Dark Aqua theme released

[mattstoton]

We have just released the Dark Aqua theme :cool: You can see/download it at http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/themes/

[b*tchy]

wow. that's deeply ugly. Also don't you think the copyright notices are a little childish. Especially when you are illegally modifying Apple's theme?


The only 2 decent themes I've seen are sosumi and the new unnamed purple one. They share 2 qualities lacking in most of the so called themes out there: originality (not simply graffitied copies of aqua), and a sense of style (ineffable).

[David R]

Thanks for the themes Matt. Glad someone is taking the time to help others customize OS X.

[KaptainKaya]

Yeah at least SOMEONE cares about themes for X. Thanks for all the hard work!!

[tinrib]

Originally posted by mattstoton:
<STRONG>We have just released the Dark Aqua theme :cool: You can see/download it at http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/themes/</STRONG>

Wow! I didn't realise there were so many themes available already. The background texture on Dark Aqua doesn't seem to line up correctly behind the buttons/checkboxes...

[Xeo]

Ugh... way to dark for me. Not only that, but it's completely grey scale. There isn't a trace of color.

And ya, the copyright notices on most of those is simply wrong. You can't copyright someone else's work. Most of those have already been copyrighted by Apple.

But please, don't stop making new versions of aqua just because the copyrights are silly. If someone can come up with a better Aqua than the what's already there I'll bite. A new color pack would be a good start. Someone had one like it at one point but that was for 10.0.

Why hasn't Apple legal shut down your site? At the very least, the should shut down those themes that stole all that Aqua. That was the biggest thing with themes when X was first released... if it had traces of Aqua, Apple could pull the plug. Maybe the stopped trying to stop people?

[mattstoton]

Some people like the overall darkness of it and others don't. I might try doing something with Graphite... which tends to look better when yo change the hue, the Aqua window widgets don't change hue very well. What hue would anyone like?

[Xeo]

Originally posted by mattstoton:
<STRONG>Some people like the overall darkness of it and others don't. I might try doing something with Graphite... which tends to look better when yo change the hue, the Aqua window widgets don't change hue very well. What hue would anyone like?</STRONG>I say, leave the widgets their stoplight colors and start changing everything else. Anywhere the blue is in Aqua blue, change it to something else. I don't like the widgets being all one color.

How about some pastels... green, orange, red. Any of these would look ok if just not bright and obtrusive. In aqua blue, the widgets are red, yellow, and green. No blue there. The only reason graphite makes them all graphite is to minimize the color so designers wouldn't complain. If the everything else is a color (like Aqua blue) then the widgets should stay their own, colorful self, IMO.

(keep in mind when I refer to widgets, I'm referring solely to the ones in the window titlebars)

[Jelle Monkmater]

Originally posted by Xeo:
[QB]I say, leave the widgets their stoplight colors and start changing everything else. Anywhere the blue is in Aqua blue, change it to something else. I don't like the widgets being all one color.
[QB]

Now there's a good idea. Instead of Aqua blue, I would love to see a green, red, orange... Dare I say Sage, Ruby and Tangerine? Yes I do! Not that they have to be the same color as the little traffic lights in the top-left corner, but I used to have a Tangerine theme in Winter, and it's just that little more difficult to have a convincing one in Aqua, with the blue scrollbars still being there.

[Adam Betts]

Here's a screenshot of Dark Aqua Theme for all to see:

http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/images/themes/previews/darkaqua.jpg

[Adam Betts]

Maybe it'd be cool if you change the title color to white so it can be readable.

And reduce the blackness on the background of window. Maybe make it as 60% grayscale.

Last one, make the progress bar brighter so we can see the difference between black and white strip in same way as blue and white strip.

I don't know about this one but I think it would be nice if the widgets are color too for easy identify.

[xi_hyperon]

I'm with the others who appreciate seeing new themes, but I appreciate the more original ones which don't resemble Aqua. I do like Aqua, but I also like variety.

[crayz]

:(

For a moment, my heart jumped. I thought this would be a remake of the old "Dark Aqua" Akio theme for OS X PB that I liked so much. Here's a screenshot of that theme:

Dark Aqua (http://crayz.dyndns.org/images/screen.jpg)

[ntsc]

crayz : where did you get that desktop pic it looks cool :)

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by ntsc:
<STRONG>crayz : where did you get that desktop pic it looks cool :)</STRONG>

You can steal that background off screensaver called "Technichron" by opening its package

BTW, this is my default screensaver... so simple, so useful

[mattstoton]

I will make the text white and put back the colored widgets. I don't want to lighten anything because that will mess with the whole "Dark Aqua" thing. Notice on some dialogs you get ugly little black dotty things. Anyone know what pxm# is causing that? This should help complete the look: http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/downloads/themes/lines.jpg

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by mattstoton:
<STRONG>I will make the text white and put back the colored widgets. I don't want to lighten anything because that will mess with the whole "Dark Aqua" thing. Notice on some dialogs you get ugly little black dotty things. Anyone know what pxm# is causing that? This should help complete the look: http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/downloads/themes/lines.jpg</STRONG>

I'm not any expert with themes but I know why there is strange lines mismatch as seen in preview. It's RealBASIC's fault. I've seen this before in carbon apps but it appear that apple has fixed this in 10.1. So, any apps built with RealBASIC usually have lines mismatch and also funky colors. It's like disco color! Look at this screenshot of ThemeChecker which was built in RealBASIC:
http://homepage.mac.com/adambetts/realbasic.jpg

[crayz]

crayz : where did you get that desktop pic it looks cool :)

I like that pic a lot. I've been using it as my desktop pic on and off for about a year now. Anyway, you can get a large version(I cropped mine to be the right dimensions) at:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA02991.tif
(that's a 3MB .tiff)

[diamondsw]

Those bugs were fixed in an update to RealBasic released some time ago.

Also, while I appreciate themes for X, the vast majority are just like Kaleidoscope - ugly, with no originality. They're just simple color shifts on Aqua.

Circular Blue Widgets - wow, you changed them to blue. Whoopee. Now it's even *more* difficult to tell them apart.
Iridium Quicksilver - just different enough, like sharp silver
Titanium - very different, and very ugly
Sosumi - just a damn good theme. Unique, clean, and very well done
Christmas - garish, but then again, so is Christmas anymore...
Dark Aqua - no originality, ugly, difficult to see text and distinguish items, pixpats don't even line up

Themes are a great idea, but are generally extremely poorly executed. There were only a handful of Kaleidoscope schemes that were any good, and they were usually the simpler ones. The rest were almost invariably butt ugly, as are today's "themes".

[starfleetX]

Originally posted by mattstoton:
<STRONG>I will make the text white</STRONG>
:eek: If you can succesfully pull this off, please post some instructions. I gave up on my Iridium theme (not Iridium Quicksiver, though... the author of that theme used mine as a template) a while ago primarily because Cocoa apps were ignoring text color changes made to the clr# resources. I worked hard trying to get those resources to work. I'm not used to reading/writing in hexadecimal!

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: starfleetX ]

[forty two]

Originally posted by starfleetX:
<STRONG>
:eek: If you can succesfully pull this off, please post some instructions. I gave up on my Iridium theme (not Iridium Quicksiver, though... the author of that theme used mine as a template) a while ago primarily because Cocoa apps were ignoring text color changes made to the clr# resources. I worked hard trying to get those resources to work. I'm not used to reading/writing in hexadecimal!

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</STRONG>

It appears that the maker of the "Christmas 2001" theme (available at the same site as the "Dark Aqua" theme) used white text in the title bar. I haven't tried it myself to see if it works in Cocoa apps or not, but this might be a good place to look if you're wanting to do this yourself.

If it doesn't work in Cocoa apps, well, then, sorry for wasting this space :)

[starfleetX]

edit: I misread the previous post... I'm looking into that now...

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: starfleetX ]

[starfleetX]

What the... ?? :rolleyes: This thing's in a freakin' package?! Ugh... I'm just glad I've got Pacifist...

Well, I was right. Cocoa app windows do still use black text in the titlebar even with that (yuuuck!) Christmas theme.

Oh well.

:shrug: :(

[edddeduck]

Interesting footnote that picture is hosted on NASA's site last time I looked...

Are we all sitting comfortably? Well I will begin

It was long long time ago it was raining and snow was on the roads the date?... Just b4 10.1 (I think) and in the famous desktop pics thread someone posted this picture and then the URL. NASA thought it was a dos attack as everyone had clicked no the link in a short period of time :D :D

True story and a funny one at that (Sorry if it isn't that funny just I am tired (I am not rockin the gang btw))...

Cheers Edd

[miro7]

I for one really appreciate the Quicksilver Theme. Nice compliment without going overboard. Makes me wonder why Apple simply stopped with Aqua and Graphite...

Also, anyone else have the problem where you switch to Graphite and anytime you are in the Finder, MacOS X 10.1.1 reverts back to Aqua? I haven't tried locating and trashing any prefs, but suggestions are welcome.

[mattstoton]

I was going to post it but I'll hold back. One problem: text on popup buttons is white and barely readable. Can anyone email me a file with the white text colors on everything except buttons? Send to: [email protected]