Better colors for Aqua

[shadowfax]

i've been thinking for some time it might be cool to have a new color theme in OS X. i was thinking of dark purple, or maybe blue.
i have some mock-ups. what you guys think?

[shadowfax]

here is the other one

[Kwyjibo]

I like the idea maybe even a good shade of green or gasp...orange. I love giving the system a personal touch but hate to use 3rd party programs....color schemes like that would be a nice touch.

[vniow]

The dark blue is kinda nice, although I don't care too much for the purple, it doesn't seem to match the rest of Aqua.

How about a dark blue combined with a bit of graphite?

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by vniow
The dark blue is kinda nice, although I don't care too much for the purple, it doesn't seem to match the rest of Aqua.

How about a dark blue combined with a bit of graphite?

i was thinking that aqua would change--be consistent. so all the buttons would be purple in the purple theme, and all the buttons and otherwise widgets would be accordingly blue in the blue theme. i don't see how it doesn't go with the "rest of aqua," as i am saying we would change aqua altogether. if it isn't that white clearish color or halftoned BG, it'd be changing ;)

oh well. something to hopelessly hope for in 10.3

[vniow]

Consistency is something that's definately needed, I don't want to install a third party haxie to get rid of brushed metal on some apps ( I think it's cheezy looking) I would much rather have it in the OS, fully supported by Apple.

One think I like about Linux for example is the color customization.
It's pretty limited in the options and difficult to configure from what I've experienced but it's nice having it there anywayz and not a haxie of some sorts.

[bousozoku]

Some nice iMac colours would be nice...anything but just blue and graphite.

[shadowfax]

of course i would prefer something native, but i am generally OK with a 3rd party themer, as long as it's proven rock solid stable.

[jelloshotsrule]

3rd party hacks are nice, but can easily cause problems...

the dark blue looks good.

[Thanatoast]

Why think small? Let's have a continuously changing color scheme, like the continuously changing desktop option, only with colors. :)

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Thanatoast
Why think small? Let's have a continuously changing color scheme, like the continuously changing desktop option, only with colors. :)

As long as apple does it because haxies = some random crashs that the dev. blames on you.
My personal Exp.

[Kwyjibo]

that would be cool I have one image with different colors rotating thru the desktop.

[iGav]

I've always quite liked the idea of OSX going for the ice'd look, kinda like the main page at Apple.com....

I also think Apple should drop the line stuff... it makes it look alittle messy IMHO.....

Clean and minimal that's me!! ;)

[shadowfax]

the "iced" look at apple.com main page is "graphite," basically. a lot of the buttons in graphite have that iced look to them. i would hate to have them drop the lines, i think they are really stylish and clean. you can't do pure white BGs because that's just nasty, and gray only is even worse.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by MrMacman
As long as apple does it because haxies = some random crashs that the dev. blames on you.
My personal Exp.

Haxies use undocumented system calls to work. These system calls may move around as the operating system changes. If you go in after something has moved, you may end up executing something that you don't want.

If Apple would provide a standard way to do a theme, it would be much better, but Steve Jobs doesn't like giving up control. (That's an understatement!)

[Thanatoast]

If Apple would provide a standard way to do a theme, it would be much better, but Steve Jobs doesn't like giving up control. (That's an understatement!)
Who's that other multi-zillionaire owner of a software company that doesn't like giving up control over his OS? :eek: :p

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
i was thinking that aqua would change--be consistent. so all the buttons would be purple in the purple theme, and all the buttons and otherwise widgets would be accordingly blue in the blue theme. i don't see how it doesn't go with the "rest of aqua," as i am saying we would change aqua altogether. if it isn't that white clearish color or halftoned BG, it'd be changing ;)

oh well. something to hopelessly hope for in 10.3

Want to understand the subject. So is it true that in Mac OS X you can't change the Appearance like in Mac OS 9. I would miss that option! Using plum for highlight & crimson for varation!

[scem0]

yeah, dark blue looks good. Purple....... it just doesn't look so good. ;)

Maybe we will see some changes in 10.3. As long as they are
changes for the better I don't mind.

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by wdlove
Want to understand the subject. So is it true that in Mac OS X you can't change the Appearance like in Mac OS 9. I would miss that option! Using plum for highlight & crimson for varation!

you can choose between graphite (grey) to aqua (blue). and you can choose the highlight color

see below

[wdlove]

Yes I'm in favor of a greater selection. Would like to see shades of purple, blue, and red. Wonder why they didn't continue with the same color schemes as in Mac OS 9?

[scem0]

I think a dark red 'ruby' color would be great. Like the ruby classic iMacs.

[iGav]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
the "ided" look at apple.com main page is "graphite," basically. a lot of the buttons in graphite have that iced look to them. i would hate to have them drop the lines, i think they are really stylish and clean. you can't do pure white BGs because that's just nasty, and gray only is even worse.

Nah... the homepage (menu bar) is more ice, graphite is much much darker, look at your Apple on your menu bar in graphite, or the hot news headline on the homepage, compare the 2..... the light one looks much better IMHO, the Apple logo on the disc packs you get with some Mac's, which is a real ice look...... I love that clean look..... I don't need lines and stuff.....

They should make an ice setting, lighter than the graphite, more clear and reflective.....

I can't imagine anything worse though than going back to the kiddy coloured eye candy from the original iMacs.... *Eww* :p

[jelloshotsrule]

did you create these mockups yourself?

how does someone actually do that? just a bunch of photoshop work or what? i don't have much interest in spending time on that myself, just curious how people do it.

[scem0]

I was wondering the same thing.

Does it take a long time?

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by iGAV
I can't imagine anything worse though than going back to the kiddy coloured eye candy from the original iMacs.... *Eww* :p

we're already there, man. have you looked at "blue" lately? it's bright and vibrant--it's not "kiddy coloured" by any means, but neither are the mockups i made.

jello–yeah, i photoshopped them in ~10 minutes. all you do is highlight the areas you want to adjust, and then change their color balance. i couldn't do it all at once though, because i had to adjust the contrast on the buttons because the bright glow was going to pure white and looking all tacky.

on another note, i may try to make one of these themes after that duality 4 GT thing comes out this week--i've worked with windows XP themes, so maybe i can figure something out. i'll probably just do the blue, because the purple's probably considerably more difficult to do (i imagine i'd have to change some actual settings, like the "glow" around selected items, and so on, as opposed to just graphics.

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
we're already there, man. have you looked at "blue" lately? it's bright and vibrant--it's not "kiddy coloured" by any means, but neither are the mockups i made.

jello?yeah, i photoshopped them in ~10 minutes. all you do is highlight the areas you want to adjust, and then change their color balance. i couldn't do it all at once though, because i had to adjust the contrast on the buttons because the bright glow was going to pure white and looking all tacky.

duh. color balance.... duh.

couldn't figure out how to keep the aquafied slider and such. makes sense.

[scem0]

I thought it might be color balance, but I wasn't familiar with
changing to color balance in a particular area, so I dismissed that
idea. :rolleyes:

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by scem0
I thought it might be color balance, but I wasn't familiar with
changing to color balance in a particular area, so I dismissed that
idea. :rolleyes:

how much photoshop experience do you have? i've just played around with it for a few years now, and it seemed really intuitive to me. :p

[Datazoid]

I was just checking out some Alsoft PDF's on the new DiskWarrior 3.0 (one of them the promotional brochure on their website, the other the manual provided with the SP of DiskWarrior 3.0) and noticed these snapshots (pay attention to the scrollbar colors, etc:

[Datazoid]

I realize that this can be accomplished by theming, but it would seem strange to me that a sizable company would use themes in documentation....

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Datazoid
I was just checking out some Alsoft PDF's on the new DiskWarrior 3.0 (one of them the promotional brochure on their website, the other the manual provided with the SP of DiskWarrior 3.0) and noticed these snapshots (pay attention to the scrollbar colors, etc:

I like that purple! ;)

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by wdlove
I like that purple! ;)

I prefer the darker mockup i made, personally. that one has a nasty blue hue to it that doesn't match, IMO.

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
I prefer the darker mockup i made, personally. that one has a nasty blue hue to it that doesn't match, IMO.

I'm referring to the 1st by Datazoid. I agree that the blue in the 2nd post isn't quit as nice! ;)

[scem0]

I don't think purple is a very good color. I like what we have now,
let's just keep everything the way it is :rolleyes: ;).

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by wdlove
I'm referring to the 1st by Datazoid. I agree that the blue in the 2nd post isn't quit as nice! ;)

I was referring to datazoid's 1st post with the purple as well. the brightness in the scrollbar goes into an almost blue hue that i think looks mismatched.

the blue in the second one is bad too though--it's too dark to be good aqua, and too light to be a good blue theme; i don't like it because it's in-between.

[howard]

green would be neat. I like the range of colors in my dock now though...blue finder green adium purple entourage and blue navigator. needs a little...brownish red....i like earth tones

[scem0]

dull earth tones are opposite of bright aqua though. :o ;)

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by scem0
dull earth tones are opposite of bright aqua though. :o ;)

ehhh, you could do a vibrant variant of an earth tone. i wouldn't worry about losing aqua; they more than likely aren't going to take it away. but they really need to habe more themes. hell, XP comes with more themes out of the box than OS X, and it's much simpler to theme. i think that apple could really easily add themes. not take away aqua and use different ones, but add themes. no one could reasonably have an objection to that!

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
ehhh, you could do a vibrant variant of an earth tone. i wouldn't worry about losing aqua; they more than likely aren't going to take it away. but they really need to habe more themes. hell, XP comes with more themes out of the box than OS X, and it's much simpler to theme. i think that apple could really easily add themes. not take away aqua and use different ones, but add themes. no one could reasonably have an objection to that!

Let's hope we will get the "Choice" in the themes! ;)