[mrtew]

I am having pretty good luck theming iTunes to match my Titanium3 theme (only possible with greyscale themes like the new Panther Finder) but I am having a prob with theming Quicktime to match. I keep losing the transparency on the buttons and widgets when pasting them into PhotoShop? What am I missing here? What's the trick?

P.S. Music library shown as proof that I am not 14!

[NetworkShadow]

wow that's the most I've seen changed in iTunes or QuickTime in some time. I hope more people start doing this too.

[blackbird_1.0]

i think quicktime theming has been available since version 4.0 or 5.0? the themes are usually made to be embedded in the video file/stream..

[TheDisaster]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
i think quicktime theming has been available since version 4.0 or 5.0? the themes are usually made to be embedded in the video file/stream..

You can embed a skin into any Quicktime movie when you make it, but he means theming the player itself. You can add a skin to a QuickTime movie using apps like Tattoo.

[mrtew]

I figured it out and am making a lot of progress in theming the recalcitrant iTunes and Quicktime. The pxm's for making the widgets are completely different from the normal ones in the Extras and from eachother. It's amazing that Apple's are so similar looking considering that I am struggling for two days with them and still am not that close. The secret for editing QT is to copy from Themepark and open from clipboard in Preview. Then save the tiff from preview and open it in Photoshop and you will preserve the transparency. Then save in photoshop and open in Preview, and copy from there and paste into Themepark. What a pain but I haven't found another way yet! This is a lot of work just for two apps, but I really like to have everything match and it's good practice for dealing with freaky metal apps (the new Finder?) Here is my current progress.... almost there!

[quandarry]

is it possible to have square corners in itunes and quicktime player to match the theme...

i haven't realy looked at these two apps...too many other headaches...

[mrtew]

Originally posted by quandarry:
is it possible to have square corners in itunes and quicktime player to match the theme...

I kinda tried that and it doesn't look like it would be easy, if it's possible at all. All metal apps in my theme (such as Safari and iChat) have round corners so I don't mind these being round though. I made Metal and Aqua windows look very similar, but since they behave differently I kinda like having an obvious difference too.

[smeger]

Originally posted by mrtew:


[description of handling transparency between ThemePark and Photohsop snipped]

Did you try to get image transparency from ThemePark to Photoshop using the methods in ThemePark's helpfile and in the tutorial?

And if so, what didn't work about it?

[mrtew]

Originally posted by smeger:
Did you try to get image transparency from ThemePark to Photoshop using the methods in ThemePark's helpfile and in the tutorial?

And if so, what didn't work about it?

hmmmmmmm, I am going to have to check that out tomorrow. I keep forgetting to check the help file.... to be honest with you I have never clicked anything in the 'Help' menu in any application on any operating system ever in all my years of using computers. I don't think I have missed anything either, except for tons of invaluable theming advice in your app!

[mrtew]

There was really nothing in the Tutorial or Help that I could find that solved my issue. Theming quicktime is very different from regular theming or iTunes theming. There aren't dozens of seperate pxm's for everthing. All the interface elements are packed into 4 giant pxms and they don't have the regular solid image / transparency mask / click mask that you find everywhere else. They are already images with transparency. Dragging them onto the desktop and then into Photoshop did work fine, but I don't see any way of getting them back into Themepark other than going thru Preview's copy and paste. Copying them from Photoshop only copies the opaque areas so the pxm doens't fit the resource, and even if you force it to copy the entire pxm by painting invisible dots at the corners the transparency doesn't copy smoothly from photoshop, but has horrifying jagged edges. Going thru Preview is no big deal, but it took me a while to figure it out. Tell me if there is something I am missing.

[smeger]

Originally posted by mrtew:
There was really nothing in the Tutorial or Help that I could find that solved my issue. Theming quicktime is very different from regular theming or iTunes theming. There aren't dozens of seperate pxm's for everthing. All the interface elements are packed into 4 giant pxms and they don't have the regular solid image / transparency mask / click mask that you find everywhere else. They are already images with transparency. Dragging them onto the desktop and then into Photoshop did work fine, but I don't see any way of getting them back into Themepark other than going thru Preview's copy and paste. Copying them from Photoshop only copies the opaque areas so the pxm doens't fit the resource, and even if you force it to copy the entire pxm by painting invisible dots at the corners the transparency doesn't copy smoothly from photoshop, but has horrifying jagged edges. Going thru Preview is no big deal, but it took me a while to figure it out. Tell me if there is something I am missing.

Whoops, my bad. I'd forgotten that ThemePark doesn't show separate images for opaque & mask for these resources.

So, no, I don't know of an easier way at this time. I've been planning tighter Photoshop integration by scripting it, but it's not done yet.

[Modro]

I was peeking around in themepark making some alterations to the watercolor theme to suit my own tastes (adding brushed metal back in, and squaring off corners, along with giving the menubar its curves back) and noticed that it seems squaring off the edges of iTunes should be pretty straightforward. I haven't done it yet, but it looks as though it works exactly the same way as the system brushed metal, which takes to having its edges squared off real well.

[Modro]

Here is the squared off BM.

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by mrtew:
[/B]

That Pink is so hot