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TheSpaz · Feb 22, 2004, 08:39 AM

Does anyone know if it's close to release. I could have sworn that I heard that it's pretty close to release. But, I have no idea.

kovacs · Feb 22, 2004, 10:36 AM

Yeah, next week

Fonzie · Feb 22, 2004, 10:51 AM

I would say it's gonna be out either this March, April, June, July,August, September or October. Maybe never.

Honestly, I think it will be out late March. If not I'll go into the biggest spasm that the world has ever seen.

ambush · Feb 22, 2004, 11:17 AM

and where's "XTender"

unlinear · Feb 22, 2004, 12:03 PM

The Art of Naming Threads on MacNN That'll Make People Wonder If It's A Product Announcement

chris v · Feb 22, 2004, 12:47 PM

On Topic: Seeing as how Metallifizer appears to de destined to the scrap-heap of history, could one hope that this feature might be rolled in to shape Shifter instead?

I ask as one who is thoroughly sick of the metal Finder.

CV

NetworkShadow · Feb 22, 2004, 01:02 PM

I think 1.2 is the next version to be released, and have no clue when.

phillryu · Feb 22, 2004, 01:08 PM

I eagerly await 1.2, it's really going to be a great update.

NetworkShadow · Feb 22, 2004, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by phillryu:
I eagerly await 1.2, it's really going to be a great update.

Sure will be.

MorphOSX · Feb 22, 2004, 03:36 PM

damn straight.

Fonzie · Feb 22, 2004, 03:43 PM

Get down on it, get down on it -

waiting time

damn damn damn. I can't get my Amiga emulator to work. grr i'm mad

Frisbee · Feb 22, 2004, 04:40 PM

I've usually been pretty patient with unsanity, but they need to stop screwing around with minor feature updates and cough up 1.5.

goMac · Feb 22, 2004, 04:56 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
and where's "XTender"

Carpe Stellarem is actually forcing me to finish my 3D engine before they give me anything more about Xtender. They're rather into game design so it's kind of a trade.

3D engine should be done next weekend, and in turn I should get a public beta-worthy version of Xtender. Dave is currently working on re-designing the PXM display pane in Catalyst. Table's didn't work like we hoped they would. I added the icon editor last week. I also made it so Catalyst can automatically keep track of what you have edited compared to Aqua. It now greys out all Aqua elements in a theme so you can see what you haven't edited yet.

Side note: The 3D engine is quite nice. It wraps OpenGL with Cocoa, so its easy to build programs with it. Its been a lot of fun for me to work on. It also has windowing classes and Quicktime audio wrappers. Yay.

revmitcz · Feb 22, 2004, 06:18 PM

I, for one, am looking forward to SS 1.5 for only 2 reasons:

1. The possibility of changing column-view background colors in the finder.

2. The possibility of using Omega.

I just wish unsanity would give a definitive "yes" or "no" on whether or not the option to change the column view's background colors is coming with SS 1.5. I understand they want to make it a "surprise", but I know a lot of people who are holding off the purchase of SS until they see that.

I don't understand how anyone can use dark themes w/the current state of OS X, unless you're never using column view. I don't even download dark themes anymore cause I know they'll just end up looking harsh on my screen whenever I open a window in the finder.

So, to me.. if they change nothing else about SS but that - cool by me. Obviously, they're doing much more to it, else they'd have prolly rolled this thing out by now.

Who else has a certain feature hope for SS 1.5?
Post 'em, so we can do something constructive with this thread aside from guessing release dates

cgc · Feb 22, 2004, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by Fonzie:
Get down on it, get down on it - waiting time damn damn damn. I can't get my Amiga emulator to work. grr i'm mad

I have an Amiga 3000 I'll sell you.

Steb Mad · Feb 22, 2004, 06:27 PM

Originally posted by goMac:
Carpe Stellarem is actually forcing me to finish my 3D engine before they give me anything more about Xtender. They're rather into game design so it's kind of a trade.

3D engine should be done next weekend, and in turn I should get a public beta-worthy version of Xtender. Dave is currently working on re-designing the PXM display pane in Catalyst. Table's didn't work like we hoped they would. I added the icon editor last week. I also made it so Catalyst can automatically keep track of what you have edited compared to Aqua. It now greys out all Aqua elements in a theme so you can see what you haven't edited yet.

Side note: The 3D engine is quite nice. It wraps OpenGL with Cocoa, so its easy to build programs with it. Its been a lot of fun for me to work on. It also has windowing classes and Quicktime audio wrappers. Yay.

You totally don't get it, do you?

goMac · Feb 22, 2004, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by Steb Mad:
You totally don't get it, do you?

We'll see.

Maflynn · Feb 22, 2004, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by Steb Mad:
You totally don't get it, do you?

Please explain?

Not sure what GoMac doesn't get.

Mike

Frisbee · Feb 22, 2004, 08:31 PM

Seriously... sounds to me like Xtender will be better than 1.1, and probably 1.2, and will come out before 1.5... Step on it, unsanity...

NetworkShadow · Feb 22, 2004, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by Frisbee:
Seriously... sounds to me like Xtender will be better than 1.1, and probably 1.2, and will come out before 1.5... Step on it, unsanity...

I doubt it will be better than SS 1.2 as far as it's themeing abilities.

goMac · Feb 22, 2004, 09:45 PM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
I doubt it will be better than SS 1.2 as far as it's themeing abilities.

If 1.2 is better than Xtender we will make the appropriate changes to Xtender.

We're already working on the code for Xtender 1.5. We have a whole lot more up our sleeves, and we're currently working with the developers of some other OS X customization utilities on adding more features. There is a lot of cool stuff being done.

eme · Feb 22, 2004, 09:50 PM

When XTender is out, i'll try it and if i like i'll buy it... so i'll end having SS and Xtender its not like i'll go poor for spending 15 bucks more... I sure hope xtender does 'it's job' well... what i think devs should be doing is not giving estimates nor predictions of future features, they should be more conservative when talking about the future of a product, this makes people impacient.. i imgine how hard they work, and adding pressure to their work by giving estimates or stuff like will not make it easier...

Wrapup: I'll be patient and wait for 1.*, xtender, 10.4, etc they will be out, and come on go easy on the developes, and devs go discrete announcing the future

goMac · Feb 22, 2004, 09:55 PM

Honestly we started coding all the features that 1.5 will contain at the same time. We're just releasing them in staged updates. Currently we're writing themes, windowshade, and sound sets, and stuff we haven't announced. The schedule I've so far announced is:

Xtender 1.0 (March) - Themes, Window Shade
Xtender 1.1 (April) - Sound Sets
Xtender 1.5 (May) - ???

The original plan (which was developed in a pizza place after an Apple Store Panther launch party) was to release all the planned features in a 1.0 release. However, realistically we knew we'd have to do it in stages as we learned how to better work with the abilities Xtender gives us.

NetworkShadow · Feb 22, 2004, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by goMac:
Honestly we started coding all the features that 1.5 will contain at the same time. We're just releasing them in staged updates. Currently we're writing themes, windowshade, and sound sets, and stuff we haven't announced. The schedule I've so far announced is:

Xtender 1.0 (March) - Themes, Window Shade
Xtender 1.1 (April) - Sound Sets
Xtender 1.5 (May) - ???

The original plan (which was developed in a pizza place after an Apple Store Panther launch party) was to release all the planned features in a 1.0 release. However, realistically we knew we'd have to do it in stages as we learned how to better work with the abilities Xtender gives us.

Sounds nice. How about a free copy for theme devs?

or a discount?
Really though SS 1.2 isn't is going to have just about every basic theme feature fine tuned. I wouldn't say it's better than Xtender, but I'd doubt Xtender would be any better than equal to SS as far as the basic themeing. Xtender sounds like it's got nice other little frills though.

revmitcz · Feb 22, 2004, 11:38 PM

Originally posted by goMac:
Honestly we started coding all the features that 1.5 will contain at the same time. We're just releasing them in staged updates. Currently we're writing themes, windowshade, and sound sets, and stuff we haven't announced. The schedule I've so far announced is:

Xtender 1.0 (March) - Themes, Window Shade
Xtender 1.1 (April) - Sound Sets
Xtender 1.5 (May) - ???

The original plan (which was developed in a pizza place after an Apple Store Panther launch party) was to release all the planned features in a 1.0 release. However, realistically we knew we'd have to do it in stages as we learned how to better work with the abilities Xtender gives us.

not to sound like a b*tch here, but in all the times I've seen someone from Carpe Stellarem (sp?) post to the MacNN forums, it's gone about like:

you: "We're doing something REALLY amazing"
us (other posters): "Yeah? What's it do?"
you: "We don't wanna give away all the details"
us: "When will it be released?"
you: "Soon"

2 months later...

us: "How's that 'something' coming along?"
you: "well, here's a screenshot"
us: "Okay, so when is it coming out?"
you: "soon"

2 months later..

you: "Here's MORE things that are going to happen"
us: "Where is it?"

..and then we get more promises, excuses, unsanity bashing, etc. I used your duality product back when theme-ing for OS X was just getting started. I thought it was pretty good, but it ran really slow. When you made it marginally more impressive, you started charging for it, so I stopped using it (only because I found a much faster, free alternative).

Now, don't get me wrong, maybe you DO have something up your sleeve. Whatever it is, you sure have been talking about it and spending much time on it - but I've seen nothing more than screenshots that, if I may be blunt, don't look all that earth-shaking to me.

I can say this - if you could come out with a nice, fast theme switcher/designer that allowed column view backgrounds to change, didn't screw up OS X, and made porting other-format-themes to your format --- you'd pretty much take the market.

Until then..
I'm afraid you're just blowing smoke.

Take a tip from Unsanity, who never even made a "teaser" post about SS until the day it was released. Now THAT's how you impress people.

goMac · Feb 22, 2004, 11:49 PM

Xtender has always had a release date of late March. We're right on track.

swiz · Feb 22, 2004, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
I wouldn't say it's better than Xtender,

I will, ShapeShifter is real, Xtender is hype-ware currently.

Holigen · Feb 23, 2004, 12:48 AM

Im not going to say anything bad about Xtender until I actually have tried it out. Now, when that may be, I dont know...

JustinD · Feb 23, 2004, 01:36 AM

You know what I can't wait for? BBX Omega for XTender! Bwahahahahahaaa.

decursive · Feb 23, 2004, 02:19 AM

am i the only one that feels it would be much better if it was named "Extender"?

Holigen · Feb 23, 2004, 02:23 AM

Haha, no, Xtender is just fine I guess. Just seems a bit tacky, but thats ok. ShapeShifter is better though.

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 02:39 AM

Originally posted by swiz:
I will, ShapeShifter is real, Xtender is hype-ware currently.

Didn't even quote my whole sentence swiz... I was saying that there's a good chance that Xtender will be about equal to SS, but not better for themes.

bOOzo · Feb 23, 2004, 11:13 AM

I for one am very sceptical to anything that GoMac says and I'm not going to get the least bit excited about xtender until I'm able to try it. I find it hard to imagine that it would be equal to SS though, considering how much testing SS has gone trough and the amount of work smeger does on it.

bbxstudio · Feb 23, 2004, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by JustinD:
You know what I can't wait for? BBX Omega for XTender! Bwahahahahahaaa.

It'll never happen

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
It'll never happen

That's one reason I'm not going to buy Xtender. SS already has a huge themer base, I doubt everyone who bought SS will run out and buy Xtender too just because it claimed to be better and has little extras like sound sets. SS had a head start and seems like it will stay at the head of OS X themeing.

kovacs · Feb 23, 2004, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
That's one reason I'm not going to buy Xtender. SS already has a huge themer base, I doubt everyone who bought SS will run out and buy Xtender too just because it claimed to be better and has little extras like sound sets. SS had a head start and seems like it will stay at the head of OS X themeing.

The big test for XTender will be if it can be as safe and stable as ShapeShifter, the only way I might consider switching is if it can beat SS in terms of features and it can match SS in terms of stability... I'm usually very sceptical to apps that inject or intercept code, but SS has proven to be as safe and stable as Themechanger was ( after you succesfully installed a theme )... Sound and iconsets are cool but if I have to trade in safety or stability I will pass....

goMac · Feb 23, 2004, 02:34 PM

Originally posted by bOOzo:
I find it hard to imagine that it would be equal to SS though, considering how much testing SS has gone trough and the amount of work smeger does on it.

We're aware Smeger does a lot of work on ShapeShifter. Carpe Stellarem has two people working on Xtender and one person writing some general classes we are using in all our products (such as the bundle loader for loading Xtensions).

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 02:48 PM

The thing is I don't care about the little extras... I just want to theme my OS the best I can. SS is a proven peace of software and continues to get better.

WICKEDfour · Feb 23, 2004, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
The thing is I don't care about the little extras... I just want to theme my OS the best I can. SS is a proven peace of software and continues to get better.

Exactly. Luckily, smeger sees this, so right now ShapeShifter is not only patching 10.3 theming, but in the near future it will have many more capibilities that we would probably take for granted. That's ShapeShifter's biggest promise, to make theming easier, less complicated, and more integrated. I can definitely wait on some extra features in exchange for getting the current possibilities "up to snuff" as it were.

neo_2510 · Feb 23, 2004, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by WICKEDfour:
Exactly. Luckily, smeger sees this, so right now ShapeShifter is not only patching 10.3 theming, but in the near future it will have many more capibilities that we would probably take for granted. That's ShapeShifter's biggest promise, to make theming easier, less complicated, and more integrated. I can definitely wait on some extra features in exchange for getting the current possibilities "up to snuff" as it were.

Well I like SS a lot, but the only thing I get a bit annoyed is that APE thing. APE seems a bit buggy for me. A lot of apps crashes are connected to APE

That's sad and that's the reason I uninstalled all that stuff. I hope there will be a more stable APE sometimes soon.
Without APE installed everything works perfectly

swiz · Feb 23, 2004, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by neo_2510:
Well I like SS a lot, but the only thing I get a bit annoyed is that APE thing. APE seems a bit buggy for me. A lot of apps crashes are connected to APE That's sad and that's the reason I uninstalled all that stuff. I hope there will be a more stable APE sometimes soon.
Without APE installed everything works perfectly

I beg to differ, I always run SS, Xounds, Fruitmenu, Mighty Mouse, Cleardock, iChat enahancer and Windowshade simultaneously and never experience app crashes.

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 06:35 PM

Originally posted by neo_2510:
Well I like SS a lot, but the only thing I get a bit annoyed is that APE thing. APE seems a bit buggy for me. A lot of apps crashes are connected to APE That's sad and that's the reason I uninstalled all that stuff. I hope there will be a more stable APE sometimes soon.
Without APE installed everything works perfectly

You can always submit crash logs to Unsanity. The last few crashes I sent thinking it was an SS bug or something, because APE was listed in the log, but it really had nothing to do with APE or SS.

Frisbee · Feb 23, 2004, 06:37 PM

Originally posted by neo_2510:
Well I like SS a lot, but the only thing I get a bit annoyed is that APE thing. APE seems a bit buggy for me. A lot of apps crashes are connected to APE That's sad and that's the reason I uninstalled all that stuff. I hope there will be a more stable APE sometimes soon.
Without APE installed everything works perfectly

I also find annoyances with APE- it really should effect some if not all root-own elements. Until shapeshifter, I was happily logged on as root at all times... some people think it's crazy, but I like editing /System freely. I also like viewing and editing the files of other users on the machine. But now, sadly, I can't do that anymore...

neo_2510 · Feb 23, 2004, 06:56 PM

Originally posted by swiz:
I beg to differ, I always run SS, Xounds, Fruitmenu, Mighty Mouse, Cleardock, iChat enahancer and Windowshade simultaneously and never experience app crashes.

Well so you are a happy guy. I am not

and even if APE is not the culprit I have no problems when it's uninstalled. So I guess there is something about it anyway.

Lord Sith · Feb 23, 2004, 06:58 PM

Originally posted by swiz:
I beg to differ, I always run SS, Xounds, Fruitmenu, Mighty Mouse, Cleardock, iChat enahancer and Windowshade simultaneously and never experience app crashes.

I agree swiz, I run 'em all too and can't even remember the last time I had an issue........ Hell, they're betas are usually rock solid!!

Embrace UnSanity, they are here for you.

Fluid · Feb 23, 2004, 07:41 PM

:: I use SS and love it there's just one thing that bugs me:
:: Extras!

:: All SS can do is help with text colors and apparently widget masks.
:: It can't even do Metal Texture.
:: (I know it's coming in the next version but like Xtender it isn't out so who knows)
:: Yet, Xtender is already scheduled to have more features than SS does now.
:: I can see the point that SS is out and Xtender is not but other than that;
:: What does SS have over Xtender?

:: All I see is that people think SS is great only because
:: it is the only code-injector GUI program.
:: The truth is that this is pretty much all SS has going for it at the moment.

:: It's strange how people get over goMac's back about it's "Features"
:: when SS has barely any and is missing a very important one in the Metal Texture.

Holigen · Feb 23, 2004, 08:27 PM

Originally posted by Fluid:
:: What does SS have over Xtender?

Two things, the fact that it is out and themes from Max, Swiz, and BBX (soon)

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 09:52 PM

Originally posted by Fluid:
:: I use SS and love it there's just one thing that bugs me:
:: Extras!

:: All SS can do is help with text colors and apparently widget masks.
:: It can't even do Metal Texture.
:: (I know it's coming in the next version but like Xtender it isn't out so who knows)
:: Yet, Xtender is already scheduled to have more features than SS does now.
:: I can see the point that SS is out and Xtender is not but other than that;
:: What does SS have over Xtender?

:: All I see is that people think SS is great only because
:: it is the only code-injector GUI program.
:: The truth is that this is pretty much all SS has going for it at the moment.

:: It's strange how people get over goMac's back about it's "Features"
:: when SS has barely any and is missing a very important one in the Metal Texture.

SS 1.2 fixes the metal textures problem. System font colors are almost all fixed, so one can make dark themes and have readable text in white boxes, (can't be done without SS). Themeing with SS will be to the limits of Panther in the next few versions.
I don't know if I want to write a mod for Xtender just to fix the text colors, so I can make a black theme... If Xtender is to that point then maybe they do require some credit.
SS is a few steps ahead even if it doesn't have sound sets and other extras yet. I do recall that icon sets might also be a future feature of SS also.

As for everyone who has "problems caused by APE", you should contact Unsanity and stop wining about it. Unsanity is really helpful. I have no problems caused by APE same with a bunch of other people, that should say something about your setup...

NetworkShadow · Feb 23, 2004, 09:59 PM

Originally posted by Holigen:
Two things, the fact that it is out and themes from Max, Swiz, and BBX (soon)

You can add GUI stain soon too. The first theme that we'll be finishing is Elfish.

phillryu · Feb 23, 2004, 10:44 PM

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:

SS 1.2 fixes the metal textures problem. System font colors are almost all fixed, so one can make dark themes and have readable text in white boxes, (can't be done without SS). Themeing with SS will be to the limits of Panther in the next few versions.

And you should keep quiet, something called an NDA no?