[benign]

For now Roderick, Just swap the resources
yourself.

On a restart, shutdown etc... I get an OS dialog
box resplendent in aqua ;(

If SS had a 'safe' option install of themes and
a 'FULL' install - boots, splashes and icons
etc... that could make us all happy.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by benign:
For now Roderick, Just swap the resources
yourself.

That's what I do. If guiKit is the only format from now on for themes, though... Bad times ahead.

We should have that "use at your own risk" option. Or a "pro" version of Shapeshifter, making the basic one a free app. I'd pay for the pro one much, much more than 20$!

[iNeusch]

Originally posted by benign:
For now Roderick, Just swap the resources
yourself.

On a restart, shutdown etc... I get an OS dialog
box resplendent in aqua ;(

If SS had a 'safe' option install of themes and
a 'FULL' install - boots, splashes and icons
etc... that could make us all happy.

You should be doing politics
Seriously, that's a gret idea...

Actually it's the only reason I'mwaiting to pay...

[solidfox]

I'd pay for the pro one much, much more than 20$! [/B]

Whoa, don't give smeger any ideas now, there are poor students around here too ya know.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by solidfox:
Whoa, don't give smeger any ideas now, there are poor students around here too ya know.

Sorry.

They wouldn't have developed the new proprietary guiKit though,
if they were thinking about allowing people to mess with the system,
methinks.

Mmm, smeger? Are you considering such an option in future releases?

[smeger]

Originally posted by Roderick:
Mmm, smeger? Are you considering such an option in future releases?

No.

ShapeShifter has two primary goals - to make theming safe and to overcome limitations imposed by previous methods. APE is what allows that first goal to succeed. If something goes haywire or if an OS update breaks my existing assumptions (in other words, if a worst-case scenario occurs), you login while holding the <shift> key and keep on running with no problems.

The items that can't be themed by ShapeShifter are drawn by a root-owned process. ShapeShifter won't theme these because to do so introduces both stability and security risks. You would no longer be able to use the <shift> key trick; instead, you'd need to reinstall your OS if something went catastrophically wrong.

I won't say that these items will never be themable with ShapeShifter, but it's pretty unlikely because I don't see a way to do it safely and securely.

Regarding the openness of the guiKit file format, here's the deal: I saw an opportunity to trade slowness, brittleness, and large filesizes (dlta) for speediness, flexibility, and small filesizes (guiKit). Wait! A tradeoff with no downside! This has never happened to me before in my software career! Bang!

Turns out that the downside is in the public relations direction - people perceive the file format as closed. I hadn't really given any thought to this aspect, thinking that only geeks like me care about the internals of a file format, and that average users would just be thrilled to have a small, fast file.

In any case, closedness is not something that Unsanity strives for. We're not sure yet how we're going to address this issue so I can't say what we'll do to resolve it, but there's no "Let's make a closed and cryptic file format" conspiracy afoot.

Our motivation was speed and convenience, not secrecy.

[cloudaj]

while i can see the argument against login windows and boot panels, the force quit dialog box also can not be themed it seems (or is its just me? hope not). And that, IMHO, is one of the more "important" things to have themed as that is something the user will see after login. The about box too though, for me, i force quit more than i look at the about box

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by Roderick:
I log in 5-7 times a day in three different computers. That means about 15-21 times a day I have to look at the login window. Every day.

More sometimes, if work regarding different users requires that I log in and out.

And people, that something is good for the "vast majority" doesn't mean - or it shouldn't at any rate - that if you're not part of the majority, well, bad luck, you can't enjoy the ride, because we don't care about the little guy. Just about the "vast majority".

No?

I also log-in and out a lot too, but you only see the log-in screen for maybe 5sec at a time. Also what about other users? They have other themes for there accounts.

[Fellow2000]

Originally posted by smeger:
[B]No.

ShapeShifter has two primary goals - to make theming safe

Oh right, and crashing applications has certainly accomplished that....................

[Seion]

Oh right, and crashing applications has certainly accomplished that....................

Tell that to the people that hosed their system and had to do a full system reinstall b/c of broken dlta's or a bad installation by ThemeChanger...

The worst ShapeShifter does is make certain applications crash. And if it ever prevented you from login in, all you would have to do is hit the shift key on login, and voil�! clean system.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Fellow2000:
Oh right, and crashing applications has certainly accomplished that....................

Stay away from 10.2 themes for now and use 10.3 themes and you wont have a single application crash due to SS...

[Anderton]

Like somebody else already wrote.
An theme archive site like the one at www.kaleidoscope.net would be so good. Sure, we have Resexcellence. But i want an more "offical" SS site.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Anderton:
Like somebody else already wrote.
An theme archive site like the one at www.kaleidoscope.net would be so good. Sure, we have Resexcellence. But i want an more "offical" SS site.

This is pretty good imo:
MacUpdate

[Roderick]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
I also log-in and out a lot too, but you only see the log-in screen for maybe 5sec at a time. Also what about other users? They have other themes for there accounts.

I'm talking about the users I have in my machines. The computers I use. I need several different users for my job. I don't use any theme changer, I replace the system files myself (Extras.rsrc and various graphics throughout the system). I see the login screen too many times a day and I have it perfectly themed now. Why should I lose that? I don't want to use SS, why force me?

Security? I haven't had a problem replacing graphics myself, ever.

Let me be, and keep enjoying what I have now. Since I read the forum last time, the word "monopoly" has come up a lot. Indeed.

"Don't buy it or don't use it and stop bitching".

How can I? If I don't use it, I can't have themes from now on? Please. Come back to earth, people at Unsanity.

[fisherKing]

i'd like to see options, ie different menus to choose from (ie translucent black, gray, etc), different widgets.

there are some great themes out there, but i'd like to pick&choose some of the details...

for example, you could run theme A with the menus from theme B and the widgets from theme C.


??

a thought...

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by fisherKing:
ou could run theme A with the menus from theme B and the widgets from theme C.

That would be nightmarish from a user-interface perspective... and then there might be theme designers who don't like the idea of contributing discreet elements to mishmash interfaces.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
That would be nightmarish from a user-interface perspective... and then there might be theme designers who don't like the idea of contributing discreet elements to mishmash interfaces.

Yuck... I agree.

[WICKEDfour]

All right, I know you guys are working on this probably as I'm writing this, but I'll throw it out there. These are pretty nit-picky, but we're still obviously having limitations with theming, specifically with menus...
1. True Menu Extras don't use the Menu Enhancer selection resources
2. Border fill/stretch resources are cut off on the top and bottom-right of menus (see Aluminum Alloy, Milk 2.0, etc.)

Response to limitations:
1. I wouldn't know, but it shouldn't be that hard to get Menu Extras to use the Menu Enhancer selection resources (I'm referring to the highlight the item in the menu bar, not the selection fill of the menu items).
2. In terms of "modern" theming, most likely if you have any kind of border fill/"accent" on the left, you will either have the same kind of thing (flipped) on the right, will not have it at all, or will have a different fill. Concerning the first scenario I mentioned, if there weren't special elements for the starting and ending fill accents couldn't there be one resource for the following?
A. Fill of starting border-ish area of menu
B. Fill of menu "stretch", being the rest of the menu and menu items
C. Fill of bottom border-ish area of menu
That would be able to produce both the left border/edge fill accent and the right border/edge fill accent?

I think that it would be a good idea...at least if the ability to mirror the menu "accents" (i.e. the resources are "facing" left, but SS flips them to "face" right.)

[fisherKing]

hmmmm...
all i really want, for example, is to use translucent black menus with GUiPod, for example.
or a different apple logo.
etc

if elements are consistent, why not let the user have those options?

(just asking )

[phillryu]

Because in most cases, elements are not consistent.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by fisherKing:
hmmmm...
all i really want, for example, is to use translucent black menus with GUiPod, for example.
or a different apple logo.
etc

if elements are consistent, why not let the user have those options?

(just asking )

You could always play around in ThemePark if you really want to change a theme.

[x user]

I agree with some other people that the About this Mac, and the Login screens SHOULD be POSSIBLE to be themed. I was using Duality before, and with SimpleX they were themed, now using SS I can't theme them back to aqua (Not a big deal to me) but I also can't get them to appear like any other theme.

Either build the functionality into SS or make another FREE app to change them. Also a comment, to avoid confusion with newbe's.

Make a logout MANDITORY after theme change, this will fix the contextual menu icons and other little items that don't get to be changed otherwise.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by x user:
I agree with some other people that the About this Mac, and the Login screens SHOULD be POSSIBLE to be themed. I was using Duality before, and with SimpleX they were themed, now using SS I can't theme them back to aqua (Not a big deal to me) but I also can't get them to appear like any other theme.

Either build the functionality into SS or make another FREE app to change them. Also a comment, to avoid confusion with newbe's.

Make a logout MANDITORY after theme change, this will fix the contextual menu icons and other little items that don't get to be changed otherwise.

If you read a bit about how SS works you'll understand WHY they aren't themed. It's because SS doesn't replace system resources, it's an APE that doesn't even touch the system resources and only runs under the logged-in user. If it ran in root it could change everything but that would compromising security and stability.

Theme Changer and the old apps replace the system resources so everything can be changed, but is limited in many other ways and is also less safe than SS.

[FB Eye]

On-the-fly "Hue Adjustments", like Panic's Audion does with it's Faces

But I suppose that would be very complicated to achieve...

[acarboni]

I don't know if this is a ShapeShifter request or a more of a windowshade one, but:

I've always wanted to be able to make ALL of my windows transparent by default. I know you can toggle it right now with WindowShade, but you can't make it automatic.

I'd love to be able to have my windows be 90% opaque, with all the icons and text in them completely solid.

Just something I've been jonesing for, seemed like a good place to bring it up.

[Fluid]

:: My Request

:: Silk Integration!
:: Modify size of Menubar - Think Windows Thin Taskbar
:: Window Borders
:: Remove Shadows
:: Same resources for Carbon and Cocoa (I know. In my dreams)

:: Fluid

[dggraphics]

How about an option to change the text color of a theme to whatever you like via an option in the pref. pane. in SS or SIlk.

Ever thought about creating one big OS X customization app, that contains all of the ape's, plus all of the editable defaults in the dock and finder, with an accessible menu bar widget

[undotwa]

It would be nice if the functionality of all of Unsanity's GUI tools were merged into ShapeShifter. Maybe Unsanity could then charge $30 for it.

[phillryu]

Originally posted by undotwa:
It would be nice if the functionality of all of Unsanity's GUI tools were merged into ShapeShifter. Maybe Unsanity could then charge $30 for it.

Or maybe they could keep it the same price.

I think not all of Unsanity's haxies make sense, but things like shadows on/off, silk and mighty mouse should have their functions in the app, but perhaps set as a part of themes by the authors. That is, unless Jason wants to include full mighty mouse functionality in SS, which is his choice.

[Patcarla]

Originally posted by undotwa:
It would be nice if the functionality of all of Unsanity's GUI tools were merged into ShapeShifter. Maybe Unsanity could then charge $30 for it.

>I would rather have two version, one at $20 with SS alone and one more expensive with the other haxies..

[TheSpaz]

Is there a possibility to have ShapeShifter have an option to change text SIZES or font face?

Silk is really buggy for me... I wish there was a way to change font sizes because everything in OS X seems too big and bold for me... have you ever tried a pro app? So, to be able to change font sizes would be cool.

[Frisbee]

Originally posted by x user:
....Make a logout MANDITORY after theme change...

Nooooooo....... I rarely logout after changing themes, it's such a pain in the ass. Whenever I install something that "requires" a restart, I force quit the installer.

[benign]

Just like panics 'Audion'

"Face Hue Shifting"

The ability to adjust a skin/themes
hue would be an excellent SS future
improvement.

[Larg0]

I want there to be a way to have window background fill color (like in the finder) to be changed when i chance themes. The white can be kind of distracting with really dark themes like Neos.

So long,
Larg0

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Frisbee:
Nooooooo....... I rarely logout after changing themes, it's such a pain in the ass. Whenever I install something that "requires" a restart, I force quit the installer.

Fantastic way to frag your system there... (not always, but occasionally)

[Hobeaux]

okay, i'm curious about something:

Apple's Pro applications (such as Soundtrack) use a special "Pro GUI" which has everthing in shades of gray -- including Finder backgrounds in file listings, open/save dialogs...

how did they accomplish this?

I would presume that if Apple found a way to alter finder-style windows that there must be a way. I did notice, however, that they still use Tabs, so it's not referencing the Panther GUI in that instance...

[Frisbee]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
Fantastic way to frag your system there... (not always, but occasionally)

My system's fine, and it's a pain in the ass to save all my open documents, say bye to every one I'm talking to on AIM, disconnect from my dialup which is a pain in the ass. I logout, log back in... I have to CONNECT to my dialup, which can require multiple tries, if I was downloading something with safari or the terminal, THAT has to restart... open all the webpages I was at, open all the saved documents, not to mention I have ended a song in the middle of it. I'm sure having broadband would help a lot, because connecting and disconnecting is definitely the worst part.

[ryaxnb]

The Interface
I'm not sure the interface in this version is really up to the task. I agree with the sentiment I heard expressed that having both highlighting (of a row in the list view) and selection (of the radio button associated with that row) trigger changes is confusing and overly complex. I see nothing wrong with the way other theme changers have done it in the past -- the highlight is the selection, but the theme does not get applied until the "Apply" button is clicked. SS's interface might make more sense if the Apply button had been removed in favor of an immediate switch when selected (if this feature is added in the future it would entirely obviate the need for a Preview button anyway), but since the interface model is essentially the same adding this layer of complexity is really not necessary.

Yeah. I actually like radio buttons better then highlight, but having both is pointless. Though I definitely like SS, I've got another Nit to Pick: The Intro screen. Couldn't they simply squish the logo and Buy button (especially for people like me, who already bought it) on the Themes screen? Heck, maybe they could make the Intro like a Nag screen - trial only.

Theme Switcher Legacy
I've also noticed that SS has some behaviors that seem to be a carry-over from the theme switchers of yore (being defined here as last Monday). For example, SS still does not apply new themes to open applications until they are quit and relaunched. This has likely gone from being a limitation of the system's theming engine to being a limitation of the APE framework, but I have more faith in Unsanity's ability to fix it than I did in Apple's desire to try.

I'm not so sure about this. It would take extra work to fix, and I prefer an excellent theme switcher now then a perfect one later. I hope they're trying, though.

Also, though none of the themes distributed with SS have more than one variation, I notice that SS does not affect the Appearance variation popup menu in the Appearance preference pane, potentially opening up the possibility of using it to switch between variations of the current theme. My personal take on this is that such switching should not take place in a system-installed preference pane, and should instead be done entirely from within SS; one way to represent this fact to users might be to disable the Appearance variation popup entirely when a non-DLTA theme is in use.

I think it's fine.

Lastly, as mentioned before, the entire notion of a theme preview seems outdated. Switching a theme in memory takes so little time that there's little to lose by just applying the theme outright, though this would require that themes be applied to running applications on-the-fly.

Maybe.

[quote]Pushing the Envelope
Now we come at last to the fun stuff -- things we could never do before that SS can (hopefully) make possible. Here's a quick list:

- Playing with shadows (making them colored, directional, or simply not present)

They can do this in WindowShade X already, so it should be a piece of cake to add them to ShapeShifter. I'm hoping for this in 1.5. It would help with some themes like FatalE.

- Adding grips and highlight states to scrollbar thumbs

Though not high priority in my mind, a good idea - would especially help Mac OS XP.

- Adding mouseover states to everything (hey, no one said all the features had to be in good taste)

Not everything. But some stuff.

- Changing the position of titlebar text

Duh. And position too (Mac OS XP and such)

- Determining the width of said titlebar text and applying pixmaps to it at runtime so we can do things like BeOS tabs and Classic pinstripes

Not so sure, but sounds good. Also, titlebar transparency - I want Jag's transparent titlebars back!

- Setting the system font, size, and color right in SS (rather than installing Silk and hoping the metrics for our chosen font agree well enough with Lucida Grande)

Yes - You know, maybe Unsanity could create a 'SS Pro' or something... nah. . Mac OS XP, for instance, and a BeOS theme, and a QNX theme... would be helped by this.

- Possible integration of (or at least quick access to) Mighty Mouse (I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to get permission for that, eh smeger?)

No integration - otherwise the price would balloon to $40 or something with all these programs included. But a link to Mighty Mouse, and in particular, a way to incorporate cursors into GUIKit for Mighty M users, would be good.

Yeah - other obvious ideas include more stuff to theme - GUIKits should include, and SS should be able to theme, icons, menulets, and Safari. Preferably also iTunes and QuickTime.