[mac15]

Amen to that! It is indeed a contest and we can't love everything. Be prepared to get a little blowback on your themes if someone doesn't like it.

[wibs]

Originally posted by fireside:
atleast he gave you a yittle bit of constructive criticism, i just got plain ole criticism.

On behalf of the other judges, I'd like to apologize. There's nothing good about those kinds of comments, and I'm sorry.

I don't want to cheapen that apology with an excuse, but I would like to say that commenting on every single one of those 45 mockups got pretty grueling, especially considering the small amount of time we had to do it (they were being made available to the panel in groups, starting just a day or two before they went public... I didn't even see a lot of them until after they were posted). By the time I got to the 3rd page of mockups, it was really really hard to look at titlebars, menus, buttons, sliders, scrolls, tabs, and everything else and be able to come up with solid criticism or praise. After a while everything just kind of slides into the "I like this" or "I don't like this" category and the brain stops telling the fingers reasons why.

[Holigen]

What? You mean to tell me that theme makers are real people??? Blasphemy!!!

[COBRAHQ]

Originally posted by mac15:
Amen to that! It is indeed a contest and we can't love everything. Be prepared to get a little blowback on your themes if someone doesn't like it.

There's a difference between someone disliking your theme, and saying why... or just being a total ****wad and responding like a moron with some lame insult.

I guess some people here haven't grasped the concept of common courtesy, or respect. But I'm not at all surprised.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by COBRAHQ:
There's a difference between someone disliking your theme, and saying why... or just being a total ****wad and responding like a moron with some lame insult.

Those insults that you get from ****wads is nowhere near as bad as these insults/threats that me, Sascha, etc have been getting. Seriously.

You should just be glad that the insults you're getting is just baby-level. Hell, they doesn't look like an insults at all to me

[RenQian]

I was just thinking that maybe macthemes could offer up a new section where mock-ups could be posted to get feedback from anyone who is interested on a regular basis. I know that this is done to some degree here, but it makes sense to have it a themes site,no?

Also, I was at first kinda devastated by some (Max's) comments on my entry, if only because his brushed theme has outlasted all the others I have tried and I was largely inspired by his work to enter this contest. However, after I detatched a bit I took a hard look at my entry and realized everything said was valid and has helped a great deal in refining my idea.

It only hurts because I wanted that software so badly! I'll guess I'll just have to BUY Themepark.

Also, I think it's OK for Phil to post his faves here- everyone else is.

Vote for Gung Ho! (I've already got it at 2.0!)

[mac15]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Those insults that you get from ****wads is nowhere near as bad as these insults/threats that me, Sascha, etc have been getting. Seriously.

What did you two do?

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Dace:
I also found Max's comment on my mock-up harsh and arrogant. Half of his comment was spent talking about his AA theme and how great ,minimal and useable it was...blah, blah, blah. And then he ends it with "A good try, but nothing I think would be fun to use for a longer time."

A good try? Gee, thanks...I don't what tone he wrote that with but it sounded condescending.

That's what happens when you place pompous teenagers such as Max on the judge panel.

I didn't say that my theme was fantastic, I just talked about the Xbox design and that I had also been inspired by it. I'm not alone in my criticism, there are a lot more harsh comments made on your theme. I think you are overreacting about my comment, and at least I didn't make any personal attacks.

pompous teenagers such as Max

---

I'm not sure which mockups were made by RenQian and Fireside and I'm sorry if I offended you. I just tried to be honest in my criticism, not put any one down or insult you..
I'm sure some comments might be harsh, I wrote a lot of them at once, and going from a fantastic mockup by a professional designer to something less professional might have made me a little too harsh on that one.. So I apologize to you and hope you don't take it too hard.
But if you would let me know which mockups you made I'll try to clarify my comment..

[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

Originally posted by mac15:
This has been said before , but people don't seem to relealise this is first contest of its kind and being the first of its kind its going to come with bugs.

It's not the first contest of its kind. Pixelpalooza, Unsanity...I'm sure there are other examples of online contest that are *exactly* like this. I don't begrudge bugs in the system, it being a first contest and all, but it's hardly a revolutionary idea. Nor would it have been difficult to consult with veteran contest holders to learn how to avoid as many problems as possible.

[WICKEDfour]

Okay, this may seem harsh, but it's the truth. Everyone on the panel tried to honestly give an opinion of each mockup, that's of course what we're here for as judges. However, would you rather that we kept our comments to ourselves? My impression was that we were making the panel's comments available because we wanted to help the designers out in terms of what they did right or wrong. I feel much better about honestly saying what I thought of the mockups I had the time to comment on than if I privately critiqued them.

One other thing: Six of almost 50 mockups have to win, people. I'm sorry that MacThemes can't get enough sponsors to make everyone nice and happy, but it doesn't work like that. Unfortunately, therefore, there are some mockup that are notably better than the others, which can be shown by the panel's comments and the user votes. I personally felt that the panel was pretty unaminous as to which themes were the better ones. Phill didn't just pick us up off the street.

Contrary to some people's beliefs, this contest isn't a conspiracy to twart everything you've ever desired! Besides, it was implied that opinion would be a large part of this contest (user ratings). [Addition:] However, I too agree with the open comments; some of those were too harsh and open commenting by the voters probably should've been disabled. And even if your mockup doesn't win, you'll have received some valuable input and then know what you can do better for your next mockup for the next contest!

[quandarry]

Originally posted by wibs:
As a panelist I felt like it would be a conflict of interests if I entered my own mockup. The feedback I've gotten is it's even sexier than Sasha's Calabi, but you'll just have to decide for yourself.

You might not want to click on this if your mother is in the room.

Also, Cobra, I didn't put words into your mouth. My sentence started with a "would you" and ended with a question mark. I might have gone a bit far, but I really can't see what else you were suggesting.

i don't know who you are or why you should merit being on the so called panel

but since you are, do you really think it is kosher to be fiddling with a theme as tho

it's won the academy award?

[quandarry]

Originally posted by WICKEDfour:
Okay, this may seem harsh, but it's the truth. Everyone on the panel tried to honestly give an opinion of each mockup, that's of course what we're here for as judges. However, would you rather that we kept our comments to ourselves? My impression was that we were making the panel's comments available because we wanted to help the designers out in terms of what they did right or wrong. I feel much better about honestly saying what I thought of the mockups I had the time to comment on than if I privately critiqued them.

One other thing: Six of almost 50 mockups have to win, people. I'm sorry that MacThemes can't get enough sponsors to make everyone nice and happy, but it doesn't work like that. Unfortunately, therefore, there are some mockup that are notably better than the others, which can be shown by the panel's comments and the user votes. I personally felt that the panel was pretty unaminous as to which themes were the better ones. Phill didn't just pick us up off the street.

Contrary to some people's beliefs, this contest isn't a conspiracy to twart everything you've ever desired! Besides, it was implied that opinion would be a large part of this contest (user ratings). [Addition:] However, I too agree with the open comments; some of those were too harsh and open commenting by the voters probably should've been disabled. And even if your mockup doesn't win, you'll have received some valuable input and then know what you can do better for your next mockup for the next contest!

why are you on the panel? who are you?

[solidfox]

Originally posted by quandarry:
why are you on the panel? who are you?

Hmmm...'you tired?

[wibs]

i don't know who you are or why you should merit being on the so called panel

In the comments at MacThemes I go by Harlan Lewis (Panel), and hopefully most of the comments I write are justification enough for my position. If not, well, blame phillryu. He's the popular target these days, I think. You can also blame him for me being the guy making the 2nd place winner if you're into blaming people.

As a side note, I don't know who you are or why you have to know the reasons behind why certain people are on the panel. If you're really curious though I'll tell you... I bribed them. A big, huge, fat bribe.

but since you are, do you really think it is kosher to be fiddling with a theme as tho

it's won the acadamy award?

Not quite sure what you mean there. However, if representatives from the Institute of It's a Joke, Now Laugh stop by, they're trying to give you a sense of humor.

Seriously, credit was given where credit was due, and if you read my comment on the mockup itself on the MacThemes site it's pretty obvious I wasn't melting at first sight of it like most other people. It was, however, the mockup most frequently called "sexy," so I thought I'd combine it with a sexy lady.

I have now explained the joke to you, ruining it for me, you, everyone else reading this, and anyone else who has ever told a joke. For shame.

Seriously people, I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit. I certainly didn't intend it as a promotion of Calabi (let's just say it certainly won't be my top vote, despite its sexiness), but I can understand how it might have come across that way. If more people think it's in poor taste considering I'm a panelist I'll take it down, but I'll be very disappointed in all of you if you're that easily influenced.

[fireside]

Originally posted by bOOzo:
I'm not sure which mockups were made by RenQian and fireside and I'm sorry if I offended you. I just tried to be honest in my criticism, not put any one down or insult you..
I'm sure some comments might be harsh, I wrote a lot of them at once, and going from a fantastic mockup by a professional designer to something less professional might have made me a little too harsh on that one.. So I apologize to you and hope you don't take it too hard.
But if you would let me know which mockups you made I'll try to clarify my comment..

i made Sera.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by fireside:
i made Sera.

Hmm.. ok. I'll have to stand by my comment, although I was a little harsh saying it was awful theme. I think it has potential, you got the shapes working, but I'm not a fan of the dark strokes or colors.

[phillryu]

This may be hard to believe, but I had a real hard time finding themers interested in volunteering their time for the contest early in its planning stages. Harlan (author of Latium) was one of the first to join up, and each of the first three judges got a panel spot.

And I know contests have been done before. Perhaps I should've consulted more heavily with people at Unsanity for suggestions, or at least help with voting. But honestly, talking with Brian (at Unsanity), Jason, all the panelers, and sending the plan to sponsors... there were no complaints. Maybe it was just one of those things that sounded better on paper. But obviously, things will get better next time around.

Fireside, Quandarry, anything you liked about it? I just hope that mostly everything was fine except for a few problems that could be fixed. This contest was really for you guys at the MacNN forums you know.

[RenQian]

This post is really for macthemes staffers, but I'm curious as to other contestants opinions...

I remarked in my comments section of my theme that I was taking into account the suggestions posted, and had a request to post my revisions on a webpage or forum thread. Whereas I would like to get feedback from newer versions, does anyone think this would be unfair? As in 'look what this entry could be if you voted for it now'.

Thought I'd better get a consensus first as it could turn into a gong show on one of these forums.

[phillryu]

I've been advising several people to do this. Ric Zito, the author of GABAT, and a few others have posted updates in the comments. So yeah, that's fine. Unless.. fireside doesn't think so. -ducks-

[rhythmicmoose]

Originally posted by phillryu:
I've been advising several people to do this. Ric Zito, the author of GABAT, and a few others have posted updates in the comments. So yeah, that's fine. Unless.. fireside doesn't think so. -ducks-

Whoa! Nice! I might just take you up on that offer.

[fireside]

Originally posted by phillryu:
fireside, Quandarry, anything you liked about it?

thats about it.

[fireside]

Originally posted by phillryu:
I've been advising several people to do this. Ric Zito, the author of GABAT, and a few others have posted updates in the comments. So yeah, that's fine. Unless.. fireside doesn't think so. -ducks-

as long as people are voting for the one that was posted, and not their modified version that they got feedback for, its okay with me.

[deej5871]

Originally posted by mac15:
Three Cheers for macthemes!

Hip-hip, hooray!
Hip-hip, hooray!
Hip-hip, hooray!

[mac15]

Originally posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn:
It's not the first contest of its kind. Pixelpalooza, Unsanity...I'm sure there are other examples of online contest that are *exactly* like this. I don't begrudge bugs in the system, it being a first contest and all, but it's hardly a revolutionary idea. Nor would it have been difficult to consult with veteran contest holders to learn how to avoid as many problems as possible.

First mockup contest...

[phillryu]

Originally posted by mac15:
First mockup contest...

And the only one with 46 entries

[mac15]

Start hiring elves now! next time around theres gonna be atleast 100

[quandarry]

Originally posted by phillryu:
Fireside, Quandarry, anything you liked about it? I just hope that mostly everything was fine except for a few problems that could be fixed. This contest was really for you guys at the MacNN forums you know.

i like the whole thing but i have a problem with some panel member tossing around a theme as tho it's a winner before voting is over.

you can go back and read my thoughts posted in this thread and i also agree with most of what silky has said.

ok i now know who wibs is.

i sure hope he's capable of pulling off a decent theme after looking at ladinum.

just being honest wibs, just as the panelists say they are.

[wibs]

Originally posted by quandarry:
i sure hope he's capable of pulling off a decent theme after looking at ladinum.

I'm not going to get into defending myself or my work to you. I will agree that latium is one ugly mutha, though. Maybe I should have spent more time on the eye candy than learning ThemePark in that month I had to make it... that said, I appreciate your honesty. The thing I tell my beta testers, every single time, is "remember, I have no pride." I have no need for false praise in feedback, and I can deal with criticism. lord knows if you make things for the public eye long enough you'll get a lot of it.

And I really don't think I need to repeat myself that Calabi is not my pick for the winner. It's a great mockup, but there are better. You're the only one who has expressed any problem with my joke, and you can't please all the people all the time, so I guess I'll have to live with not pleasing you this one time.

fireside, my votes are going strictly by the mockups presented, not by anything posted after the contest went live.

[Holigen]

Dude, stand up for yourself man! Latium isnt an ugly mutha. Its an awesomely original and interesting theme! The window widgets make so much sense. You dont have to defend youself against quandarry. His posts never make any sense.

[Tulkas]

Far as I'm concerned the standing *should* go like this:

NickleCobalt; Excellently done, very nearly perfect. Easy to look at but with a bit of color.

Raw Hide; Very original theme, but still nice to look at. Probably the only mockup I felt was radical but usable. Unfortunately people don't seem to agree.

Pro LCD; Great look, bit sharp but otherwise a very well done theme.

Simple Grey; Not the most original but still a very smooth theme.

Hopefully this is how it'll come out. Its not that the rest are bad but many of them are poorly done. So I see a lot of good designs and concepts but some of them are very poorly executed.

[wibs]

heh, thanks for the support holligen... but latium 1.2 is pretty damn ugly in my eyes. I've been staring at it and Latium 2 for so long that they're both hideous to me now... I really need to get Latium 2 out the door before I get completely (thankfully it's in final usability testing right now).

Proof positive that Latium aint pretty... a statement like that about a pretty theme would hijack this thread. I'm willing to bet money that won't happen .

Tulkas, Raw Hide would have gotten a lot more support, especially from other themers, if it were a bit more possible. A lot of the really cool things, like the stiches, simply can't be done. Unfortunate, but that's the way it is =-\.

[WICKEDfour]

Originally posted by quandarry:
why are you on the panel? who are you?

D'oh. Sorry for not identifying myself. I'm Joe Kohlmann (Panel) in the comments.
*Readies the fire extinguisher*

[mac15]

I laughed when I heard that Joe, you did win the unsanity contest after all

[DigiHal]

Hyper.OSX - not sure why I picked this one... I guess because it has brighter and more vivid colors than most themes, which are very gray and dull. Kind of Windows-like, but not so much that it detracts from usability.[/B]

This made my day. . .

DH!

[quandarry]

and the winnerz are...

1/ nickel cobalt

2/ pro lcd

3/ simple grey

4/ calabi

5/ future tech

6/ halflife

actually future tech, halflife, macabe, paper/plastic and sleekstyle are in a tight one for number 6, but my las vegas odds makers are giving it to future tech and halflife, betting on originality and creativity to pull it off.

[idle]

hmm. interesting. i thought the winners were going to be announced on monday.... oh and that is surely just the popular vote ranking. i do not doubt that NickelCobalt and Pro LCD will be amongst the winners; if not the winners but i wouldn't be so sure about the rest of your list quandarry you forget that the panel's votes will influence the ranking by 50%! unless you have more insider info than the rest of us...

[ idle. ]

[phillryu]

Quandarry, Panelers still have to vote. Well, they have voted, but you don't know what they said.

[Tulkas]

Originally posted by wibs:
Tulkas, Raw Hide would have gotten a lot more support, especially from other themers, if it were a bit more possible. A lot of the really cool things, like the stiches, simply can't be done. Unfortunate, but that's the way it is =-\.

Maybe max or swiz can shed some light, but wouldn't that be possible to do?

[JoE950]

Originally posted by Tulkas:
Maybe max or swiz can shed some light, but wouldn't that be possible to do?

i can shed some.. im the one who made the damn thing lol... rawhide is possible, the shiny material was intended for things that couldn't be stitched (i never said that, nor did i go through and figure out what could and couldn't be stitched. i made the mistake of assuming these themeres would know that most of it was possible, and what wasnt could easily be traded out with the shiny buttons). looks like the only things that would need adjustment are the menubars (which i have asked jason about getting the fill images tiled in a future version of ss) and tabs...

its pretty disappointing that stated in the rules themes would be disqualified if they couldn't conform to aquas guidelines.. interesting.. if rawhide is "impossible" than why isnt it disqualified..? i wonder if it would have turned out differently if some of the panel had done a bit more homework.

if im wrong about this please shut me up. id like to see some screen shot evidence of why this wouldnt work.

[JoE950]

not to mention the themes that are winning are going to need a bit of touching up too. *cough prolcd & nickel and cobalt's metal window cough* yeah they arent possible in their current state either.. just say it wasnt picked because of the color of its skin. i dont mind lol.. hmm i wonder if i can win if i scream racism.. lol

[idle]

Originally posted by JoE950:
if im wrong about this please shut me up. id like to see some screen shot evidence of why this wouldnt work.

here is some screenshot evidence for you for what is possible. i know that shiocop isn't the reference for beauty but for me he is the reference for trying what is possible!



im my opinion rawhide was always possible. the only problem would have been the titlebar since it would get stretched in a few appz... other than that i wouldn't know were the problems are. maybe the pro's can answer that instead.

[ idle. ]

[JoE950]

metal bevels stretch.. i could work around it none the less. metal corner bands for all my themes! yeah!

[wibs]

carbon simulator .

not sure on which elements exactly, but in cocoa a lot of things stretch rather than tile (as opposed to carbon). But my voice obviously isn't the end-all-be-all, so I guess I need to tinker around with TP some more.

quandarry... not all of the 6 you have listed are finishing top 6, and not all in that order. 6 of my top 7 made it in though, so... woo .

[quandarry]

Originally posted by phillryu:
Quandarry, Panelers still have to vote. Well, they have voted, but you don't know what they said.

just havin' some fun to see how close i can get.

if the panelists vote upsets the popular vote to the degree that some of the themes that should be in but aren't that would be great. but i would hate to see too many generic like themes get in.

and you can pretty well gauge the panels faves by their comments on the theme page and of course by the antics here.

i have a favourite one that i know isn't getting passed the finish line that i'm gonna play around with this weekend. when the contest is over i'll try and connect with that person to see if they would like to pursue it on their own or do a tag team. then i would have to release something wouldn't i.

i'm not great in the photoshop department with the layering and all the fancy shmancy stuff but i know themepark inside out and am fair at pushing pixels and know the ins and outs of os x theming...but most of all i have the EYE.

and keep an eye out for metallika v1....another metal experiment i've been labouring on.

[Patcarla]

Well, I'm gonna do the same with somebody's mockup
who is not in the final top six.

[quandarry]

Originally posted by Patcarla:
Well, I'm gonna do the same with somebody's mockup
who is not in the final top six.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by JoE950:
not to mention the themes that are winning are going to need a bit of touching up too. *cough prolcd & nickel and cobalt's metal window cough* yeah they arent possible in their current state either.. just say it wasnt picked because of the color of its skin. i dont mind lol.. hmm i wonder if i can win if i scream racism.. lol

I think NickelCobalt's Metal window can be accomplished. It's just a matter of resizing the borders and tinkering with the gradient.

RawHide is possible, except for the stretching metal borders. But that might be cool, having the leather window get stretched our at large sizes
I think it didn't get that much response because on a white background, the preview sort of melts together. I think it looks like it would work, you could perhaps change the black text colors to the same as the menu selection uses, that would make it blend less.
And I think you should change the Finder toolbar buttons to leather. I see the finder buttons like they should use the same style as segment tabs and popup buttons.
I think it really should be made into a real theme.

[nredman]

Pro LCD is the best one in my opinion.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by nredman:
Pro LCD is the best one in my opinion.

Has anyone thought about how bad it might look when it's actualy made into a theme. I'm not sure Aqua will take it well.
Calabi is by far the best; smooth, dark, and would do well made into a theme. Half Life would be fun, not sure how well that would work as a real theme though. NickelCobalt was well executed as a mockup but I really think it's going to lose it's charm when they try to fit that into Aqua's limitations, those huge bevels are a bad thing for making it a real theme, it's also slightly bland and very grey. Most everything else is kinda "blah" to me.

[quandarry]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Has anyone thought about how bad it might look when it's actualy made into a theme. I'm not sure Aqua will take it well.
Calabi is by far the best; smooth, dark, and would do well made into a theme. Half Life would be fun, not sure how well that would work as a real theme though. NickelCobalt was well executed as a mockup but I really think it's going to lose it's charm when they try to fit that into Aqua's limitations, those huge bevels are a bad thing for making it a real theme, it's also slightly bland and very grey. Most everything else is kinda "blah" to me.

black sucks on mac...