[Aluminum]

I would have to vote for any theme developed by XiAP, they just blow me away, and this upcoming release of one inspired by the current aluminum powerbooks, well I must say since I own one of them, I think its going to be the best theme yet. Paper and Plastic and Siro were past favorites as well.

[bluevertical]

if i had to pick 3...

xi-freshsnow (for usability)
jetblack (cause i SO want a kickass black theme)
x-metal or power metal (p-metal needs an update but still ranks up in the tops)

keep um comin boys!! can't have enough of the good stuff.

peace.
bv.

[Komisar]

the Xi- freshsnow series and paper and plastic digital devices by joe kohlmann

[MastaMind]

Best out of Bests:

Digital Devices by Joe Kohlmann!


Hey Joe, still waiting for your wallpapers!


MastaMind

[badidea]

Best 3? Easy!!

1.Place: NEOS
2.Place: Brushed
3.Place: Milk (and it's mods)

[DigitalEl]

1. Siro
2. Chosen OS
3. Aluminum Alloy

Honorable Mention: Kowloon (anybody remember that one)?

The Next Big Thing: Hopefully an AppSkin-complete WaterColor (blue).

[eyevaan]

1. PlasterSquareAGV
2. ProLCDBlue
3. SoftBlueMilk

The originals are on high rotation too and without them these mods would not exist


oh yeah and Kowloon - Roxx

ever used SiempleParaX by Azul3564?
when you need brushed plainess that has that professional feel, sharp edges no fluff. Unfortunately no apps themed either but love it anyways.

[siMac]

1. SIRO
2. Milk
3. ChosenOS

A good theme must be usable day in day out. Nuff said.

[cube3]

um such a personal thing, but the theme I find myself using mostly on my spare machine is siro. I love a lot of the dark themes but they're not too friendly. That said there are still some things about siro I would change.

[MacDog]

Originally posted by siMac:
A good theme must be usable day in day out. Nuff said.

You hit the nail on the head! While there are a lot of great themes available, many of them are cool to look at for an hour or so, but when it's time to go to work, I always end up using one of three themes:

1. SIRO -
It's the easiest on the eyes for me, and one of the most complete themes available.

2. Brushed -
Great for doing color correction and design work because it's gray. One of the first "Full" themes, and still one of the best.

3. AlumiteX -
An older theme that, much like his other theme SIRO, is easy on the eyes and very complete.

For me, until dark themes can change finder window backgrounds, control ALL text in the OS so I'm not looking at black text in menus against a dark gray background, etc... they won't be usable.

[badidea]

Originally posted by DigitalEl:
Honorable Mention: Kowloon (anybody remember that one)?

Bien s�r monsieur!!
If only it had a different menu bar style (maybe the same brushed as the windows), it would be in my Top3!!
The OS9 kaleidoscope version used to be one of my favorite schemes as well!

[FB Eye]

It's so true that many many themes are just gorgeous but completely inapropriate when trying the get work done. Some of my favorite themes completely destroy Adobe apps, making them a huge pain in the butt to work with. JetBlack is drop-dead gorgeous, but never lasted more than 5 minutes on my Mac

My top 4 to get work done:

1) Rhapsodized Azul (gets out of the way, yet pleasing to look at)
2) Siro
3) TiSkin
4) FatalE

My favorites for eye candy:
1) Neos blue
2) ProLCD (green)
3) AA Cryogenic
4) JetBlack
5) Eylo

[d4nth3m4n]

i have had titanium running for a year now. still going strong. it just.... works for me.

[cruciarius]

i have tried several themes, but i always use Siro or Aluminum Alloy. most themes look nice, but i just use them for a few mins and say "ok thats nice. time to switch back".

[Ji Eun]

aside from aqua of course, these three are my most usable and beloved:

ProSoft Plastic* (Max modded by Kevin, 6-Day-Trial / ?, and someone else)
Sunken Aqua Milk with black menus (Max modded by Jaos / Shark)
Powermetal (Swiz's best, imho)

long live the themers and modders!

[nooon]

1. SIRO
2. Milk (more specific the Metal Milk v1.5 mod)
3. Aqua Extreme with Metallifizer making everything aqua.

[eme]

0. Aqua (Aqua Extreme)
1. Siro
2. Aluminun Alloy (AA Smooth mod)
3. Milk

PS: Does anyone know where can i get the latest version of AA Smooth mod?

[esXXI]

1. SIRO
Just :se��wub: it.

2. iStyle
Throw it on with Puft and a nice light (or dark for contrast) wallpaper and it'd look excellent on any i-range Mac.

3. X-Metal
One of my favourite metal themes.

I find it amazing no-one has had iStyle in their top three before I mentioned it..

[C o r p]

I've used Neos and Paper and Plastic far more than any other theme. I used Ti Skin for a while too.

[silencedge]

1. Siro
2. TiSkin
3. Soft Aqua

[angelmb]

To be honest I am not a theme guy, I like good grey though...

[olorin15]

SIRO
Xi-FreshSnow
Xi-SoftCandy
Kowloon

[penguinn]

I am selfish so.....

Blueprint
SmoothMetal3.1
PureWite 1.2 [which once again is coming soon]

[chezpaul]

You guys are all crazy. These two themes are the only two I use.

1.DJ_Tiger_Milk.v2 (a mod of tiger with milk)(used on my desktop)
2. Full Metal Milk mod (another mod also done by digitaljames, really cool) (used on my Titanium)

All other themes, I tend to go back to panther after a few days. I have a hard tie with bright themes and with black themes. Even though, black is super cool. I'd really like to like one.

[mac15]

Aqua Extreme wins hands down

[number_six]

Originally posted by Aluminum:
I would have to vote for any theme developed by XiAP, they just blow me away, and this upcoming release of one inspired by the current aluminum powerbooks, well I must say since I own one of them, I think its going to be the best theme yet. Paper and Plastic and Siro were past favorites as well.

I love simplicity, ....

FatalE 1.1b (lord, I'd love that Carbon makes any update of this, definitevely my number one)
Chosen and Chosen aero mod by DigitalJames
and Plaster mod by Gerrit Vanhoppen (Champion of aesthetic, ...)

[Ji Eun]

where can we get this plaster mod? link please.

[Lord Sith]

Originally posted by chezpaul:

You guys are all crazy. These two themes are the only two I use.
2. Full Metal Milk mod (another mod also done by digitaljames, really cool) (used on my Titanium)

Justinp did Full Metal Milk.

[Gerrit Vanoppen]

Originally posted by Ji Eun:
where can we get this plaster mod? link please.

Plaster is originally done by Takashi Izawa, and is a superb white theme with lots of built-in skins. You can get it here

I humbly take credits for my mod only, and thank the people that "voted" for it - I'm honoured. Welcome to download PlasterAGV here.

Here's an action shot

[Ice Spectre]

Originally posted by Gerrit Vanoppen:
Plaster is originally done by Takashi Izawa, and is a superb white theme with lots of built-in skins. You can get it here

I humbly take credits for my mod only, and thank the people that "voted" for it - I'm honoured. Welcome to download PlasterAGV here.

Here's an action shot

That looks awesome!
Thats definately on my top list!

[eyevaan]

said it before - Gerrit your mod of Plaster is too nice.

[roosta]

i have to go with Gerrit Vanhoppen's plaster mod (though the mail interface is a little less than desirable) and reluna. both very stable and very clean.

[aManDrinksMilk]

my favourite themes:

1. Titanium 7
2. JetBlack
3. Blue Print
4. Applewood

Titanium 'cause it's so cool and different from the basic aqua.
JetBlack 'cause... it's just so beautiful
Blue Print 'cause it looks nice and it's like... well I like the colours
Applewood 'cause... I don't know why. But you can't say it wouldn't be beautiful and nice and handsome and beautiful and nice and handsome and beautiful and nice and handsome and beautiful and nice and handsome and... zzZZZZzzZ

[fisherKing]

i've tried a lot of them,
but keep coming back to pbm 1.31 w/o stripes (the metal blue & graphite one).

just looks good, and the translucent black menus are sexy as hell...

milk,
ss chosen inspiriat,
nice ones too...

[aManDrinksMilk]

What's that SIRO theme?

[aManDrinksMilk]

Originally posted by aManDrinksMilk:
What's that SIRO theme?

Oh It's that white one.

[Aluminum]

is there a url with all the modded themes?

[eyevaan]

nope, no URL for ALL of them... many can be found here at MacNN
but you have to ask the right question.
or dig alot but they are not hard to find.

or

the FunMac Forum - http://www.funmac.com/forumdisplay.php?f=80

[fireside]

Somatic

[eyevaan]

cmon - - - fireside, that wasn't even fair...

[Seph]

Originally posted by fireside:
Somatic

yeah, tease us, thats nice

1. Milk (And its mods)
2. Soft Aqua 1.01
3. Plastic Pro and Tiskin. Its a tie.

@Es.XXI: Seffwub? LOL

[chezpaul]

Sorry. I don't want to give credit to the wrong person.
All that DigitalJames did was mod these themes with a Tiger look.
People have been asking me for links so here it goes.

1. Aqua Milk Tiger my desktop fav
2.Full Metal Milk my powerbook fav
3. Bonus Ti Book Milk Just anohter one he did but too white for me.

Before anyone asks, the font he uses is HandelGotD, you can read more here about it. But it's not freeware.

[fireside]

Originally posted by eyevaan:
cmon - - - fireside, that wasn't even fair...

[Twister]

Changeling is one of my favorites.

[WICKEDfour]

1. Rhapsodized
2. Aluminum Alloy
3. Full Metal Milk - Milk as well, but I like FMM more since it has more contrast)
4. SS Power Metal - I want to use it so bad, but the Dotted Crap and lack of updates has just killed it for me. Swiz, please bring it back someday.
5. FatalE

I guess I like Max's themes so much since he basically started my interest in themeing...Thanks for that, Max. Rhapsodized is my favorite by far, not because it's OS 9-ish, because it just rocks...it's so clean!

While I was thinking about this list, it's sort of interesting to note that we are sooo[ spoiled with ShapeShifter. I mean, the reason I don't use SSPM or FatalE is simply because they don't have any other app skins and I don't want to install the Safari skins manually. Funny how we take those for granted; a year or two ago we wouldn't have even had a decent browser to skin, not to mention a way to include the resources that are now bare minimum for any new theme. It's also interesting to note that Max's themes have the highest amount of consistency and the most extras, not to mention the fact that all of the latest versions of his themes take full advantage of ShapeShifter. Not to put other themers down, though. For example, DSKY is great at keeping NEOS and SIRO consistent and updated, I just don't need another white theme and I'm not big on dark themes at all.

[addition]
Forgot to mention, I also have Aqua Extreme Sunken Aqua permanently installed on my Mac. Thanks again, Max!
[/addition]

[crooner]

This may sound arrogant and possibly disrespectful of the GREAT theme work being done, but I honestly like the mods I have made to certain themes the best. I find combining choice elements from multiple themes often results in a "new" coherent and consistent theme unto itself.

These certain themes just "feel right" to me. (It goes without saying that I have the utmost respect for makers of original themes.) That being said, judging from the perspective of pure theme'ing excellence, I'd have to say (in no particular order):

ProLCD Blue
X-Metal
Brushed
SS Chosen Aero
Xi Freshsnow

Just to name a few.

The best thing about this thread? Look at the differences between the themes that folks here regard as "the best." It proves that always having a large variety is a great thing which, in turn, motivates themers to push the envelope when they can. Ya'll dig?

Groovy.

[Sage]

1. Aluminum Alloy � Been my favorite theme ever since the first day it came out (over a year ago, 9/23, for those of you keeping track ). I haven't used any theme anywhere near extensively as this one. Matching up the colors/desktops to the seasons is kinda fun in a dorky way. Ridiculously useable, meshes together well with unchanged Aqua elements, complete package, etc.

2. Paper & Plastic �_One of the few themes other than AA that has eleventy billion app skins, and P&P even has an Adium skin and one of the coolest "theme desktops" I've ever seen (the blue recycling symbol). It's lacking a tad in cohesiveness, but otherwise it's close to perfect.

3. BBX Mercury � Complete, cool-looking, fairly cohesive (the blurry 135-degree radiobuttons bother me though), easy on the eyes. However, I rarely use it due to one problem (which will seem trivial to most, but is really important to me) �_For all non-blue themes, I set the Appearance prefpane for "Graphite", so that focus rings are gray instead of that bright blue. However, Graphite turns the close/min/max widgets into x/-/+ instead of the the neat glyphs (box, arrow, +), and I want the cool glyphs. Anyway, yeah, I'm weird.

[LBoogie]

Siro
ProLCD
Milk

[NetworkShadow]

In no real order:
- Siro
- BBX Mercury
- Neos
- Soft Blue Milk (Milk mod)
- Studio Pro

Gets really hard to pick out favorites, I like a lot of themes.

[Gerrit Vanoppen]

Originally posted by roosta:
i have to go with Gerrit Vanhoppen's plaster mod (though the mail interface is a little less than desirable) and reluna. both very stable and very clean.

Please take a look at this.
You may want to give this latest a run, and please - feel free to make suggestions to improve the Mail skin or any others.