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macOS Sierra Theme for OS X Leopard

Should the macOS Sierra Theme Also Be Developed For Tiger?

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MacCubed

MacCubed

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Earlier this year, the @gavinstubbs09 and PowerPC Archive Team planned on releasing an El Capitan icon pack for OS X Leopard, similar to the Yosemite pack that was released a year prior. The pack was supposed to come on January 1st (or there about), but the release was held-up, and the topic switched to a macOS Sierra pack. Since the idea of the Sierra pack emerged, the team, along with others here, have made great strides towards building a fully inclusive macOS Sierra theme for Leopard.

The theme is set to include:
-Icons
-Traffic lights
-Menubar
-Dock
-...And more!

I created this thread for the purpose of discussing solely the macOS Sierra theme, and to make a new place to post the things that we have done to make our old Macs look new again! I will update this post with pictures and other ideas once they are posted or suggested. I look forward to seeing the responses and everyone's hard work!

Ideas:
-Dark mode?
-Possible release of full "macOS Sierra for PowerPC" Installer DMG
-Easy installer package, no manually using CandyBar or replacing system files

Current Progress:
January 2016
-Icons ready for use with CandyBar, FoxBoxes created for iCloud apps
Summer 2016
-Progress made with Traffic Lights and other UI Elements
October 2016
-Users here start work on UI Elements

Estimated Schedule:
-Pack to be completed by Early 2017 (January/February)
-UI Elements to be finished by December 2016
-Pack installer .zip or .dmg to be done by January 2017

Files (So Far):
Modified About This Mac Screen (https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/resources-to-replace-zip.639513/)
San Fransisco Font (https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/sanfranciscofont-zip.640478/)
Modified San Fransisco Font For PPC https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/lucidagrande-dfont-zip.667024/

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Post will be updated as new ideas arise, or photos of ongoing work are posted!


Photos of Work!

Credit: Gavinstubbs09 (MacRumors)
macOS%20SIERRA%20PREVIEW.png

Original progress, icons and iCloud app FoxBoxes

Credit: SourceSunTom (MacRumors)
Picture 11.png

SourceSunTom's work on the "About This Mac Screen"

Credit: SourceSunTom (MacRumors)
Picture 12.png

More of SourceSunTom's work on the checkboxes and menubar

Credit: Halibabamindingu (MacRumors)
Picture_1.png

MacRumors poster, Halibabamindingu's work so far on the Traffic lights
 
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The progress on this project has been amazing. I never thought it would go this far. I have 2 questions:
1. Will all of the messing with system files make the OS unstable?
2. Will this ever come out for Tiger?
Thanks!
 
HFTaylor12 said:
The progress on this project has been amazing. I never thought it would go this far. I have 2 questions:
1. Will all of the messing with system files make the OS unstable?
2. Will this ever come out for Tiger?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
1. If the files are properly modified, then there will be no issues
2. Tiger support is currently up in the air, if enough people support it, I will get in contact with the other creators of the theme and determine if it is worth the time and effort.

I will add a poll to the thread asking if it should be developed for Tiger
 
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You can replace the system font systemwide by using a modified Lucida Grande dfont. You lose Lucida Grande in the process, but it all depends on what you would rather have. I can supply the modified dfont if anyone is interested.

Here it is on my (new to me) 12" Powerbook-

12inch.png
 
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swamprock said:
You can replace the system font systemwide by using a modified Lucida Grande dfont. You lose Lucida Grande in the process, but it all depends on what you would rather have. I can supply the modified dfont if anyone is interested.

Here it is on my (new to me) 12" Powerbook-

12inch.png
Click to expand...

I spent all day yesterday trying to do that... do you have instructions or something on how to do what you did?
 
Gamer9430 said:
I spent all day yesterday trying to do that... do you have instructions or something on how to do what you did?
Click to expand...

This was my original post in the older thread- https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/el-capitan-theme-for-os-x-leopard.1947376/page-2#post-22512716

The hard part was running FontForge on my Intel Mac, opening up all of the fonts, selecting the San Fran fonts, and copying them over to the Lucida Grande dfont, overwriting the originals. Save and close.

I'll save you the work and post my modified LucidaGrande.dfont here.

Download the dfont and unpack it to your desktop. Go to /System/Library/Fonts/ and copy the current LucidaGrande.dfont and paste it somewhere as a backup (I put mine in /Documents). Reboot your system and immediately hold cmd-s at the chime to boot into single user mode. Type "/sbin/mount -uw /" (without the quotes) at the prompt and hit return. Type "cd /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop/" and hit return. Type "cp LucidaGrande.dfont /System/Library/Fonts/" and hit return. Reboot.

That's it.

Follow the same procedure on a Tiger machine for the same results.

The usual disclaimers apply. I'm not responsible if you hose your system, so make sure to backup the original font as outlined above.

Keep in mind that, due to the way Leopard (and Tiger) render the original fonts, that this will not look exactly like Yosemite/El Capitan/Sierra, but it's very close.

(This also works with Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion (and probably Lion as well), but you have to use a ttc font instead of a dfont, and go into the ProtectedFonts folder and remove the originals, or else the system will just put it back when you change it. I replaced the protected LucidaGrande.ttc with my modified one to be doubly sure and it worked like a charm. Renaming LucidaGrande.dfont to LucidaGrande.ttc will NOT work; you need a specifically-modified ttc font to make it work, and I created one following the exact same steps as I described in my original post)
 

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HFTaylor12 said:
One more question I forgot about earlier:
What about the iCal icon? Will it be replaced at all? If so, will it show the current date? Thanks.
Click to expand...

This *can* be done, and it *will* show the correct date if done properly. The only caveats are that the month appears as it is; offset to the left and bottom of the red header of the calendar; and blends a bit into the white part of the calendar. The day text also appears in bold rather than the thinner font of the newer calendar. It doesn't look right, but if you can live with what appears to be a month abbreviation cut off by part of the calendar and the bold font, it can be done.
 
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Looks great on my PB.

NOTE: I know I have some icons to change, I've been finding Apps as I go and it's kind of tiresome.
 

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    Picture 1.png
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HFTaylor12 said:
Everybody seems to have a Sierra dock background but me. Did you make the background yourselves, or is it a download?
Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/el-capitan-theme-for-os-x-leopard.1947376/page-3#post-22650393

That post describes the method and includes the files that you'll need. Be sure to back up your dock.app, and delete the files that you're replacing first, rather than just dragging them in and overwriting them.

This method also gives you a white background in your stacks grid.
 
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Is anyone else having issues with clicking on stuff that's in a window right above the dock? I find myself having to shrink the dock in order to click on the stuff at the bottom of the windows.
 
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Is it just me, or does that modified font look nothing like the real font on Sierra? Also, I can't seem to change the menu bar font. Everything else is changed, but not my menu bar.
 
I did a lot of research on what files Leopard uses for the UI, and it turns out that the Extras.rsrc and Extras2.rsrc files are only used by Tiger and below. The former file is for PowerPC and the latter is for Intel machines. Leopard uses ArtFile.bin and SArtFile.bin for the UI, and there is seemingly nothing out there to decode/encode these files. Themepark didn't add this functionality until version 4.1, and that's for Snow Leopard and above. There's no way to open the Leopard art files in Snow Leopard using Themepark 4.1, and the ArtFileTool that's out there is for 10.7 and above.

HOWEVER... by doing a little Google-foo, I came across THIS post: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/103567-extract-leopard-ui-files/

There is a link to a Java program that decodes and reencodes the SArtFile.bin there. I signed up, grabbed the file, and tested it on my Leopard machine. Success!

The post also mentions the original Java ArtFileTool, and links to macthemes2.net, which not only is down, but also not archived due to robots.txt. Damn. So I went on another Google hunt for this elusive file.

So, after hours of searching, in what I thought would be a fruitless gesture, I FINALLY found it. Someone was nice enough to post it to Mediafire and I grabbed it. Tested this one as well, and boom.... it works.

So, here they are. Readmes are included that explain how these work. I'll play around a bit with the traffic lights when I get home later today, but have at it! Simply decode the files, find what you want to change, open it up in Photoshop or whatever you use (they're mostly png files), edit, replace, reencode, and replace the bins in their directory. Be sure to backup the originals first.

Be sure to reference the forum post I linked above for any issues you may have.
 

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swamprock said:
I did a lot of research on what files Leopard uses for the UI, and it turns out that the Extras.rsrc and Extras2.rsrc files are only used by Tiger and below. The former file is for PowerPC and the latter is for Intel machines. Leopard uses ArtFile.bin and SArtFile.bin for the UI, and there is seemingly nothing out there to decode/encode these files. Themepark didn't add this functionality until version 4.1, and that's for Snow Leopard and above. There's no way to open the Leopard art files in Snow Leopard using Themepark 4.1, and the ArtFileTool that's out there is for 10.7 and above.

HOWEVER... by doing a little Google-foo, I came across THIS post: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/103567-extract-leopard-ui-files/

There is a link to a Java program that decodes and reencodes the SArtFile.bin there. I signed up, grabbed the file, and tested it on my Leopard machine. Success!

The post also mentions the original Java ArtFileTool, and links to macthemes2.net, which not only is down, but also not archived due to robots.txt. Damn. So I went on another Google hunt for this elusive file.

So, after hours of searching, in what I thought would be a fruitless gesture, I FINALLY found it. Someone was nice enough to post it to Mediafire and I grabbed it. Tested this one as well, and boom.... it works.

So, here they are. Readmes are included that explain how these work. I'll play around a bit with the traffic lights when I get home later today, but have at it! Simply decode the files, find what you want to change, open it up in Photoshop or whatever you use (they're mostly png files), edit, replace, reencode, and replace the bins in their directory. Be sure to backup the originals first.

Be sure to reference the forum post I linked above for any issues you may have.
Click to expand...
Works to decode the file, however I can't encode it again. I get an error in Terminal saying that the files are invalid or corrupt (all I did was edit one traffic light).
[doublepost=1477255273][/doublepost]Here's something interesting:
defaults write -g NSUseLeopardWindowValues NO
Makes Leopard windows look like Tiger. Even though Tiger is older, it's windows look more like the newer macOS. You can also have Tiger-like buttons and traffic lights (although the traffic lights won't matter) with this command:
defaults write -g AppleUseCoreUI -bool NO

This actually makes the OS look newer. Here's my iCal window (on Leopard!):
Picture 2.png

More here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090228011201290.
[doublepost=1477256311][/doublepost]OK, I have read everything about traffic lights in the El Capitan thread but I can't change mine! I'd appreciate it if someone could put a working method here. Thanks!
 
It's a fussy bugger. From what I've read, the art files have particular attributes that they need to adhere to. What those are, I haven't figured out yet, as I'm not having any luck either. More research is needed...

Edit: Giving these resources a try, as they seem to have the right sizes- http://caiquearaujo.deviantart.com/art/Mac-OS-X-Yosemite-Interface-UI-Extracted-539427171

EDIT: Hmm... something got me thinking... if you disable CoreUI using the method above, wouldn't it just revert to Extras.rsrc for the traffic lights, etc? Time to try something...
 
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swamprock said:
It's a fussy bugger. From what I've read, the art files have particular attributes that they need to adhere to. What those are, I haven't figured out yet, as I'm not having any luck either. More research is needed...

Edit: Giving these resources a try, as they seem to have the right sizes- http://caiquearaujo.deviantart.com/art/Mac-OS-X-Yosemite-Interface-UI-Extracted-539427171

EDIT: Hmm... something got me thinking... if you disable CoreUI using the method above, wouldn't it just revert to Extras.rsrc for the traffic lights, etc? Time to try something...
Click to expand...

I think I'm picking up what you're throwing down. You want to use the modded extras.rsrc that's been posted and see if it reverts or if the new traffic lights work.
 
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Adamscomputerrepair said:
I think I'm picking up what you're throwing down. You want to use the modded extras.rsrc that's been posted and see if it reverts or if the new traffic lights work.
Click to expand...

Sort of. I'm actually in the process of editing my own Extras.rsrc to see if it will work with CoreUI disabled. I'm going through every resource to make sure I don't miss anything. Stay tuned...
 
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Adamscomputerrepair said:
I think I'm picking up what you're throwing down. You want to use the modded extras.rsrc that's been posted and see if it reverts or if the new traffic lights work.
Click to expand...
swamprock said:
Sort of. I'm actually in the process of editing my own Extras.rsrc to see if it will work with CoreUI disabled. I'm going through every resource to make sure I don't miss anything. Stay tuned...
Click to expand...
To anyone who doesn't get it yet, I just figured out how to do this, here's how: Use this older version of ThemePark (works on Tiger and Leopard) to modify the Extras file using resources from Yosemite. Then save that file to somewhere like your desktop. Now make a backup copy of /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Extras.rsrc and then delete the original. Drag in your modified file and restart.
 
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