Manual Tiger Theming

[z970]

I've revisited The Panther Thread recently, and when I saw Whiteout as one of the listed "Top Apps", I wanted to see if it worked on Tiger, even if it was initially put together for Panther. (I didn't bother with Metalifizer.)

I later discovered the installer wouldn't comply with Tiger, but when I dug around the files (You have to go into "Show Package Contents" and then unzip an archive.), I found the source file the installer was working off of (It's a long string of folders eventually ending with a .rsrc file called "Extras" meant to be put into the depths of the "System" folder on the installed OS.). So by using the folder string as a guide of where to go, I tried manually moving the files from the Whiteout innards into my Tiger install...only to discover that I didn't have the required permissions, which even a folder permissions change via "Get Info" didn't solve. (Permissions were swiftly repaired following this action.)

So I then rebooted into Leopard, made a backup of the original Extras.rsrc included with Tiger, moved the Whiteout Extras.rsrc into its place, and rebooted back into Tiger. Lo and behold, a window theme for Panther functions wonderfully on Tiger, except for a bug on some applications where there's a heap of overlapped text clumped together on their window title bars. Not sure if that's because it wasn't meant for Tiger, or if it was always there.

Now, thanks to this little endeavor of mine, this is my present desktop. (Not quite sure why the designers felt the need to make the Apple menu icon gray.)

And here's the aforementioned bug on Apple Mail.

I also found a Firefox theme that makes TenFourFox look like a Jaguar application, which I think sweetens the deal. And here's one for Tiger/Panther too. Hell, here's one for Leopard as well. (FYI, there are also others for OS X Yosemite, El Capitan, etc., which may pair well with something like LeopardRebirth.)

But it got me thinking. If you can theme the window system, perhaps the same will work with Extras.rsrc files pulled from prior OS X releases, like Panther or (actual) Jaguar. I have those two installed on one of my other Macs, so I'll see if I can take the Extras.rsrc file, and perhaps more, from each and give them a try on Tiger.

But I think it's a cool pursuit that may open up new possibilities, or perhaps an enhanced general knowledge, at least.

 

[amagichnich]

I've revisited The Panther Thread recently, and when I saw Whiteout as one of the listed "Top Apps", I wanted to see if it worked on Tiger, even if it was initially put together for Panther. (I didn't bother with Metalifizer.)

I later discovered the installer wouldn't comply with Tiger, but when I dug around the files (You have to go into "Show Package Contents" and then unzip an archive.), I found the source file the installer was working off of (It's a long string of folders eventually ending with a .rsrc file called "Extras" meant to be put into the depths of the "System" folder on the installed OS.). So by using the folder string as a guide of where to go, I tried manually moving the files from the Whiteout innards into my Tiger install...only to discover that I didn't have the required permissions, which even a folder permissions change via "Get Info" didn't solve. (Permissions were swiftly repaired following this action.)

So I then rebooted into Leopard, made a backup of the original Extras.rsrc included with Tiger, moved the Whiteout Extras.rsrc into its place, and rebooted back into Tiger. Lo and behold, a window theme for Panther functions wonderfully on Tiger, except for a bug on some applications where there's a heap of overlapped text clumped together on their window title bars. Not sure if that's because it wasn't meant for Tiger, or if it was always there.

Now, thanks to this little endeavor of mine, this is my present desktop. (Not quite sure why the designers felt the need to make the Apple menu icon gray.)

View attachment 761262

And here's the aforementioned bug on Apple Mail.

View attachment 761263

I also found a Firefox theme that makes TenFourFox look like a Jaguar application, which I think sweetens the deal. And here's one for Tiger/Panther too. Hell, here's one for Leopard as well. (FYI, there are also others for OS X Yosemite, El Capitan, etc., which may pair well with something like LeopardRebirth.)

But it got me thinking. If you can theme the window system, perhaps the same will work with Extras.rsrc files pulled from prior OS X releases, like Panther or (actual) Jaguar. I have those two installed on one of my other Macs, so I'll see if I can take the Extras.rsrc file, and perhaps more, from each and give them a try on Tiger.

But I think it's a cool pursuit that may open up new possibilities, or perhaps an enhanced general knowledge, at least.

Looks very much like UNO, have you had a look at that? UNO attempts to unify the many different themes of Tiger to one unified style

 

[eyoungren]

Tiger has the distinction of being the last version of OS X that Shapeshifter works on. One of the very few things I miss about Tiger because Shapeshifter can do things that my cobbled together theme in Leopard cannot.

Still plenty of themes out there for Shapeshifter too.

 

[z970]

It seems the Extras.rsrc pulled from Panther works on Tiger too. The brushed metal is back, but what's most notable here is the new menu bar. It also helps the look if you take out Dashboard and remove Spotlight via Onyx.

I can't believe this subject went untouched for so long. Maybe you can do the same with Leopard, or vice versa.

Jaguar next.
[doublepost=1525973344][/doublepost]

Clearly, things are more broken with the Jaguar Extras.rsrc. Although more windows like System Preferences and the context menu are now pinstriped, selected items on the context menu are whited out, the System Preferences title bar is much rougher in appearance, certain applications like iCal and Address Book still have the brushed metal effect, you can't open any folders, and Finder relaunches when the icon is clicked. The menu bar has slightly more pronounced pinstripes than in Panther, though.

Overall, I'd say the Jaguar Extras is more faithful to the original UI, but far less stable, and the Whiteout one is less accurate, but more complete, with better reliability. Maybe there is a way to "fix" the Jaguar configuration? It should be possible, at least.

I might bring Leopard in on the fun later today, see how that goes. It could certainly help efforts to theme Leopard's UI to be more similar to Tiger's. I know I'd appreciate that.
[doublepost=1525974056][/doublepost]

Looks very much like UNO, have you had a look at that? UNO attempts to unify the many different themes of Tiger to one unified style

I'm sorry, I have not.

Does it work well?

 

[swamprock]

I played around a bit with switching Extras.rsrc files around on different flavors of OS X when I first got into theming, but hosed my Panther install in the process so never returned to it. The Extras are quite similar between Panther, Tiger, and Leopard, and you won't see much difference by moving your Tiger Extras to Leopard and visa versa, but it's fun nevertheless. Leopard uses the artFile and SartFile for much of its theming, but uses Extras for things like scrollbars and arrows, as well as progress bars.

One fun thing to do is apply a theme using Shapeshifter, then copy the Extras.rsrc and Finder.rsrc. Restore your theme to Aqua, and then move the two resources that you copied into their respective places. Reboot and see your Shapeshifter theme without Shapeshifter!

Now, this has some minor caveats. If the Shapeshifter theme changed iTunes or any other file, you'll have to find *their* resources while the Shapeshifter theme is applied, copy them, and then move them into their respective places once you switch back to Aqua if you want the same effect.

 

[amagichnich]

I'm sorry, I have not.

Does it work well?

It does indeed!
It's german but you might get what it does. For many things you can set one of three styles, where one is the native style

 

[z970]

It does indeed!
It's german but you might get what it does. For many things you can set one of three styles, where one is the native style
View attachment 761343View attachment 761344

Looks cool. I don't think I'll have much fun with it, though. Sorry.
[doublepost=1525989269][/doublepost]

I played around a bit with switching Extras.rsrc files around on different flavors of OS X when I first got into theming, but hosed my Panther install in the process so never returned to it. The Extras are quite similar between Panther, Tiger, and Leopard, and you won't see much difference by moving your Tiger Extras to Leopard and visa versa, but it's fun nevertheless. Leopard uses the artFile and SartFile for much of its theming, but uses Extras for things like scrollbars and arrows, as well as progress bars.

One fun thing to do is apply a theme using Shapeshifter, then copy the Extras.rsrc and Finder.rsrc. Restore your theme to Aqua, and then move the two resources that you copied into their respective places. Reboot and see your Shapeshifter theme without Shapeshifter!

Now, this has some minor caveats. If the Shapeshifter theme changed iTunes or any other file, you'll have to find *their* resources while the Shapeshifter theme is applied, copy them, and then move them into their respective places once you switch back to Aqua if you want the same effect.

OK well, I guess fixing the Jaguar configuration would possibly be the most yielding route then. I wonder if replacing the entire Resources folder would make a difference...

 

[AphoticD]

Nice work @z970mp. The un-brushed Tiger looks good.

@swamprock what was the name of the app you mentioned for editing the .rsrc files? z970mp might want to try extracting image resources from Panther/Whiteout or Jaguar and paste into the Tiger resource packs. This would in theory allow you to customize bits and pieces instead of replacing the resources in full, which could break apps which are looking for resources that didn’t exist in the older systems.

 

[z970]

@swamprock what was the name of the app you mentioned for editing the .rsrc files? z970mp might want to try extracting image resources from Panther/Whiteout or Jaguar and paste into the Tiger resource packs. This would in theory allow you to customize bits and pieces instead of replacing the resources in full, which could break apps which are looking for resources that didn’t exist in the older systems.

That would be very helpful indeed. I've just discovered a bug on the Panther config where you can't apply changes to network settings in System Preferences, which is of course quite frustrating. If that .rsrc file can be augmented, these configurations might be able to be made less broken.

In which case, mission accomplished. Maybe I'll then figure out how to make a script and host a download...

 

[swamprock]

Nice work @z970mp. The un-brushed Tiger looks good.

@swamprock what was the name of the app you mentioned for editing the .rsrc files? z970mp might want to try extracting image resources from Panther/Whiteout or Jaguar and paste into the Tiger resource packs. This would in theory allow you to customize bits and pieces instead of replacing the resources in full, which could break apps which are looking for resources that didn’t exist in the older systems.

The app would be Theme Park. I used 3.1 for theming Tiger. 2.11 is available for theming Panther, and I think 1.3 is for Jaguar.

 

[z970]

The app would be Theme Park. I used 3.1 for theming Tiger. 2.11 is available for theming Panther, and I think 1.3 is for Jaguar.

Do you think I could get a direction as to finding it? The Garden doesn't have it, PPCAppStore doesn't have it, and the rest of the Internet thinks I'm referring to an amusement park.

Much appreciated.

 

[swamprock]

http://atari.vg-network.com/temp/themepark.zip

All four versions that I have, zipped up from El Capitan.