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slava · Feb 2, 2004, 08:38 AM

First things first: THIS IS A BETA. It may or may not work as intended, it may contain bugs, and it may magically consume all milk in your fridge. No guarantees given at this point.

What is guiKitty?

guiKitty is a companion tool for any people interested in creating themes to be used with the ShapeShifter ( http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter ). Its purpose is pretty simple: it can compile and decompile guiKit files, which are the native format understood by the ShapeShifter.

When you launch the application, a splash screen will appear. From there on, you can:

-_Drag the .guiKit file you want to decompile onto the splash window. guiKitty will then expand the guiKit into a bunch of files and folders located in a folder with the same name as the guiKit you have dragged on it, in the same location. You can then edit any file from the resulting decompiled folder (to, say, make some tweaks to the theme or whatnot), and then compile the folder back into a guiKit file.
-_Drag the previously decompiled guiKit folder onto the splash window. guiKitty will then magically walk the structure of that folder and make a properly encoded guiKit file you can use with ShapeShifter.

guiKitty is freeware and does not require ShapeShifter or Application Enhancer to be installed.

Download Link

http://www.unsanity.net/beta/guiKitty-11b1.zip

There will be an official guiKitty page on the unsanity.com server once we reach the release state.

Conclusion

All in all, this is pretty straight-forward. Read the Read Me file for more information. Since this is a beta, please let me know if there's any bugs either in this thread or by e-mail (slava, usual e-mail sign, unsanity, dot, com). Also please do not re-distribute the file around as this is not a release version, and we don't really want to be this out in the wild at this point.

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated! Keep the scene alive and don't forget to pet your cats (or dogs).

smeger · Feb 2, 2004, 08:41 AM

meeeeoww!

mac15 · Feb 2, 2004, 08:47 AM

interesting, It'd be nice to see such a feature build right into themepark

TheSpaz · Feb 2, 2004, 08:52 AM

It only decompiles extras and colors? I don't get it... can we edit this right IN ThemePark?

slava · Feb 2, 2004, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by TheSpaz:
It only decompiles extras and colors? I don't get it... can we edit this right IN ThemePark?

Yes, you can edit this right in ThemePark. However, for people who don't have it (or don't want to bother with it), this is the tool to use. You can "expand" the guiKit theme into something you can edit, tweak, or rip apart (but remember about copyrights!), then re-assemble into a guiKit file you can use. guiKitty is good for small modifications to the existing themes, to learn how successful themes are made, and for whatever else you see fit. Many people complained guiKit is a closed format, so we are providing a way to make it more "open".

Patcarla · Feb 2, 2004, 09:31 AM

Originally posted by TheSpaz:
It only decompiles extras and colors? I don't get it... can we edit this right IN ThemePark?

Does it? I could only find the colors files. Wher is the extra?

jaiqua · Feb 2, 2004, 10:09 AM

Originally posted by Patcarla:
Does it? I could only find the colors files. Wher is the extra?

You'll find it under the Patches directory, in a folder called Extras.

Pretty nice tool btw.

thanks.

swiz · Feb 2, 2004, 11:09 AM

How could you??
Now what will the guiKit haters have to complain about?
(sarcasm intended

)

Cool stuff.

digitaljames · Feb 2, 2004, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by swiz:
How could you??
Now what will the guiKit haters have to complain about?
(sarcasm intended )

Cool stuff.

Well, there's still that $20.......

swiz · Feb 2, 2004, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by digitaljames:
Well, there's still that $20.......

Oh yeah thats right. Gulp.

quandarry · Feb 2, 2004, 01:08 PM

the cat's pajamas!

NetworkShadow · Feb 2, 2004, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by digitaljames:
Well, there's still that $20.......

As I've said before, they need to get a job.

Roderick · Feb 2, 2004, 08:09 PM

Hey, this could be my dream come true, kudos to Unsanity.

As I've posted many times before, I don't want to reinstall APE,
but I want to go on using themes, I replace Extras and many more
system files myself, and guiKits were screwing me up for good.

However, none of the Extras.rsrc files "decompiled" with guiKitty
can be used at all, they just crash the system.
Is there any additional, "special" conversion needed?

I'll donate SS's 20 dollars to guiKitty if it works and that's no joke!

slava · Feb 3, 2004, 01:40 AM

Originally posted by Roderick:
Hey, this could be my dream come true, kudos to Unsanity.

As I've posted many times before, I don't want to reinstall APE,
but I want to go on using themes, I replace Extras and many more
system files myself, and guiKits were screwing me up for good.

However, none of the Extras.rsrc files "decompiled" with guiKitty
can be used at all, they just crash the system.
Is there any additional, "special" conversion needed?

I'll donate SS's 20 dollars to guiKitty if it works and that's no joke!

ShapeShifter guiKits only store the bits of Extras.rsrc and such that are changed by the theme. If you simply replace the system files with the ones that are inside a guiKit, you'll likely crash as they miss the unchanged resources. What is needed is a merge between the original resource file and the guiKit one -- and I think this is beyond the scope of the utility. Making a merge tool is a fairly simple programming task, though, so if someone wants to do it, go ahead. Sorry for not mentioning this in the docs!

NetworkShadow · Feb 3, 2004, 01:46 AM

Originally posted by Roderick:
Hey, this could be my dream come true, kudos to Unsanity.

As I've posted many times before, I don't want to reinstall APE,
but I want to go on using themes, I replace Extras and many more
system files myself, and guiKits were screwing me up for good.

However, none of the Extras.rsrc files "decompiled" with guiKitty
can be used at all, they just crash the system.
Is there any additional, "special" conversion needed?

I'll donate SS's 20 dollars to guiKitty if it works and that's no joke!

You know the developers would help fix the problems you've been having with APE and SS I'm sure...

Roderick · Feb 4, 2004, 09:58 AM

Originally posted by slava:
ShapeShifter guiKits only store the bits of Extras.rsrc and such that are changed by the theme. If you simply replace the system files with the ones that are inside a guiKit, you'll likely crash as they miss the unchanged resources. What is needed is a merge between the original resource file and the guiKit one -- and I think this is beyond the scope of the utility. Making a merge tool is a fairly simple programming task, though, so if someone wants to do it, go ahead. Sorry for not mentioning this in the docs!

Anybody can do that?

I'm a Graphic Designer, no coding skills, unless it's xhtml or css.
I'm willing to pay. Please post a reply to this if you can help,
I'd like to know if anybody else is interested in such a thing.

An OS update looms in the horizon and if it breaks the few
Extras.rsrc I can still use, dark themes are gone for me.
OS X with all that freaking white/grey is frankly unusable,
too damn bright, gets in the way.

(Maybe the new thing coming from Carpe Stellarem will be
exactly what I am looking for, but sounds too much like APE,
and that's not an option. It also sounds a lot like BBX - perhaps
to be released ten years from now, if we're lucky...)