[goMac]

Carpe Stellarem is proud to announce Xtender our latest tool under development for modding your Mac. Xtender breaks the bounds of OS X theme development forever... and more...

In essence, Xtender is not a theme changer. Xtender can "inject" any program on the computer with outside code. This makes it possible to add functionality into an application or modify an existing behavior.

Xtender 1.0 will ship with 5 basic functions:

Themes - Xtender 1.0 will support the XScheme+ format and will take full advantage of ThemeKit 2.0. But Xtender takes a new twist on themes. Themes can integrate directly with Xtender's injector engine. This allows themes to not only change the look of a program, but also the behavior. Want to create an actual start menu? No problem. How about re-arrange the order of the close/minimize/zoom buttons? Xtender can do that. Theme creators can mix and match Xtender mods within a theme to create a theme experiance thats not just skin deep. Xtender also has a royalty free API for mod creation, so anyone with coding skills can make mods. Xtender for the first time provides near-Linux theme support but not only allowing the changing of looks, but the changing of behavior. Best of all, Xtender operates without modifying the users hard drive.

LiveTheme 2.0 - LiveTheme is back from Duality 3, and even better. Version 2.0 is built on the Safari rendering engine, and operates similar to the iTunes Music Store (without the need of a credit card of course). Users are presented with a page, they click on a theme, and it is downloaded directly into Xtender. It uses a plug in architecture meaning anyone who wishes to can create a php, html, or asp web page with support for MySQL, Flash, CSS, and anything Safari supports, and distribute themes to LiveTheme users quickly and easily. We have working with XThemination for the past month on an implementation of LiveTheme and testing. We plan to release a standalone LiveTheme client for Duality, ShapeShifter, and ThemeChanger next week. Best of all, LiveTheme allows downloaded .themes and XSchemes to work in ShapeShifter, so format will not be a concern with LiveTheme. However, GUIKit cannot be supported due to it not being an open format (we can't read it). Users of ThemePark can easily export to XScheme however.

Icons - Xtender will feature a re-hashed icon system. Users can change the pictures that represent items in the Finder. A new version of our Catalyst supports editing of icon sets and deployment.

Window Behavior - Xtender isn't just a new Duality. It breaks out of the traditional theme niche by providing new capabilities. Xtender features the ability to bring back the old Window Shade feature from OS 9. It can also disable window shadows, make all windows Aqua, or make all windows brushed.

Mod management - Xtender also allows mods to be installed independently of themes. Developers can create mods using a royalty free API, without dinking around with a "lite" API. The API is royalty free for all freeware, shareware, and commercial developers. Developers can create theme-independent mods to change system behavior without changing looks.

Another feature I'll mention really quick is sound sets. Sound sets will not be included with the 1.0 release but are being coded for the 1.1 release. We are operating on a very quick timeline and the feature just didn't make the cut.

And best of all, Xtender will debut at a price of $15. This is a fraction of the cost it would cost to buy each competing program seperately. We also plan on making contributions back to an open source project.

Xtender shatters the bounds of OS X and allows developers to make their customization dreams a reality. Themes aren't about looks anymore. Xtender allows a theme to be an experience, not just another skin.

Currently the Xtender engine is complete. Xtender was planned to be the successor to our "Monolith" project, but Monolith was abandon in favor of Xtender. We are still linking up various functionality on the theme and icon features. The LiveTheme feature is done. Theme management features are complete. We are starting on Window Behavior within the near future. As I stated we are operating on a very quick timeline and expect to be released by March at latest.

Sorry if this is a lot to take in but we have a lot to announce.

Edit: Forgot to mention we should also be launching the official Xtender site next week.

[zachs]

Hmmm, so how will this be arranged? That is, will there be a preference pane for switching themes, and a separate editor? Or is it all in one app?

Also, are themes applied on-the-fly, or (more likely) do you still have to quit/restart apps for it to take affect?

Can you mod the login and boot panels? How bout stuff like rollover states for widgets?

[mac15]

Sounds cool, I guess we'll have to see how it goes. I mean SS has its heels dug in already

[goMac]

Originally posted by zachs:
Hmmm, so how will this be arranged? That is, will there be a preference pane for switching themes, and a separate editor? Or is it all in one app?

Also, are themes applied on-the-fly, or (more likely) do you still have to quit/restart apps for it to take affect?

Can you mod the login and boot panels? How bout stuff like rollover states for widgets?

It is currently all one preference pane. On the fly theming does not yet work, although other functionality is on the fly. Currently you cannot mod login and boot panels (Xtender is per user). Rollover states for widgets depends on which widgets you are talking about.

[wibs]

Originally posted by goMac:
Forgot to mention we should also be launching the official Xtender site next week.

and when will Xtender itself be available?

[zachs]

Originally posted by goMac:
It is currently all one preference pane. On the fly theming does not yet work, although other functionality is on the fly. Currently you cannot mod login and boot panels (Xtender is per user). Rollover states for widgets depends on which widgets you are talking about.

When you say on the fly themeing doesn't "yet" work, does that mean that it might in the future? If you got that to work, I think that'd be the killer feature right there.

As for rollover states, I mean other than the close/resize/minimize widgets. Does Xtender support rollover states for any other widgets (buttons, etc.)

[goMac]

Originally posted by wibs:
and when will Xtender itself be available?

As I stated March by the latest. The engine is done right now, so it really won't take too long. I'm just allowing time for betas and any un-forseen problems.

[goMac]

Originally posted by zachs:
When you say on the fly themeing doesn't "yet" work, does that mean that it might in the future? If you got that to work, I think that'd be the killer feature right there.

As for rollover states, I mean other than the close/resize/minimize widgets. Does Xtender support rollover states for any other widgets (buttons, etc.)

Xtender could in the future support on the fly themes because it injects code into applications. We would simply have to figure out how to go about writing something into an application that would cause themes to refresh. The capacity is there, the knowledge simply isn't right now.

Xtender supports any rollover state in the Extras.rsrc (it supports everything in the Extras.rsrc in fact) and modding of many various files commonly found in themes. If you can change it with Duality or ThemeChanger, it will probably work in Xtender. Any other rollover which isn't as clear cut could probably be modded with a code injection (i.e it doesn't live in a nice image file).

[timdorr]

So....basically you've built your own aped, copied WindowShadeX, ShapeShifter, Metalfizer, FruitMenu, and added your own haxies.

Even though it sounds copied, I still like the competition, and wish the best. I'm looking forward to it, at least

[goMac]

Originally posted by timdorr:
So....basically you've built your own aped, copied WindowShadeX, ShapeShifter, Metalfizer, FruitMenu, and added your own haxies.

Even though it sounds copied, I still like the competition, and wish the best. I'm looking forward to it, at least

We don't like to exactly put it that way (although I suggested we name the project Monkey, our engine coder didn't go for it).

What we see as an advantage is that Xtender has an open API. Anybody can code mods for it for free, commercial or non-commerical. APE only offers the free "APE Lite" SDK which can only affect the application using it. In addition Xtender integrates themes with mods, allowing you to change the behavior of the interface in addition to changing the look. Think of it like having the ability to include APE modules as part of a theme.

[NetworkShadow]

Well if it ever sees the light of day I'll be interested and might even buy it if it does work the way you say it will, but until you post a download link it sounds like just a load of BS... as cool as it sounds, but still your credibility level has taken a dive with your last few announcements.

[kovacs]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
Well if it ever sees the light of day I'll be interested and might even buy it if it does work the way you say it will, but until you post a download link it sounds like just a load of BS... as cool as it sounds, but still your credibility level has taken a dive with your last few announcements.

My thoughts exactly, I'm still very sceptical about this project, but it sounds pretty impressive....so did Duality GT...

[quandarry]

colin

you ever hear the one about the boy who cried wolf too often...

i hope this isn't vaporware...we need beef...where's the beef?

pick some people and put it out for some test driving or beta testing or just release a macnn beta for the peeps here to try.

sounds too good to be true...people will be skeptical...if'n ya know what i mean.

get ready for some crap from some of the peeps here anyway...some have heard wolf too often.

have my fingers crossed.

[Patcarla]

Sounds promising but I hope that this time we'll see something substantial or should I say, real....

[phillryu]

Colin, if you don't mind, I put up a news byte at macthemes.net.

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by goMac:
Xtender could in the future support on the fly themes because it injects code into applications.

Ok umm, so your changing (by adding code) applications. That is, my MS Excel will have code "injected" into it to behave a certain way, menu wise or visually. Is that correct?

Seems kind of risky for a couple of reasons stable applications could possibly become crash prone if the skin or behavior is buggy or your injector is buggy.

Secondly viruses, are there checks and balances to prevent someone from producing nefarious code that will be injected?

Maybe I'm not understanding the whole thing but I think SS seems a whole lot safer.

Good luck though and I hope this isn't vaporware either, though I'll sit on the fence for a while. That whole injector thing kind of scares me.

[Maflynn]

Freakin double post

[TheSpaz]

I'm not going to hold my breath. I remember Monolith... *Yawn* if you're going to announce something... you gotta provide!

I support guiKits and Shape Shifter!

GoMac... get a life. Seriously... try annoucing something when you actually HAVE something for us.

[Slayer-X]

Screenshots? At least screenshots would provide a little proof. Screens of the prefs panel, of a theme in action, so on and so forth. Otherwise the past record just makes this look like another vaporware.

[sanity assassin]

sounds promising, looking forward to trying it out.

[unlinear]

GoMac,

"Xtender 1.0 will ship"

I thought you would've learned from what, well, everybody's been saying here.

I personally, and I think along with me a lot of others, don't care for 'will ship'. I care for "shipped". I'm tired of Duality/Carpe hype. Really tired.

For like the umpteenth time in a row you have an announcement about what's coming out, with nothing to show for it, and a vague release date. Please learn from the past here.

[goMac]

The LiveTheme portion will be out next week seperately, the engine is done (we based a lot of our work on the open source engine Zaius, and plan on contributing back to it). We did do decide to announce early on Xtender to build support for it as it is developed. Obviously no one is going to support a product they have never heard of. Other things, like LiveTheme, get the last minute treatment. There is actually a whole different theme changer that was supposed to ship within about a week we never announced. Xtender is a whole new system and requires development from others in order to make it work.

I'll post screenshots later today if that makes people happier...

[div]

Ok umm, so your changing (by adding code) applications. That is, my MS Excel will have code "injected" into it to behave a certain way, menu wise or visually. Is that correct?

Seems kind of risky for a couple of reasons stable applications could possibly become crash prone if the skin or behavior is buggy or your injector is buggy.

I second Maflynn's concerns here. If a program is "injecting" (and thereby altering?) the code in Photoshop, for example, could this potentially cause instability issues with the "recipient" program?
If Xtender does all the things you've listed in this post, I'll surely buy it. However, the main question I'm going to have before I click that "buy" button is "How is this going to affect my other applications?" One of the appealing factors of SS is that it's very safe. Is Carpe Stellarem willing to make the same assurances?

Thanks for your time goMac.

/ div

[SwarmyCurve]

Aren't there enough theme switching utilities already?

gesh

[ambush]

injecting.... mach_inject?

Sounds like a good ol' APE ripoff to me...

Good luck competing with Unsanity!

[TheDisaster]

"Holy Grail"

[goMac]

Originally posted by div:
I second Maflynn's concerns here. If a program is "injecting" (and thereby altering?) the code in Photoshop, for example, could this potentially cause instability issues with the "recipient" program?
If Xtender does all the things you've listed in this post, I'll surely buy it. However, the main question I'm going to have before I click that "buy" button is "How is this going to affect my other applications?" One of the appealing factors of SS is that it's very safe. Is Carpe Stellarem willing to make the same assurances?

Thanks for your time goMac.

/ div

SS also injects code into applications. I don't see the problem.

[div]

SS also injects code into applications. I don't see the problem.

I wasn't aware of that. But (please read this as blunt, not rude) you didn't answer the question. My question was if Carpe Stellarem was going to make the same assurances that SS does concerning application stability.
Look, I'm not trying to attack you like others are on this forum. I'm simply looking for an answer as to whether or not Xtender will effect application or OS stability/performance. Please pardon my ignorance if I'm misunderstanding what Xtender does.

Thanks for your time.

/ div

[goMac]

Originally posted by div:
I wasn't aware of that. But (please read this as blunt, not rude) you didn't answer the question. My question was if Carpe Stellarem was going to make the same assurances that SS does concerning application stability.
Look, I'm not trying to attack you like others are on this forum. I'm simply looking for an answer as to whether or not Xtender will effect application or OS stability/performance. Please pardon my ignorance if I'm misunderstanding what Xtender does.

Thanks for your time.

/ div

Obviously patching code can cause instabilities. However, many people do it and take stability into mind. Xtender does not use a kext so it can't take your whole system down. We are obviously doing to go through and carefully debug our code (although the patches are fairly simple, so not much could go wrong). 3rd party patches built for Xtender could obviously be less safe, but that would be something that users would take up with the 3rd party developer.

[goMac]

Here are some screenshots. We'll show some more when the web site launches next week.

Xtender:
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/Xtender1.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/Xtender2.pdf

LiveTheme:
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme1.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme2.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme3.pdf

They're full screen and pdf, sorry.

[div]

Thank you for the explanation Colin. I look forward to giving Xtender a try.

/ div

[dws]

Originally posted by goMac:
SS also injects code into applications. I don't see the problem.

I'm fairly certain that SS does not "inject code into applications" (whatever that means). It utilizes APE to redisplay the UI (making the necessary changes on the fly). It doesn't change the actual applications themselves. Think of it as acting in a realm above, and separate from, applications. If my understanding of SS is correct, the UI is actually sent to the screen in its normal Aqua state, but is then overlaid/replaced by SS; so what you see is themed. This behavior is why SS is so inherently safe. It doesn't actually change anything!

Xtender, on the other hand, appears to have a goal that is quite different. Some of the claims make me nervous, since changing the functionality of applications can both create instability and violate one's user agreements. But... We'll all see next week when the Xtender site debuts; and then as late as March when Xtender itself is realeased.

[goMac]

Originally posted by dws:
It utilizes APE to redisplay the UI (making the necessary changes on the fly). It doesn't change the actual applications themselves.

APE is an Application Enhancing Engine (hence the name APE). APE is actually the engine that injects code.

Here is Unsanity's description of APE:

"Application Enhancer is a haxie that will enhance how your applications work by loading modules in them."

"Application Enhancer performs its task by loading plugins (Application Enhancer modules) containing executable code into the running applications. Once loaded, the APE module performs the needed modifications (such as redefining the minimize window action, or customizing the standard Apple menu) on the launched application memory space, never touching any files on disk, utilizing set of functions defined in the Application Enhancer framework."

[Maflynn]

Fair enough about APE, I was unaware of that fact.
Two observations
1. APE is now a mature product and is a known commodity.
2. You and/or your company seems to have a reputation of over-hyping products and/or not releasing them, so it seems strange that the flaming that you got from your last post about killing a product that never saw the light of day (after much hype) you announce this unreleased product. Wouldn't it generate more goodwill and less angst if your press relase coincided with the relase of you application?

As for getting people to jump on development, I don't think your going to see to much of that until they actually see a released product. Time is money and they don't want to spin their wheels on a product that either will not live up to billing or see the light day.

Finally A question does your injector api include disk/file access, that is extensions so that an enhancer can access files and folders?


Thanks
Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
Fair enough about APE, I was unaware of that fact.
Two observations
1. APE is now a mature product and is a known commodity.
2. You and/or your company seems to have a reputation of over-hyping products and/or not releasing them, so it seems strange that the flaming that you got from your last post about killing a product that never saw the light of day (after much hype) you announce this unreleased product. Wouldn't it generate more goodwill and less angst if your press relase coincided with the relase of you application?

As for getting people to jump on development, I don't think your going to see to much of that until they actually see a released product. Time is money and they don't want to spin their wheels on a product that either will not live up to billing or see the light day.

Finally A question does your injector api include disk/file access, that is extensions so that an enhancer can access files and folders?


Thanks
Mike

The problem is we need support for our application. It would be near possible to keep it secret anyway if we did seek support. We need theme designers, icon designers, and coders. We have had LiveTheme in a usable state for quite a while but didn't announce that because it didn't require too much external support.

We're also not only competing with APE. We're competing with all Unsanity products for a much lower price.

As for your question Xtender does not yet support accessing of other bundles containing data, which is one reason sound sets won't make it in the 1.0 release. Bundle access will be working by 1.1.

[cloudaj]

well unsanity had 3 themers on board for release, perhaps more knew about it even, so I don't think keeping it under wraps in nearly as hard as you say. No one saw SS coming.

[ambush]

Originally posted by goMac:
We need theme designers, icon designers, and coders.

When you ripoff a company, you need to make sure your app will be better.

I don't see how yours would be better than what Unsanity has to offer.

For example, look at how many options windowshadex has? And we're not even considering their more-than-elite implementation of MIP...

I don't think theme designers will want to jump boat after all the broken promises you made here... the first step to community acceptance would be public excuses.

Omega will probably be a hard hit for Xtender...

[rhythmicmoose]

Wow. From the screenshots this looks excellent. I'd really like to see an original theme that shows off some of the features this adds to the Mac's GUI. You mentioned the ability to craft a Start menu or rollover states on elements that usually don't have them. When I see those, I'll really be pumped.

[goMac]

Originally posted by ambush:
When you ripoff a company, you need to make sure your app will be better.

I don't see how yours would be better than what Unsanity has to offer.

I think the strongest point is the integration of mods and themes. With Unsanity, ShapeShifter and APE are two seperate programs. With Xtender, they are the same program and they integrate fully. A theme designer could use mods to change not only the look of the mac, but its behavior. A Windows theme could change the Apple menu into an actual start menu. You can re-arrange buttons or override behavior in OS X. Xtender really isn't aimed at just doing themes. Its a complete behavior and appearance modifier. Most of the problems themers have are related to the default behavior of OS X. Imagine being able to make all Aqua windows metal from within a theme to get window borders working? Xtender can do that. All you have to do is include the proper mod with a theme.

[Jan Van Boghout]

Originally posted by goMac:
Here are some screenshots. We'll show some more when the web site launches next week.

Xtender:
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/Xtender1.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/Xtender2.pdf

LiveTheme:
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme1.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme2.pdf
http://homepage.mac.com/gomac/LiveTheme3.pdf

They're full screen and pdf, sorry.

Am I being paranoid or is that an awfully empty project? Did you add all the actual functionality to ThemeKit and make the prefpane just a mere interface to the daemon? Surely you'd import some more frameworks than that� I guess I'm just skeptical after your previous Monolith hyping

[goMac]

Originally posted by Jan Van Boghout:
Am I being paranoid or is that an awfully empty project? Did you add all the actual functionality to ThemeKit and make the prefpane just a mere interface to the daemon? Surely you'd import some more frameworks than that� I guess I'm just skeptical after your previous Monolith hyping

Theres a lot of code moving doing on right now. The GUI is being created using leftover Monolith code, and unused Duality 4.5 code. To complicate things we're moving from an app to a preference pane. The engine also is not linked up right now. The engine is actually an entire seperate program that I don't even have the code for (I only have some early dev code actually). Its being developed by a different programmer. So if the app looks like it does nothing right not, it probably doesn't. Both the engine and the application are working but simply aren't linked together right now, but we don't see that taking much time. We have the engine doing theme functionality, and the application doing theme organization. Most of the theme reading functions are also in ThemeKit, which has grown to around 15 classes.

As a side note one of the features you don't see is instant loading. Xtender doesn't have to parse themes everytime it starts up. It took about a second for Xtender to load in that screen shot.

LiveTheme is fully functional and has been in testing.

[EatingPie]

At this point lemme just say... Give the guy a freakin' break!

The thing ain't out yet, so ragging on him about it doesn't help. Besides, we have nothing to rag about at this point. The ship date hasn't slipped. And we have no idea if it's better or worse than shapeshifter. The "code injection" thing is quite clearly similar to APE... and they're providing the API free. And, most importantly, it's a competitor and (as someone rightly pointed out) competition is good.

But I guess such is life on MacNNN forums. Every thread I've ever read has had a flame, complaint, or whiny post... (This post included ) So why should this thread be any different?

Anyway, take a qualude, don't drive, but be mellow and wait to see what happens.

-Pie

[MorphOSX]

Wow, Colin, I gotta say...it deffinitely looks like you put some time and effor into this.

I guess the biggest questions are going to be these:

A) will it support .guiKit files, as those are the standard format for theme devs these days,
B) Will it allow for advanced options for theming?
C) will it come with a theme editor to accompany its new features?

[phillryu]

Originally posted by MorphOSX:
Wow, Colin, I gotta say...it deffinitely looks like you put some time and effor into this.

I guess the biggest questions are going to be these:

A) will it support .guiKit files, as those are the standard format for theme devs these days,
B) Will it allow for advanced options for theming?
C) will it come with a theme editor to accompany its new features?

From what I understand,

A) No, themers would supposedly support the xscheme format with its advantages.
B) Yes (his example was reordering widgets)
C) Yes, he's mentioned this before.

[olorin15]

Originally posted by EatingPie:
At this point lemme just say... Give the guy a freakin' break!

The thing ain't out yet, so ragging on him about it doesn't help. Besides, we have nothing to rag about at this point. The ship date hasn't slipped. And we have no idea if it's better or worse than shapeshifter. The "code injection" thing is quite clearly similar to APE... and they're providing the API free. And, most importantly, it's a competitor and (as someone rightly pointed out) competition is good.

I completely agree - competition IS good. But it's not really competition until this app actually appears on a web page with valid download links ... I think that's why many are complaining from the start. SS was announced a day before it was released if i remember right. This app has no release date ...

[kovacs]

I don't know what to think anymore so I'm just going to give him the benefit of the doubt and we'll see what the future brings...

[goMac]

Originally posted by MorphOSX:
Wow, Colin, I gotta say...it deffinitely looks like you put some time and effor into this.

I guess the biggest questions are going to be these:

A) will it support .guiKit files, as those are the standard format for theme devs these days,
B) Will it allow for advanced options for theming?
C) will it come with a theme editor to accompany its new features?

A) No, its not open and there has already been a decision made by thos who have more control of Carpe Stellarem we will not be doing licensing.

B) If it can be coded it can be done. Reordering widgets classifies as fairly simple to code. The start menu example would obviously be harder. The hope is a mod community would start that would work with the artist community to code these things.

C) Yes, Catalyst is being overhauled right now. We will show off more on that next week. It has some very cool features. Catalyst will support adding mods into a theme and icon editing.

[NetworkShadow]

Originally posted by goMac:
A) No, its not open and there has already been a decision made by thos who have more control of Carpe Stellarem we will not be doing licensing.

B) If it can be coded it can be done. Reordering widgets classifies as fairly simple to code. The start menu example would obviously be harder. The hope is a mod community would start that would work with the artist community to code these things.

C) Yes, Catalyst is being overhauled right now. We will show off more on that next week. It has some very cool features. Catalyst will support adding mods into a theme and icon editing.

So are we talking kaleidoscope level of interface customization? Will it be able to break the limits of Panther themeing such as text colors, metal windows, window borders, (etc and so on)? If you can do more than just what SS does, move widgets around, and make start menus, you should have a solid product.

Do you intend on giving betas to themers to get them interested in supporting Xtender?

[quandarry]

well the picture links don't seem to work anymore...at least for me, so i haven't seen anything yet.

[goMac]

Originally posted by NetworkShadow:
So are we talking kaleidoscope level of interface customization? Will it be able to break the limits of Panther themeing such as text colors, metal windows, window borders, (etc and so on)? If you can do more than just what SS does, move widgets around, and make start menus, you should have a solid product.

Do you intend on giving betas to themers to get them interested in supporting Xtender?

Text colors - Yes, this will not ship with Xtender but because Xtender uses plug ins you could include a text color mod. This is certainly code-able.
Metal Windows - What is it you can't do right now and I'll tell you.
Window Borders - BIG yes. You could write a mod (maybe we'll even write one) in include with your theme to flag all windows as brushed. Than you can hack in a border into your Extras.rsrc as was detailed in another thread.