > For ShapeShifter, save in the location of your choice, and double click it to launch.

In ShapeShifter, just hit the Preview Highlighted button, and that will show your text color changes (and of course any other changes) without having to actually apply the theme.

I hope this helps and wasn't too overwhelming...

[raduga]

Thanks for the reply, that should be fun.

Though I was actually mroe curious about the background color of the text boxes (and the background of certain windows in the OS, such as the little shortcut area on the side of finder windows that has Network, Home, etc...) .... my theme is currently Shinobi (nice and dark) ... but the default white background in some areas is just too stark now. I'm sick of white and I hope Apple's next big aesthetic fad is for BLACK everything

PS - Go slugs!

me-><-slug

[NetworkShadow]

The hi-light for the selected folder in the side bar can be changed with themes, but so far actual text boxes or the finder background's color aren't changeable.

[JudieKaren]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
The hi-light for the selected folder in the side bar can be changed with themes, but so far actual text boxes or the finder background's color aren't changeable.

Just curious about why we can change the FINDER background color only in ICON VIEW, but not List or Column View?

[wibs]

Originally posted by raduga:
PS - Go slugs!

of the banana variety?

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by JudieKaren:
Just curious about why we can change the FINDER background color only in ICON VIEW, but not List or Column View?

I've been wondering the same thing for a long time also.

[raduga]

Word. White is so ugly, and it hurts my eyes. How hard could it be to change the column view background color?

[smeger]

Originally posted by raduga:
Word. White is so ugly, and it hurts my eyes. How hard could it be to change the column view background color?

Really damned hard, surprisingly enough.

[wagmedia]

Originally posted by smeger:
Really damned hard, surprisingly enough.

No doubt. We've been clamoring for that option for a loooooong time.