Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ambush · Apr 27, 2005, 01:23 PM

OMFG my eyes are burning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about yours...

we need to replace those icons A.S.A.P.... I only see a problem with the bloody toolbar icons... the rest is very sharp.

cruciarius · Apr 27, 2005, 01:45 PM

when i get 10.4, i'm going to want to change those asap too. it looks horrible.

ambush · Apr 27, 2005, 02:00 PM

Looks more horrible in "real life" if you want my opinion...

cruciarius · Apr 27, 2005, 02:07 PM

maybe in you could make a theme for it in themepark. thats all i can think of, until someone else makes something to change it.

esXXI · Apr 27, 2005, 02:43 PM

Originally Posted by cruciarius

maybe in you could make a theme for it in themepark. thats all i can think of, until someone else makes something to change it.

You can change them on your own.. Just open Mail (right-click, open package contents) and replace the toolbar-icon backgrounds (I think they're called "TB_segments") with transparent ones.

Zimphire · Apr 27, 2005, 03:42 PM

I think it looks much better. The title bar esp.

The widgets I could care less about.

CJM · Apr 27, 2005, 04:14 PM

mail doesn't really bother me, it's mostly the brushed-metal finder i can't wait to "fix"

Hi I'm Ben · Apr 27, 2005, 06:41 PM

I love the new mail.
Looks much cooler.

ender2002 · Apr 27, 2005, 07:07 PM

its cool. i really like the layout and the icons.

Zimphire · Apr 27, 2005, 07:13 PM

Yeah I wish they would take all the Brushed Metal apps and make them look like mail.

DavidHossack · Apr 27, 2005, 07:45 PM

Does anyone know if it is possible to return the mail toolbar to use 32x32pixel icons for the top layer (make it deeper). I have seen various depth of toolbars in several apps and I wonder if it can be changed easily.

(I really want to go back to the old icons on the new toolbar)

TheSpaz · Apr 27, 2005, 10:46 PM

I have an idea... this is exactly what I'm gonna do when I get the new Mail.app.

I'm gonna turn my toolbar into "text only" (which is ironically how I have my current Mail.app). Can anyone confirm that this will work in Tiger?

Zimphire · Apr 27, 2005, 11:32 PM

And yes, it looks awesome.

I would love for all my windows to look as slick and modern.

This is the way to go Apple.

Apfhex · Apr 28, 2005, 01:05 AM

Oh man! That's slick. Actually I do kind of like the new icons. Their function is a little clearer (reminds me of the buttons on an audio cassette player), might keep it in Icon Only mode (it occurred to me now that I never even bothered to change Mail's icons from their default�I usually like Icon Only, as long as they're not all so similar looking).

Now if only the Finder could take up a similar appearance...

RevEvs · Apr 28, 2005, 06:26 AM

I hated the buttons until i started using them... now i really like them

ambush · Apr 28, 2005, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Zimphire

And yes, it looks awesome.

I would love for all my windows to look as slick and modern.

This is the way to go Apple.

Please post again and tell us how you love it. Because 3 times really isn't enough.

TheSpaz · Apr 28, 2005, 12:33 PM

Does anyone know if you can make the toolbar completly blank? Can you go into Customize toolbar and remove all the icons?... would that be slick?

CJM · Apr 28, 2005, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Zimphire

And yes, it looks awesome.

I would love for all my windows to look as slick and modern.

This is the way to go Apple.

this only works if you don't use the search button on the toolbar. if you click it while in text only mode, it switches everything back to "text and icon" and you have to manually change it back.

Gerrit Vanoppen · Apr 28, 2005, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by CJM

this only works if you don't use the search button on the toolbar. if you click it while in text only mode, it switches everything back to "text and icon" and you have to manually change it back.

I don't see that happen in Panther, are you saying this is a Tiger behaviour ?
And what if you'd hit Cmd-F instead of clicking anything at all ?

CJM · Apr 28, 2005, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Gerrit Vanoppen

I don't see that happen in Panther, are you saying this is a Tiger behaviour ?
And what if you'd hit Cmd-F instead of clicking anything at all ?

yes this is happening for me in tiger. cmd-f works fine, because it brings up a separate search dialog.

plamparello · Apr 28, 2005, 08:51 PM

Have you guys heard of this program yet:

Cage Fighter

Phil

Stelex · Apr 29, 2005, 05:57 AM

Yes, cage fighter does some great stuff, however mouse-over effect is not there and even though it looks waaaaaaaay better there are few things I'd love to do.

I have installed it and it looked as promised on the website, then I have removed the ugly unified look and restored the Panther title bar. I just can't take my eyes of it !

But I'd love either mouse-over on these icons or the old set of icons from Panther, with mouse-over, of course. Any ideas ?

Oh, by the way, I have included the inbox icon from Thunderbird, just done it quickly and haven't set transparent shadow so there is a bit of a white pixelling (love the word) below icon in the above picture.

Adolf W. Bush · Apr 29, 2005, 09:40 AM

So, Shapeshifter is out in a couple of days, what about Themepark? Any news on it?

cgc · Apr 29, 2005, 01:44 PM

Tiger has so many GUI inconsistencies. WTF are Mail.app's buttons from? Aqua? Let's see, we have Mail.app's mystery icons, then there's the different color blue and style in the "normal" aqua icons, and finally there's the plastic flat look. Some windows use the flat plastic along with the bulbous aqua and some dont. We have metal, a smooth grey, the dashboard window with metal with holes in it (like the G5 cases), and the pinstripes in inactive windows. WTF????

Shapeshifter...help us!!!

ambush · Apr 29, 2005, 03:55 PM

Also, note that the Mail Delete toolbar icon IS aqua but the rest ISN'T... it's some kind of bland design...

weird, coming from Apple.

cgc · Apr 29, 2005, 06:39 PM

Wow...CageFighter did the trick! Woohoohoo...

SwissXDesign · Apr 29, 2005, 10:46 PM

Speaking of Mail, does anyone know if it's possible to have the Entourage style 3 side-by-side panes in Tiger? I don't remember where from, but was able to download it for Panther from somewhere by exchanging the .nib files.

With Apple displays all being widescreen you'd think they'd have that as standard view or at least as an option...

mr. natural · Apr 29, 2005, 11:54 PM

I don't like it all.

The lifeless little butt ugly icons look like they were stolen from some Redmond product. (Maybe apple is trying to make windoze switchers feel at home.)

I installed Cage Fighter, which helped do away with the obnoxious looking capsules, but the icons still suck.

So to solve this I've switched to toolbar text only, which cleans things up nicely.

My other gripe is with the Mailbox drawer. The pale baby blue background color is another annoying Redmond like touch. Whereas before I left it open for ready access to move and retrieve emails in and out of appropriate folders, as well as for the ability to quickly pick it out from behind other open applications due to its inherent different edge size, now I leave it hidden. Shift-cmd-m has become my new friend. And my mailbox drawer was on the left, which I can't change now.

I suppose I'll get used to it but I liked it the way it was before this queer make-over. Ugh!

TheJoshu · Apr 30, 2005, 09:23 AM

What I don't like is that my window title says "Inbox (6730 messages, 2 unread)" when in the good old days it just said "In (2 unread)." It's disconcerting and harder to notice change at-a-glance.

jon l. dawson · May 1, 2005, 01:08 AM

Originally Posted by mr. natural

I don't like it all.

My other gripe is with the Mailbox drawer. The pale baby blue background color is another annoying Redmond like touch. Whereas before I left it open for ready access to move and retrieve emails in and out of appropriate folders, as well as for the ability to quickly pick it out from behind other open applications due to its inherent different edge size, now I leave it hidden. Shift-cmd-m has become my new friend. And my mailbox drawer was on the left, which I can't change now.

I suppose I'll get used to it but I liked it the way it was before this queer make-over. Ugh!

It can't really bother you this much, can it? It's obvious that the it's more functional for you to have the mail drawer open, so why would you close it and re-open it as needed with a hotkey? in protest?

p.h..i...l.... · May 1, 2005, 03:58 AM

Originally Posted by Stelex

[...] , then I have removed the ugly unified look and restored the Panther title bar. I just can't take my eyes of it ! [...]

May I ask how you switched to the Panter-title-bar?

Stelex · May 1, 2005, 05:01 AM

Originally Posted by p.h..i...l....

May I ask how you switched to the Panter-title-bar?

You'll need to have Xcode Tools installed on your computer 9comes on your tiger DVD)

Rightclick your Mail Icon in Applications folder and select Show Package Contents.

Open Contents folder, then open Resources folder, find English.Iproj and open it too.

Doubleclick on MessageViewer.nib, then select Tools / Show inspector. In inspector untick Unified title/toolbar look. Save the file close everything and reopen mail. Enjoy !

by the way, for brushed metal fans, you can have mail 2 with brushed metal interface, just instead unticking unified look tick has texture instead.

p.h..i...l.... · May 1, 2005, 05:03 AM

Great, thanks a lot!

mr. natural · May 1, 2005, 03:46 PM

Posted by Stelex
by the way, for brushed metal fans, you can have mail 2 with brushed metal interface, just instead unticking unified look tick has texture instead.

The only problem I found with this is two fold:

1) The window resizing triangle doesn't stay fixed in the corner and falls partially into the message pane so that when you scroll the message a small section of the triangle scrolls too.

2) In order not to have this occur you need to adjust the message pane so that the brushed metal surrounds it like so:

If anyone knows how to make the BM change to the title/toolbar only while affixing the window resizing triangle into the corner so that it doesn't hang up in the message pane that would be nice.

Stelex · May 2, 2005, 03:48 AM

Originally Posted by p.h..i...l....

May I ask how you switched to the Panter-title-bar?

I have put a few tips together here I hope it helps

aaroncs · May 3, 2005, 07:52 PM

Looks like the Mail.app engineers wanted it to be easy to turn off the nasty toolbar button mode. If you go into the Mail.app package to /Contents/Resources/ and open all the .toolbar files, you'll see a bunch of lines that say "segmented = 1;". Just change them to "segmented = 0;" and you can get rid of all the segments. This is better than the Cage Fighter hack because that doesn't let you use icons taller than around 24 pixels, but this lets you use the old panther Mail.app icons. This approach breaks those weird multi button toolbar items like the multi button reply-replyall-forward thing, but you can just use the individual buttons that are available for reply replyall and forward. The result looks like this:

mr. natural · May 3, 2005, 08:12 PM

arroncs: what you did looks great!

Could you please explain, step by step, how you managed to change the icons,etc.

I think I see the .toolbar files, listed as: "Contents/Resources/TB_AddressBook.tiff" etc., but did you use Interface Builder to change the segment as described?

And then how did you import the old Panther icons?

Much appreciated if you have the time to explain.

aaroncs · May 3, 2005, 08:35 PM

When I said toolbar files I meant four particular files in the Mail.app/Contents/Resources/. These are:

ComposeNewOrDraftTiger.toolbar
MessageViewerTiger.toolbar
ComposeReplyOrForwardTiger.toolbar
TornOffViewerTiger.toolbar

Edit those files to change the "segmented = 1;" lines to "segmented = 0;".

Swapping in the old panther icons was a manual process. I took all the old icons out of the panther Mail.app Resources folder and replaced all the Tiger Mail icons named TB_Something.tiff by finding the best match from the panther icons, renaming it to the right TB_Something.tiff name and replacing the Tiger icon.

If you want to hack Mail.app the way I did, you can just use the files at http://www.xtypa.com/ext/macnn/mymailicons.zip. Decompress the archive and drag all the files into Mail.app/Contents/Resources/. Of course you should make a backup copy of Mail.app first in case you want to go back to the original.

pxlshftr · May 3, 2005, 09:18 PM

THANKS. That is a sweet set up you hooked us up with!

DavidHossack · May 3, 2005, 09:36 PM

ACE! Thanks.

Does anyone get a crash when selecting "Customise toolbar" in the new mail window. I went through and changed all the multiple buttons (the segmented ones) back to 1 and it is now fixed.

aaroncs · May 3, 2005, 09:46 PM

Yeah, there are some buttons that break stuff if you set them to "segmented = 0;". The whole hack is pretty precarious but if you get it working (not crashing) with the setup you like, it looks nice and works nice. I find that once I set the toolbar the way I want it, I never change it.

The right solution to this whole mess is for Apple to admit that they screwed up and change the toolbar back to full sized icons, not because it looks better, but because different shaped buttons are faster to identify and click. Word is that the whole thing was hotly debated inside Apple, and given the universally negative reaction on the internets, there's some hope that it'll get fixed.

DavidHossack · May 3, 2005, 09:54 PM

seems rock solid once you dont change the multi button buttons.... Words....

Its not the fact that they made them like they were (They were very hard to tell apart) but the fact that they bore no relation to the similar type buttons used in System Prefs, Dictionary and Help Viewer (which all look great). I wouldn't have minded if they had done the icons safari style although I wouldn't have liked to have been the person who had to come up with the black and white icons for all the options!

ambush · May 3, 2005, 10:51 PM

WORD UP aaron!

mr. natural · May 3, 2005, 11:03 PM

aaroncs:

Thanks so much!

I switched out the file/icons with your set and everything is a lot sweeter now.

The only glitch, for me, is that the TB_FontBigger.tiff (as well as the the 'smaller' one) doesn't show up in the customize pane. Any ideas?

Of course I can always just shift/command/+.

Also, Mail does crash while in the "new message" pane and I try to "customize" that set-up.

This is all while Cage Fighter is still installed, so maybe that's a part of it. I'll fiddle around some more and see what happens. BTW, i'm not using the Brushed Metal look, but the stock Tiger 'plastic' title/toolbar look.

But thanks again, and you're right, Apple messed this up and we can only hope they'll give us back what I consider the better/old icon set.

ambush · May 3, 2005, 11:21 PM

Yeah new message crashed...

here's what I did.
Open the new message .toolbar document
replace every segmented = 0 to segmented = 1
then I set the toolbar in mail.app to show only text.

it works...

DavidHossack · May 4, 2005, 03:40 AM

^^you only need to do that for the multi segment buttons. That fixes the crash
| |

Mediaman_12 · May 4, 2005, 08:22 AM

Cool! Now all I have to do is dig out the old icons from somewhere.
This is fairly complex though, perhaps whoever made the Cage Fighter app can make an 'improved' version?

ambush · May 4, 2005, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by Mediaman_12

Cool! Now all I have to do is dig out the old icons from somewhere.
This is fairly complex though, perhaps whoever made the Cage Fighter app can make an 'improved' version?

Someone provided a link in this thread....

Could someone give me (jolivierld AT gmail DOTTTTT com) their Message Composer Window .toolbar? I think I fubared mine very badly.

Thanks.

MacScott · May 4, 2005, 11:23 AM

Has anyone figured out how to move the mail boxes to the right side and also get rid of that ANNOYING blue fill colour?

thanks for the tips on fixing those annoying icons!

DavidHossack · May 4, 2005, 01:19 PM

I heard that Theme Park/Shapeshifter may be able to do it once Thempark 2.1 is out.

Maybe mistaken.

I am not sure what colour I would want the side panel-pale grey maybe

It might be possible to move the sidebar in the .nibs-I can't remember just now what there was but it would be tricky I think. Looks very custom. It is consistent with the Finder, iTunes, iPhoto etc just now. Maybe a little over designed for left to right languages.