Interesting Leopard UI Finding

[Hobofuzz]

I've been searching around for a way to remove the menubar transparency, and came across a few interesting bundles that contain all the UI elements.

There appears to be a new Private framework called "CoreUI", in
System->Library->PrivateFrameworks->CoreUI.framework.

In the "Resources" folder in the framework's folder are two bundles called "AquaUI.bundle" and "LeopardUI.bundle".

If you view the package contents for each of these, there are two folders inside them both, "Recipes", which contains XML files readable by Property List Editor that define the appearance, dimensions, opacities, and textures for the different UI elements, and "Resources", where a load of different png and pdf files used in the UI are stored.

The "LeopardUI.bundle" bundle has a curiously large configuration for the "menubar" element, with the menubar element having over 2000 attributes pertaining to its appearance.

I'm thinking of installing a second Leopard system onto my external drive and messing around with these files to see what they do. Maybe Leopard will finally let us apply themes without having to rely on 3rd-party software

 

[iTim314]

Nice find. Keep us updated on what you find.

 

[Hobofuzz]

From browsing through the different attributes, it appears that you can give UI elements inner shadows, colored shadows, modify the direction of what looks like at least 14 light sources, give each light source its own image, change highlight images and colors, and even bring the old aqua stripes back!

 

[ivnj]

I use

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26081/leocolorbar

 

[iTim314]

...and even bring the old aqua stripes back!

Oh but why would you?

 

[Hobofuzz]

Oh but why would you?

Some of us liked the subtle pinstripe

After going over these files a little more, it appears that pretty much every element in the UI is nothing more than a "material" image, which are all round, but get their shape from a bunch of attributes, a "figure" image, which is a PDF, a highlight material, an inlay, and a stripe gradient, usually the file "progressramp.png"

 

[matticus008]

From browsing through the different attributes, it appears that you can give UI elements inner shadows, colored shadows, modify the direction of what looks like at least 14 light sources, give each light source its own image, change highlight images and colors, and even bring the old aqua stripes back!

There's the "Illuminous" UI update. It looks like they just didn't finish with the elements. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were just not able to clean everything up for a de-Aqua'd desktop in time for the shipping deadline.

What I look forward to seeing is whether applications will be able to request the Aqua UI in the future for those that base their custom graphics on the old OS X widgets and glyphs. If this is the case, we might be looking at the final days of the aqua scroll bars and buttons, with applications that are "Leopard compatible" containing a framework call to LeopardUI instead of AquaUI, and all other applications defaulting to AquaUI for consistency.

This is exactly the kind of groundwork you'd want to lay if you were developing a new UI in house and didn't want to disclose it to developers ahead of time.

 

[Hobofuzz]

There's the "Illuminous" UI update. It looks like they just didn't finish with the elements. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were just not able to clean everything up for a de-Aqua'd desktop in time for the shipping deadline.

What I look forward to seeing is whether applications will be able to request the Aqua UI in the future for those that base their custom graphics on the old OS X widgets and glyphs. If this is the case, we might be looking at the final days of the aqua scroll bars and buttons, with applications that are "Leopard compatible" containing a framework call to LeopardUI instead of AquaUI, and all other applications defaulting to AquaUI for consistency.

This is exactly the kind of groundwork you'd want to lay if you were developing a new UI in house and didn't want to disclose it to developers ahead of time.

The LeopardUI bundle is grossly lacking in UI elements. All it has are menu, menubar, plasticcapsules, plasticround, plasticscurvesegs, and titlebarcontrols.

I attempted to change the menu.xml file to make my menus have square borders just to see if it worked, but alas, the changes I made were not reflected even after a few restarts.

When I have the time, I'll write up a little thing about what I discovered with the taxonomy.plist files and the different attributes it defines for the recipe files. I've got a midterm to study for right now though .. I was supposed to have it last week, but **** was on fire.

 

[Wayfarer]

Nice find, perhaps someone will be willing to take this further...

 

[Hobofuzz]

This thread isn't about menubar transparency. It's about the possibility of customizing the UI by modifying the resources in CoreUI.

Not to mention I made this topic before 2 of those 3 appeared.

 

[Wayfarer]

Sorry about that, I realized that shortly after I submitted my post... so I changed it. Carry on with your findings and good luck!

 

[lofight]

nice find, i knew this already, not that i have leopard, not yet, but i read sole reviews... you could foul a little with it but i wouldn't too much, it's already beautiful now.

 

[Hobofuzz]

None of the changes I made last night seemed to be reflected in the UI, other than Interface Builder displaying a weird black box whenever I ran the Cocoa Simulator.

But one thing of interest I found was that, in the AquaUI.bundle, the UI elements seem to have a third appearance style alongside Graphite and Blue, called "Clear".

I have yet to figure out how to activate this style, however

 

[Peace]

The "Recipes" style Core Animation UI hasn't been implemented yet.It will be in a future update.

 

[lofight]

None of the changes I made last night seemed to be reflected in the UI, other than Interface Builder displaying a weird black box whenever I ran the Cocoa Simulator.

But one thing of interest I found was that, in the AquaUI.bundle, the UI elements seem to have a third appearance style alongside Graphite and Blue, called "Clear".

I have yet to figure out how to activate this style, however

clear? would apple have secret files distributed, i don't think so.

 

[Hobofuzz]

The "Recipes" style Core Animation UI hasn't been implemented yet.It will be in a future update.

Any idea when, or is it just something we should expect sometime in the future?

 

[Hobofuzz]

clear? would apple have secret files distributed, i don't think so.

The files show that it's pretty much just Aqua without the material overlay, which would make things look a little funky. For example, you'd have completely transparent titlebar buttons, with the only indicator that the button is there being the glass inlay.

 

[Peace]

Any idea when, or is it just something we should expect sometime in the future?

Open your Leopard DVD and install the developer tools.After you've done that navigate to : hard drive>developer>examples>quartz>core animation>recipes

compile it..

That's similar to what Apple is going to implement.

 

[Wayfarer]

The "Recipes" style Core Animation UI hasn't been implemented yet.It will be in a future update.

Can you please explain to me what this "recipes" thing is all about?

 

[Hobofuzz]

Can you please explain to me what this "recipes" thing is all about?

The recipes files are XML files that define the characteristics of the UI elements. Height, width, curvature, lighting, coloring, opacity, shadows, glow, inlay, material, figures (glyphs), etc.

The LeopardUI elements have 2032 attributes, whereas the AquaUI elements have 148.

And for some reason, my AquaUI.bundle I keep on the desktop for modification now has my Adium Domokun icon o-O

 

[matticus008]

The LeopardUI bundle is grossly lacking in UI elements. All it has are menu, menubar, plasticcapsules, plasticround, plasticscurvesegs, and titlebarcontrols.

Precisely as one would expect, since those are the only non-Aqua elements implemented thus far.

But one thing of interest I found was that, in the AquaUI.bundle, the UI elements seem to have a third appearance style alongside Graphite and Blue, called "Clear".

I have yet to figure out how to activate this style, however

That's because you don't activate it; it's already activated. "Clear" is the style of the shared inactive resources of Aqua (e.g. the unchecked check box). They are stored separately so that each color style does not need to duplicate common elements to both.

The new Core UI services use texture bases and vector images (PDFs) together to produce screen elements. The non-vector components are contained in texture resources--Aqua (blue), Graphite, and Clear, which you have located.

 

[theGAPkid]

The files show that it's pretty much just Aqua without the material overlay, which would make things look a little funky. For example, you'd have completely transparent titlebar buttons, with the only indicator that the button is there being the glass inlay.

Any chance of some images

this sounds quite amazing

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Open your Leopard DVD and install the developer tools.After you've done that navigate to : hard drive>developer>examples>quartz>core animation>recipes

compile it..

That's similar to what Apple is going to implement.

I tried that and it gave me 113 errors. I tried other examples and it kept giving me errors. You're supposed to open the xcode project file and click "build", right?

I tried a bunch, and they all kept erroring on me. I think it has to do with the import lines.. like this one. it errored at this: #import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h> (Note: This line is from a different example.. not the one Peace was talking about)

Anyone know how to fix that?

 

[lofight]

The files show that it's pretty much just Aqua without the material overlay, which would make things look a little funky. For example, you'd have completely transparent titlebar buttons, with the only indicator that the button is there being the glass inlay.

okay.

 

[DMann]

Recipes

Open your Leopard DVD and install the developer tools.After you've done that navigate to : hard drive>developer>examples>quartz>core animation>recipes

compile it..

That's similar to what Apple is going to implement.

I suppose the glowing and pulsating aura around the menu slide button gives us a taste of what has been referred to as "illuminous."