Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

There more 'en one way t' skin OSX

AmbitiousLemon

AmbitiousLemon

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Nov 28, 2001
3,415
3
down in Fraggle Rock
A little while ago there was a thread about skinning OSX. Couldn't find it after some searching so i thought i'd start a new one and since the results from the last thread showed no one skinning osx i thought i would offer some help.

First you should download a theme changer application. With these applications you can easily download, preview, apply themes and restore the Mac OS Aqua Theme.

I suggest Duality. Duality supports many theme files and has a easy to use GUI, easy restore (so this is all less scary), and good theme servers.
http://conundrumsoft.com/

MetamorphX is the first theme switcher I found and it worked great, but I had some troubles with their server and didn't like the Aqua Restore (made me nervous).
http://www.enteract.com/~doc/charonsoft/index.html


Although both Duality and MetamorphX allow you to connect to a server and download themes directly from the application there are some great websites with theme archives. Although both the Duality and MetamorphX webpages have links to archive here are a couple of my favorites:

Warning this is all in Japanese, but I found the pretty pictures made navigating easy enough, and the Japanese seem to make the best stuff:
http://www.desktopper.net/izawa/

These guys are working on a easy Theme creation application, but they are also serving up a good theme archive:
http://xthemination.maccustomise.com/


Although I am enjoying switching between all sorts of theme files i thought i would show you my latest favorite:
 

Attachments

  • picture 1.jpg1.jpg
    picture 1.jpg1.jpg
    97.2 KB · Views: 433
question

i'm trying to change my login screen and it won't allow me to change the resource files... i have enabled the root password and all that, but yet it won't let me. any other ideas of what it could be?
 
Re: question

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
i'm trying to change my login screen and it won't allow me to change the resource files... i have enabled the root password and all that, but yet it won't let me. any other ideas of what it could be?
Click to expand...

well if you go to resexcellence and download one of the newer login screens (post 10.1 i believe tehse are just the last two login screens) you will get a read me that you can use to do your own login screen.

but it reallty boils down to this: you either need to boot up in os9 to edit these files or you need to log in as root.(there are also ways to do this through the terminal without booting into os9 or logging in to root).

be sure to share your login screen with all of us when you get finished.
 
Originally posted by Hemingray
Here's a picture of my boot screen (and no, you guys can't have the pdf! :D )
Click to expand...

wow you copied one fo many from resexcellence.com

no need to share "your" boot screen since resexcellence has been offering it for months.
 
I beg your pardon? I've been using Hal 9000 as my boot screen since OS 7.6.

And I'd like you to show me where that exact one is on resexcellence.

Complete with hi-res HAL picture and Apple Garamond font.

Hmm? Didn't think so. :D
 
my point is you just copied someone elses idea and picture and just did some tiny edits to make it "your own." plagerism is plagerism even if you try to disguise it.

just posting it would have been cool. we all use other people's desktop pictures and other graphics at times but to try to pass someone elses work off as your own is just stupid. especially when the artwork you stole is so widely distributed. did you think none of us had seen Hal 9000 boot screens like that before?

but dude. your boot screen is cool. and its fun to edit other people's work like that to make it a little more your own. i edited the parrot icon from perfectyosemite to use as my adium dock icon. but you dont need to pretend you came up with it. just chill man. we know your cool. dont need to prove nuthin'
 
Dude... no. I didn't plaguerize anybody, any less than they plaguerized me for using HAL as a boot screen! System 7.6 comes WAY before 10.1 last time I checked. That means I've had that art for longer than those OS 10 boot screens on resexcellence have been in existence. That means I didn't use their artwork nor their ideas to create mine. Okay? Okay.

In any case, this is a pointless argument. I'm obviously not the first or the only one to name their computer HAL9000 as there are millions of 2001 fans out there. But the plain fact is that boot screen is mine and there isn't another one out there like it that we know of. If you can prove me wrong, do so. Otherwise, leave me be and give me at least the credit from sharing it with you guys, which I am beginning to regret.
 
Hemingray: hey i apologize if it is your creation. i just thought it was weird that you would post something that looked a lot like many other startupscreens id seen before and then act all weird about not allowing anyone to have it. sorry if i attacked you about it, i shouldnt have made someone feel bad about showing us their own computer customizations.

peace yo
 
Hey, I don't blame your skepticism! Especially if somebody came along and said "Hey, this is MINE! :D " when they really just ripped it off of another idea. But I give you my word, I've been using that for years and had never seen another one like it until you mentioned resexcellence.com.

And speaking of which... I saw a very similar boot screen to another image I had created awhile back! And just to prove it really IS mine, it's posted in The Apple Collection (along with a few of my other images):

http://www.theapplecollection.com/various/MacMade/index.shtml

The "Rated X" banners by Christian Willis. You'll notice a boot screen in resexcellence.com that has a similar theme. Whether that guy saw my design and copied it or honestly came up with himself... well... who knows. :)

Peaceout!
 
good info!

I was wondering about his yesterday as the OSX eye candy became eyesore!

What was the most stable of these appz?
i saw a few methods to change the look of osx but they involved <gasp> unix line code! like an old dos pc..sheesh!

Does it slow the os down or anything and does it restore default settings?

Thanks for the help , guys
 
hey grok: im just up for a midnight [3am] snack so im a lil foggy but ill try to answer.

both duality and metamorphx seemed perfectly stable actually. the problem i had with metamorphx is that it didnt come with a aqua restore theme. to get that you needed to connect to their server and for some reason i couldnt connect to their server. it could have been a temporary outage i havent tried since. but thats why i tried duality.

i also tried duality because several of of the themes i downloaded said they were designed specifically for it. seems like duality is mor versatile. it accepts more types of theme files (who would have thought there would be more than one or two). so it seems most theme designers design their theme with duality in mind.

it doesnt slow anything down since its not running on top of the current aqua or anything (like kaleidoscope or iControl did). in fact since they make some themes that are simpler i would guess (althouigh havent seen for myself yet) that some themes could speed things up. the applications seem to work by taking all of the files in the system involved in appearance and backing them up and moving them to some disabled state. then replacing them with the themes files. basically just a gui front end to what you would do yourself with the terminal or click and drag.

hope that helped. gonna hit the sack now.
 
thanks Lemon

Midnight snack, huh, what was it, ham sandwich, ice cream, pickles?

I am going to try out that app you recommended, i appreciate the info cause i ws getting worried about the whole osx eyecandy thing. It certainly has begun to have a kind of quesy effect on me.
have you had any such feelings? :) I mean before the midnight snack.

You know what late night eating will do to you.

It is kind of scarey that the osx template is put away.
So , this means that it has to be reinstalled.
Yet, is this an Apple verified reinstall of osx gui?
what the low down on the reinstall mods?

Thanks again
 
Re: thanks Lemon

Originally posted by Grokgod
Midnight snack, huh, what was it, ham sandwich, ice cream, pickles?
Click to expand...

actually all of the above. nah jk. just an apple and some email. got to check email 24/7 to keep up, and what goes better with some email on my apple than an apple in my mouth?

Originally posted by Grokgod
I am going to try out that app you recommended, i appreciate the info cause i ws getting worried about the whole osx eyecandy thing. It certainly has begun to have a kind of quesy effect on me.
have you had any such feelings? :) I mean before the midnight snack.

You know what late night eating will do to you.
Click to expand...

i love aqua. i screw with the look mostly just because i can. dont like how apple has attacked theme builders so i use their stuff just to piss off apple and because i like customizing my system.

i use silver fox most of the time which is an aqua derivative. its one of the few thems that actually looks better than aqua in my opinion.

Originally posted by Grokgod
It is kind of scarey that the osx template is put away.
So , this means that it has to be reinstalled.
Yet, is this an Apple verified reinstall of osx gui?
what the low down on the reinstall mods?
Click to expand...

hm, not usre you are thinking about this the right way. the osx gui isnt one file. and you dont exactly reinstall it like you would reinstall a piece of software. if you have enabled root you can open your system and actually manually move each component of aqua around using click and drag. they are just picture files. you can edit your boot panels and login panels and dock this way as well. so its really just a matter of clicking and dragging some picture files into a disabled folder and putting your own picture files in their place. not quite as scary to me when i think of it that way. the themes come as a single file because people just wanted to package the many many picture files involved into one simple file that can be used by an application like duality or metamorphx. so the reinstall is just getting rid of your custom pictures and moving the originals back in place, not really an install. the reason you need to log out and back in is because the system loads all of these pictures at startup so it wont notice a change until it loads the pictures again.

its a little more complicated than that, but it think that is the simplest way of thinking of it. just an application that clicks and drags some root protected files for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back