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TheSpaz · Jul 9, 2005, 04:46 PM

Is there a utility or anything out there that will allow you to use BLACK icon names on the Desktop like the Classic Finder? I'm really getting sick of the white names with the drop shadows...

Why does everything have to have shadows? I would really like to know if it's possible to change the desktop icon names colors. Thanks.

MetalSnake · Jul 9, 2005, 05:26 PM

Don´t know if it´s possible but the reasons if you have a white background image you couldn´t read the names anymore, so they added shadows, same would happen with black.

cybergoober · Jul 9, 2005, 09:54 PM

There used to be a way to do it in 10.0 if I'm not mistaken. I vaguely remember seeing something on ResExellence back then. I don't think it's possible anymore or we'd sure have ShapeShifter themes with different colored system text...

esXXI · Jul 9, 2005, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by cybergoober

There used to be a way to do it in 10.0 if I'm not mistaken. I vaguely remember seeing something on ResExellence back then. I don't think it's possible anymore or we'd sure have ShapeShifter themes with different colored system text...

Actually you can change the desktop text colour, most themers - myself included - just don't for a variety of reasons.

If you want to try it Spaz it's: Global Elements -> Text colours -> Desktop Label

TheSpaz · Jul 9, 2005, 11:04 PM

So therefore I'd hav to run ShapeShifter running an Aqua Theme modded to change the text color? Man, I wish there was a simpler way to do it easily... maybe modifing a System resource file or something. Thanks for the comments anyways. Maybe someone can code a Haxie to do JUST the Desktop Icon Text colors... if I was a programmer, I'd try to hook that up somehow... but, unfortunately... I can't program anything beyond HTML... I'm more of a designer/photographer kinda guy.

gruneeitelkeit · Jul 9, 2005, 11:15 PM

If you are sick of shadows, there's a program out there called ShadowKiller that you can use to remove them. It doesn't remove the font shadows, but it does remove most other shadows. Just in case you wanted.

TheSpaz · Jul 9, 2005, 11:45 PM

I know about ShadowKiller... I've tried it... but, then the windows start to blend into each other because there's NO BORDERS!

Gerrit Vanoppen · Jul 10, 2005, 02:13 AM

The desktop text is actually using the "Shadowed" font style. So instead of removing shadows, the font style somehow has to be set to "Standard" or "Normal".
There has been a haxie for that, and I once picked it up from VersionTracker - but I lost it and can't find it again

arcticmac · Jul 10, 2005, 11:48 PM

in 10.2, you can go to the terminal and type:

Code:
defaults write com.apple.finder "Finder.HasDarkBackground" 0

killall Finder

But when they added labels it seems that feature dissappeared, so it won't work on 10.3 or 10.4

FB Eye · Jul 11, 2005, 04:55 PM

I think this is a feature Silk should definitely offer...

Rosyna? Can you look into it?

mugget · Jul 13, 2005, 08:13 PM

this sounds interesting...

while you're trying to get black text on the desktop... i was thinking... it wouldn't be too hard to get it to change to a chosen color would it? now i can think of some uses for that.

MacDog · Jul 14, 2005, 02:35 AM

Of all the frivolous/silly to downright stupid requests people wish Apple would follow-through with, this is one thing I agree that needs to be implimented. Being stuck with white text is annoying, and I wouldn't mind the option of turning off the text shadow either.

smithz4096 · Jul 17, 2005, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

... I'm really getting sick of the white names with the drop shadows... Why does everything have to have shadows? I would really like to know if it's possible to change the desktop icon names colors. Thanks.

Spaz, I couldn't agree more.

I use shadowkiller to kill at least those annoying window-shadows, as already posted textshadows and menubar-shadow are unaffected by shadowkiller. I already asked to unsanity to update their great thingie. Maybe in the future they replied.

Those issue with windows blending into each other can be cured using Windowshade, it can draw a 1px border for every window (and it can do much more). For me it's kind of a bad deal, because i don't need all the other features of windowshade.

Last but not least, i think these fixed textshadows are a joke, because at a very light desktop-piccie the text is hardly readable. So the idea of shadows to gain optimum readability simply doesn't work as intended,

Apple really needs to do something about it and offer a more feature-rich Appearance Prefpane.

Gerrit Vanoppen · Jul 17, 2005, 09:11 AM

How 's this for a workaround on a white desktop background :
the bottom desktop file has a label applied. The white label is not default, but I may put it in a next VOID update…

smithz4096 · Jul 17, 2005, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Gerrit Vanoppen

How 's this for a workaround on a white desktop background :
the bottom desktop file has a label applied.

That'll do, yeah.

Anyway, I find it exceptionally weak that the "most advanced OS" needs workarounds for just basic functionality problems that should have been fixed in 10.1.

IMHO Apple needs to offer a richer Font/Appearance Prefpanel, too. Silk etc. are nice tools, but they lack the system-wide consistency, simply because they're 3rd party tools.

I already sent dozens of feedbacks to Apple regarding this, i'm still waiting.