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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > GUI Customization > Losing my love for ShapeShifter

Losing my love for ShapeShifter
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sayonaraML
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Sep 10, 2005, 08:48 PM
 
I bought the first version of ShapeShifter as soon as it came out and have been resolute in using it and the many cool themes that folks have put out. With the most recent couple of versions however it has become something of a pain. Before the last update I wnet through menubar hell (thanks to Jason it got fixed so props to him for that) and seemingly endless restarts.
I am one again looking at the ugliest menubar in creation thanks to a Safari upgrade and will have to reapply the theme, logout, log back in and at what point does it become easier to just live with Aqua and say to hell with SS? What moderately fries me here is that when I started Safari I got the message saying I was going to have to reapply the theme but it insead of just switching me back to Aqua (which would make sense), I get this menubar that has themed extras and Aqua everything else. Is that necessary? Why not just pull the entire theme? Is it just me or is SS getting buggier and buggier with every system update?
Sigh-time to shut every effin thing down and do that dance-sorry to bitch but this is a pain in the ass...
     
sweetymac
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Sep 10, 2005, 08:57 PM
 
That is very strange...I have not seen anything buggy yet. Do you run it on panther or tiger? Sometimes if you run older themes on tiger it could cause problems. To be honest I have had zero problems with shapeshifter...I use it all the time and have not seen anything buggy in it. When I apply a theme I always log out and log in again also during updates it automatically ch anges it back to aqua for me. Everything works smoothly. Maybe you can contact the m aker of shapeshifter and they can try to see what is wrong?
( Last edited by sweetymac; Sep 10, 2005 at 09:51 PM. )
     
Hi I'm Mike
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Sep 10, 2005, 09:20 PM
 
cant blame an app when its probably the user...
     
sayonaraML  (op)
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Sep 10, 2005, 09:27 PM
 
Swweetymac-thanks for the response and I'll drop a note to the good folks over at Unsanity. SS was really stable for me until the last couple of months and now it's just getting annoying.
Mike: Can't blame the app when its "probably" the user? I'm curious but what the heck was the point of THAT post...The screwed-up menu bar wasn't my fault and that was what got me so I have no idea where you're going. But hey, maybe you just like to see your name on the page...
     
MacDog
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Sep 10, 2005, 09:28 PM
 
I've yet to have any problems with ShapeShifter... it seems to work as advertised for me. I'm not sure why you have to log out or restart after applying a theme – I never restart, nor do I logout. ShapeShifter already quits the Finder for you, so there's no reason to.

That being said, I'm finding it harder to justify to OTHER people to buy Shapeshifter because quite frankly the themes being made now are shotty at best for the most part. There's little attention to detail anymore, even less creativity (virtually all themes are mods of Milk, Metal, etc...) and I've yet to see a COMPLETE theme released that themes EVERYTHING since Siro. And unfortunately, many of the old themes that were good haven't been updated in a long time. Apple constantly changing the OS hasn't helped either.

None of those things are due to Unsanity, Jason or Shapeshifter... it just comes down to a very, VERY small theming community for the Mac, and as of recently, most themers releasing anything are fairly unexperienced.
The Graphic Mac: Tips, tricks and commentary for design, Adobe and Mac OSX.
     
sayonaraML  (op)
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Sep 10, 2005, 09:35 PM
 
What it looks like to me is that restarting the finder takes care of the Apple menubar items but not the extras (in my case that's iSeek and PSPWare). That necceestates the log out/log in thing 'cause otherwise you end up with the aforementioned ugly menubar.
     
Hi I'm Mike
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Sep 10, 2005, 10:09 PM
 
whenever changing a theme a log out is required to get the correct look. again it was the user not the app. the app works perfectly and there are not issues with it. no sense in blaming something that could have been avoided by reading the readme or the boxes that pop up after applying a theme...and no i dont like seeing my name, hence the 483 posts in 4 1/2 years
     
TheSpaz
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Sep 10, 2005, 11:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by Hi I'm Mike
whenever changing a theme a log out is required to get the correct look. again it was the user not the app. the app works perfectly and there are not issues with it. no sense in blaming something that could have been avoided by reading the readme or the boxes that pop up after applying a theme...and no i dont like seeing my name, hence the 483 posts in 4 1/2 years
I don't like seeing your name either... it's quite lame. Who uses a statement as a name? Your name might as well be "Yo, I'm an idiot!"
     
mrtew
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Sep 10, 2005, 11:46 PM
 
Every time a themed app is updated I get reverted to Aqua too and my menubar looks terrible until I reapply the theme and restart the applications that got Aquaed too. I wish that SS wouldn't revert to Aqua every time an app gets an update. Why does it have to do that? If there is a problem can't I just revert to Aqua myself?

I love the U.S., but we need some time apart.
     
Lee33
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Sep 11, 2005, 01:49 AM
 
cant blame an app when its probably the user...
Why is it that some folks just can't help but say inflammatory things when they don't have a clue what's going on? Oh, yeah, I remember. The anonymity of the internet makes some people brave just like liquor makes some people brave.
     
Gerrit Vanoppen
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Sep 11, 2005, 01:55 AM
 
System updates can be tricky, especially when Apple applications are involved. Here's my MO :

- run backup app (which backups everything except System folder)
- open SS and apply Aqua defaults (theme and icons)
- logout / login
- empty SS cache
- Repair Permissions
- run MacJanitor (all tasks)
- run Software Update
- Restart (most often needed anyway)
- Repair Permissions
- run backup app
- open SS and apply theme and icons
- logout / login
- touch wood

Now you can call me paranoid
     
kwyjiboy
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Sep 11, 2005, 06:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by Gerrit Vanoppen
System updates can be tricky, especially when Apple applications are involved. Here's my MO :

- run backup app (which backups everything except System folder)
- open SS and apply Aqua defaults (theme and icons)
- logout / login
- empty SS cache
- Repair Permissions
- run MacJanitor (all tasks)
- run Software Update
- Restart (most often needed anyway)
- Repair Permissions
- run backup app
- open SS and apply theme and icons
- logout / login
- touch wood

Now you can call me paranoid

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Repairing permissions does nothing. In fact, a simple search for this problem in this forum yields a working solution that involves deleting a folder and a plist file, then logging out. ONCE.

Again, I wish I could somehow powerdrill this into everyone's skulls: Repairing permissions does nothing. It is like doing a raindance.

Repairing permissions is a leftover solution from the transition days of OS 9 to OS X. It is only necessary if:

You dual boot classic and OS X
and...
You used a classic app that dumbly modifies files OUTSIDE of your user profile, ignoring file permissions. OS X apps do not do this.

Do these things not apply to you? THEN DIE. They certainly don't apply to Shapeshifter, or any of Unsanity's software. It was a solution given to people by Apple support back in the day and no longer applies.
Septuple post! Quadruple word score!
     
kwyjiboy
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Sep 11, 2005, 06:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by sayonaraML
What it looks like to me is that restarting the finder takes care of the Apple menubar items but not the extras (in my case that's iSeek and PSPWare). That necceestates the log out/log in thing 'cause otherwise you end up with the aforementioned ugly menubar.
These are limitations of the operating system, because it runs some applications under your user profile, and some tasks are shared by all profiles. You can only get that look back by logging out. Blaming Shapeshifter for an operating system limitation is like blaming the Pope for Jesus being dead.

Those items cannot be re-themed until the next time you login. As far as your menubar remaining entirely Aqua in certain apps, like the Finder, deal with it. There is a known, easy fix in this forum that takes 3 seconds to do. Yes it's a bug. Yes Unsanity is aware of it. And yes, logging out is, again, an operating system limitation.
Septuple post! Quadruple word score!
     
Gerrit Vanoppen
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Sep 11, 2005, 07:36 AM
 
kwyjiboy
1
Apparently my configuration isn't an exact duplicate of yours or perhaps others - but I can think of several occasions when repairing permissions has been helpfull over here, and on different machines. Also I never said this would specifically apply to ShapeShifter and/or Unsanity softwares.
2
I don't really like to be called stupid. I suggested "paranoid" myself.
3
Powerdrilling into people's skulls may have been a convincing technique in the Dark Ages, it's no longer appreciated nor is it working in modern society.
4
I won't die because you tell me to.
     
Lee33
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Sep 11, 2005, 08:38 AM
 
I'd better go to the bathroom and get some more popcorn before the second round.
     
Hi I'm Mike
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Sep 11, 2005, 02:17 PM
 
are you back yet Lee?
     
kwyjiboy
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Sep 11, 2005, 02:28 PM
 
I took my meds. I'm better, now.
Septuple post! Quadruple word score!
     
Hi I'm Mike
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Sep 11, 2005, 08:12 PM
 
lots of people take it to heart what i say which is silly, but really im just saying if you dont like the app dont use it stop bitching about it if you dont know how to use it, this isnt a shapeshifter complaint forum really, send em an email it will get more results thats all from me
     
Hi I'm Mike
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Sep 11, 2005, 08:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by TheSpaz
I don't like seeing your name either... it's quite lame. Who uses a statement as a name? Your name might as well be "Yo, I'm an idiot!"
thank you for your insite.
     
smeger
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Sep 16, 2005, 03:28 AM
 
Wow, a lot of anger in this thread.

As was correctly pointed out above, ShapeShifter cannot create a state in which the entire menubar will be consistently themed. The only way to do this is to log in. This is because there are three classes of items in your menubar. First, the menubar itself, and everything on the left side of the bar. These are owned by whatever application is frontmost. So if the frontmost application is Aqua, these will be unthemed. Second, Apple's menu extras. These are owned by the process SystemUIServer, and can be distinguished because they can be command-dragged to reorder them. These are automatically restarted when you apply a theme by ShapeShifter if you have "Restart Menu Extras" checked. Third are third-party menu extras. These can be any process at all, and ShapeShifter has no way of knowing what they are, where they're stored on your hard drive, etc. Hence, ShapeShifter has no way of restarting them for you.

This is a situation that has existed since ShapeShifter was first released, so there's nothing new here. What is new is that, in Tiger, Apple changed their implementation of the drawing routines that control the appearance of the menu bar. This may have resulted in a situation in which a menu extra that's using a different theme than the frontmost app becomes more jarring.

Anyway, to sum up - unless Apple somehow puts all menubar status items under the umbrella of one or many known processes, which is extremely unlikely, there's nothing I can do about this. And this is exactly why ShapeShifter recommends that you log out/in after applying a theme for a unified, coherent theme experience.
Geekspiff - generating spiffdiddlee software since before you began paying attention.
     
sayonaraML  (op)
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Sep 16, 2005, 04:16 PM
 
As the person who started the thread, I want to respond to a couple of things here, first being the anger level. Without naming names, there are folks who post here who are bullies. I tried to think of another word but the whole reason they post is so they are able to ridicule someone else and that's the sole purpose of their posts. What the heck happened to the concept of ignoring something if you didn't have anything to add? I posted to this forum in a way that lost of people have in the past, got mostly good and helpful reponses except for the "little people" and to answer another question, did follow up with Unsanity. Jason and the rest of the crew do a great job and his response here helps me better understand their process and while I'm frustrated with some additional problems, will stick to talking to them about it and leave the rest of you to your devices...
As to this forum and whoever does or doesn't moderate, what the heck does it take to get somebody a timeout?
     
Ji Eun
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Sep 17, 2005, 01:45 AM
 
the moderating team at the gui forum is notoriously asleep at the wheel. fuggedit. dealing directly with smeger and co is/was certainly the way to go

12" iBook 1.2ghz / 1.2gb
     
sweetymac
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Sep 17, 2005, 02:16 AM
 
Hi Sayonara
Glad that Unsanity is able to help you more. I know what you mean about the forums, some people just post without thinking at all about other people's feelings, and for no reason jump on people like bullies as you said. Fortunately there are also many good people here who can give you kind advice. Please just ignore the rude individuals, the internet is filled with people who act up because to your face I bet they could never make such remarks. Some of them just need to grow up. Hope your problem gets solved.
     
FB Eye
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Sep 17, 2005, 09:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by sweetymac
Hi Sayonara
Glad that Unsanity is able to help you more. I know what you mean about the forums, some people just post without thinking at all about other people's feelings, and for no reason jump on people like bullies as you said. Fortunately there are also many good people here who can give you kind advice. Please just ignore the rude individuals, the internet is filled with people who act up because to your face I bet they could never make such remarks. Some of them just need to grow up. Hope your problem gets solved.
My thoughts exactly
     
Tick
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Sep 19, 2005, 11:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by kwyjiboy

Repairing permissions is a leftover solution from the transition days of OS 9 to OS X. It is only necessary if:

You dual boot classic and OS X
and...
You used a classic app that dumbly modifies files OUTSIDE of your user profile, ignoring file permissions. OS X apps do not do this.

Do these things not apply to you? THEN DIE. They certainly don't apply to Shapeshifter, or any of Unsanity's software. It was a solution given to people by Apple support back in the day and no longer applies.
It's humerous how wrong you are

Why does everyone hijack threads here?
( Last edited by Tick; Sep 19, 2005 at 12:03 PM. )
     
   
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