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Chuckit · Sep 13, 2007, 10:12 AM

Good money says 10.5 does not include a decent theming engine. (No insider info — just guessing based on history.)

Dakarʒ · Sep 13, 2007, 10:17 AM

I'd agree. I've never heard anything to ever indicate Apple gives a damn about theming.

analogue SPRINKLES · Sep 13, 2007, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

I'd agree. I've never heard anything to ever indicate Apple gives a damn about theming.

Ever? Does copland count?

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2007, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Ever? Does copland count?

That doesn't really indicate that Apple cares. It indicates the Apple cared several years ago, before Steve Jobs took over.

Dakarʒ · Sep 13, 2007, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Ever? Does copland count?

Since I've never heard of it, no obviously.

analogika · Sep 13, 2007, 05:06 PM

Copland themes: Platinum (Macintosh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

CharlesS · Sep 13, 2007, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

That doesn't really indicate that Apple cares. It indicates the Apple cared several years ago, before Steve Jobs took over.

Mac OS 8.5, however, came out after Steve Jobs took over, and it had themes.

TETENAL · Sep 13, 2007, 06:44 PM

It had theming support, but it didn't have themes. It only had exactly one theme, the Platinum one.

Mac OS 8 had schemes (which later might have been called themes, I'm not sure), but that wasn't really the same thing as a different theme, just colour variations.

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2007, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Mac OS 8.5, however, came out after Steve Jobs took over, and it had themes.

It had the theming engine that had already been developed, yes, but Apple (as far as I can recall) refused to open the format for people to create new themes.

CharlesS · Sep 13, 2007, 07:22 PM

Are you sure about that? I remember quite a few third-party themes (and sound sets) existing for OS 8.

Yeah, they could have reverse engineered the format, but then why did Apple have the option to change the themes right there in the GUI, in the Appearance control panel? Seems that if this were a feature that was not supposed to be used, it would be buried away in the preferences somewhere and you'd need a third-party app to activate it.

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2007, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Are you sure about that? I remember quite a few third-party themes (and sound sets) existing for OS 8.

They reverse-engineered it. That's why Kaleidoscope themes were still way more numerous, as I recall — the format was at least documented.

Originally Posted by CharlesS

but then why did Apple have the option to change the themes right there in the GUI, in the Appearance control panel?

I'm not sure. As I recall, the menu was normally about as populated as OS X's theme menu. Maybe they originally intended to premiere Aqua in OS 9 or something (actually, they did have a special theme for OS 9 in Classic). At any rate, Apple never really opened theming to third parties and quietly killed it shortly thereafter when OS X came out. They even threatened to sue the creators of theming software for OS 9.

CharlesS · Sep 13, 2007, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Maybe they originally intended to premiere Aqua in OS 9 or something (actually, they did have a special theme for OS 9 in Classic).

They did? I knew of a few Aqua themes, but they were all third-party.

At any rate, OS 8 came out a long time before Aqua was introduced, so I doubt Aqua was in the pipeline yet at that time.

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2007, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

They did? I knew of a few Aqua themes, but they were all third-party.

It wasn't Aqua. It was a modified Platinum with all the window controls placed on the left side like in Aqua and with Aqua menus. Ars Technica's review of DP3 includes some screenshots.

goMac · Sep 13, 2007, 10:10 PM

The theme format for OS 9 was a resource file, with some unencrypted images. The Extras.rsrc of today is actually the same format, just with different images. In the original OS X betas you could actually use OS 9 themes in place of the Extras.rsrc.

Apple tried to scare the original authors of theme editing programs with cease and desists, but given the programs around today that can modify the Extras.rsrc, they failed to really shut anything down.

analogue SPRINKLES · Sep 14, 2007, 01:45 AM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

Since I've never heard of it, no obviously.

Really? Weird.

Dakarʒ · Sep 14, 2007, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Really? Weird.

Not really (Unless you think I'm more knowledgeable about macs than I am). I've been using Macs all my life, but I never had a chance to own one till 2001, and I jumped the OS 9 ship as soon as I could (and realized I should).

geirisk8 · Sep 15, 2007, 06:18 PM

Hey, I just installed 9a527 and noticed that the battery meter in the menubar doesn't really fit in. It's white on the inside when all other items fit perfectly in.

Is it like this in your menubar aswell ?

cybergoober · Sep 15, 2007, 07:26 PM

Yes. The others use transparency.

geirisk8 · Sep 15, 2007, 10:00 PM

Yeah okay.. sorry for my english, i'm icelandic. But you think they'll fix the transperancy in the battery item ?

moonmonkey · Sep 15, 2007, 10:20 PM

Originally Posted by geirisk8

Yeah okay.. sorry for my english, i'm icelandic. But you think they'll fix the transperancy in the battery item ?

No, batteries are not transparent, I suspect they may invert the icon so its a black battery with a white power symbol when the computer is plugged in.

Kevin · Sep 16, 2007, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

You and me both. I don't feel like waiting till themepark gets updated 6 months later to customize my comp.

It's why I don't like any one company having an monopoly on theme makers or "readers" Unless of course that person is Apple. Cause at least then it would be done right, and wouldn't be a patched mess.

Originally Posted by Chuckit

It had the theming engine that had already been developed, yes, but Apple (as far as I can recall) refused to open the format for people to create new themes.

And they sucked for not doing such a thing.

Originally Posted by goMac

Apple tried to scare the original authors of theme editing programs with cease and desists, but given the programs around today that can modify the Extras.rsrc, they failed to really shut anything down.

Yeah I remember this happening.. Sprocket.. and a few others got killed. That is why I named my theme "Sosumi" as a ironic joke on Apple.

goMac · Sep 17, 2007, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Kevin

Yeah I remember this happening.. Sprocket.. and a few others got killed. That is why I named my theme "Sosumi" as a ironic joke on Apple.

I remember Sprocket getting killed. There was also an OS X native beta of Theme Machine that got killed too. None of this stuff was ever really publicly distributed from what I remember, everyone was scared of Apple.

analogue SPRINKLES · Sep 17, 2007, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

Not really (Unless you think I'm more knowledgeable about macs than I am). I've been using Macs all my life, but I never had a chance to own one till 2001, and I jumped the OS 9 ship as soon as I could (and realized I should).

Aw you missed all the fun in the mid to late 90's!

Dakarʒ · Sep 17, 2007, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Aw you missed all the fun in the mid to late 90's!

Theming-wise, yes. But I was still in my school labs, cursing the abysmal Centris or the general crashability of OS 7 (I believe).

Kevin · Sep 18, 2007, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

Theming-wise, yes. But I was still in my school labs, cursing the abysmal Centris or the general crashability of OS 7 (I believe).

That was more like early to mid 90s.

Kevin · Sep 18, 2007, 06:25 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

I remember Sprocket getting killed. There was also an OS X native beta of Theme Machine that got killed too. None of this stuff was ever really publicly distributed from what I remember, everyone was scared of Apple.

I don't think Sprocket got killed by Apple. The coder just stopped coding it. Theme Machine did however I believe.

Sprocket actually let you edit things that the Theme Machine did not. I used them back and forth.

Dakarʒ · Sep 18, 2007, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by Kevin

That was more like early to mid 90s.

When they were new, yeah, but some places kept them forever. I was lucky to see a few beige G3s and OS 8 eventually.

analogue SPRINKLES · Sep 19, 2007, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by Dakarʒ

Theming-wise, yes. But I was still in my school labs, cursing the abysmal Centris or the general crashability of OS 7 (I believe).

Well by fun I really meant all the horribly trouble Apple was in.

Kate · Sep 21, 2007, 06:13 AM

Hm, in addition to the old "extras" (what a name! geez) we will see a bundle of PDFs combined with XML files, which, hm, will provide a chance for Apple to clear the GUI mess up a bit. I hope they do. I fear they just add a new type of clutter combined with a secret interface machine.

Kevin · Sep 21, 2007, 06:38 AM

If Vista is themeable, Apple will have to join the ranks. Like it or not.

PaperNotes · Sep 21, 2007, 06:51 AM

If they do, Apple will only leave the colors of the scroll bar and window widgets up to user control.

Current build of Leopard is now 9A640+.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 21, 2007, 07:54 AM

Apple will never make Mac OS X themeable. Why would Apple foil it's branding efforts by allowing users to apply any old theme?

Perhaps one of Apple's worst blunders was giving developers the option to put a brushed-metal interface on their apps. When this happened, developer apps instantly got separated into two visually different categories. When some developers saw how lax Apple was with guidelines, some even created their own interfaces. Branding was somewhat lost.

Apple is correcting this blunder in Leopard...and not by accident either. It's deliberate. Apple is trying to unify all their products under one visual branding. Leopard on your computer, or OS X on your iPhone, iPod, or iTV, now all share common elements.

Last but not least, nice resolution independent themes would be much more difficult to create under Leopard. Resolution independence was another reason to get rid of the brushed-metal appearance which was more difficult to make scale properly. The gray gradient in Leopard scales easily.

analogika · Sep 21, 2007, 08:23 AM

^ yep.

Simon · Sep 21, 2007, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Kevin

If Vista is themeable, Apple will have to join the ranks.

Umm, no. Not gonna happen. The reasons have been given above.

.Neo · Sep 21, 2007, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Maybe they originally intended to premiere Aqua in OS 9 or something (actually, they did have a special theme for OS 9 in Classic)..

Nah. The original plan was to actually port Platinum (the Mac OS 8/9 theme) over to Mac OS X. But according to the lead the designer at the time Apple's design team could only port about 90% of the interface over properly, leaving around 10% out of focus. That's when they decided to go with something radical and new. This turned out to be Aqua, as seen in the 10.0 Cheetah release.

It was a pretty interesting article to read, can't find it back though.

poocat · Sep 22, 2007, 11:03 PM

What's the latest build?

Seriously theming discussions are OT. Especially the years old Unsanity fight.

TheoCryst · Sep 23, 2007, 12:01 AM

New build == 9A559. Apparently it's stable enough that it might be a release candidate? There are only two known bugs: one with Archive and Install, and one with HP printer drivers.

We're getting closer...

0157988944 · Sep 23, 2007, 12:41 AM

I think either next or release after next will be GM, with a release date the closest Friday in a month from the date. (I.E. if the GM is released on Wed. September 26th, then Leopard will ship on Fri, October 26.)

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 12:42 AM

Archive and install works with intel macs. Sort of. I had to manually copy over my applications and /Library content myself.

Other than that it's good. Some nice new visual touches. The Finder pill-button bug is gone too.

Art Vandelay · Sep 23, 2007, 02:55 AM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

The Finder pill-button bug is gone too.

What Finder pill button?

TheoCryst · Sep 23, 2007, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

Archive and install works with intel macs. Sort of. I had to manually copy over my applications and /Library content myself.

If I'm not mistaken, the bug is exclusive to PPC Macs, actually. If you're doing an install on a PPC Mac, don't select Archive and Install, unless you have a good working backup of your personal files.

CharlesS · Sep 23, 2007, 04:04 AM

Which you really should have anyway, considering you're running a beta OS on your machine.

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 04:29 AM

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

What Finder pill button?

The right-most button in the Finder titlebar.

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 04:30 AM

FrontRow is almost fixed. They just need to restore the old way of scrubbing through video files (30s forward, 5s back) and I'm a happy camper. Oh, and the interface sounds too.

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 04:34 AM

And this close to finish, we might put a final nail in the coffin for people who think Leopard would be any more resolution independent than Tiger was :/

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 04:37 AM

But on the bright side: As of this build the iCal icon now updates the date without having to be launched. Can you believe it?

PaperNotes · Sep 23, 2007, 07:07 AM

Front Row is an app now. Scroll bars still aren't consistent

PaperNotes · Sep 23, 2007, 07:08 AM

The battery icon has been updated

PaperNotes · Sep 23, 2007, 07:12 AM

Two of the new wallpapers

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1046/...45363f78_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1224/...5c80754d_o.jpg

- - e r i k - - · Sep 23, 2007, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by PaperNotes

Front Row is an app now. Scroll bars still aren't consistent

Consistent with what? Scrollbars look fine now.