(Obsolete) Exploring the Leopard-esque look

[allan.nyholm]

There's some issues getting the inactive tab-bar state to not be as jarring. It seems to be the case that Finder totally owns that part of the system -- I worked on the issue last night and tried in different ways to duplicate the front active window look to the inactive look when the Finder is in the background - macOS Sierra cares not for that.

What I'm seeing is that the inactive window background has to be a darker grey but not too dark so that the font color is washed out. The issue with doing that is that there's a line that goes around the active tab in Finder and other apps that use tabs - and that has to be found and eliminated. I'd like to just have it be transparent .. we'll see how that goes.

I'll work on it some more.. too bad that the author of ThemeEngine never implemented a live preview of the Finder when changing elements - and I can't code to save my life - I would never get off the island if all I had to do was code to get off.

The thing I said about the inactive Finder tab appearance being fixable is to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[vista980622]

There's some issues getting the inactive tab-bar state to not be as jarring. It seems to be the case that Finder totally owns that part of the system -- I worked on the issue last night and tried in different ways to duplicate the front active window look to the inactive look when the Finder is in the background - macOS Sierra cares not for that.

What I'm seeing is that the inactive window background has to be a darker grey but not too dark so that the font color is washed out. The issue with doing that is that there's a line that goes around the active tab in Finder and other apps that use tabs - and that has to be found and eliminated. I'd like to just have it be transparent .. we'll see how that goes.

I'll work on it some more.. too bad that the author of ThemeEngine never implemented a live preview of the Finder when changing elements - and I can't code to save my life - I would never get off the island if all I had to do was code to get off.

The thing I said about the inactive Finder tab appearance being fixable is to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Thank you for your effort on trying to get it to work!

I believe you are referring to this line... (circled in blue)?

Seems like it *may* have been hardcoded into AppKit. If that is the case, probably writing an SIMBL plugin is the easiest way to resolve it. (Unfortunately I'm very not very good at writing those).

What if we leave that as it is, and just darken all the tabs?

 

[allan.nyholm]

Thank you for your effort on trying to get it to work!

I believe you are referring to this line... (circled in blue)?
View attachment 677755
Seems like it *may* have been hardcoded into AppKit. If that is the case, probably writing an SIMBL plugin is the easiest way to resolve it. (Unfortunately I'm very not very good at writing those).

What if we leave that as it is, and just darken all the tabs?

That's the line - it's really persistent.

Yeah - a SIMBL plugin is probably the way to go I think perhaps the author of cDock could help since he helped us with the Dock already and also DoctorDark for dark windows. He can't help with our menubar in El Capitan and Sierra(I asked him in a previous thread - he doesn't know which process controls the menubar he explained and if it's even patchable)

The thing about the window frames when just using ThemeEngine to edit the .car files is that there's nothing that control the tabs separately; the gradient or image goes all the way down from the top window edge down and takes the tabs too.. in order to have everything fall into place I will have to create custom gradient that stops where the tabs begin and then shift to a different color or gradient for the tabs.

There will have to a few stops and starts in a gradient for the tabs to be readable - I don't think a darken out the tabs would be preferable - if I understand correctly you would want to also darken the text for inactive tabs?

I once experimented with a theme that had a black/darker than usual window gradient/color and stopped right where the tabs begin(from the top edge) The issue with that I have to take account for margins too so that it adapts to the window with or without tabs without looking too weird according to my idea.

And with less a live preview you can imagine the copy pasting that goes on

I have an idea that has helped me before; take a different .car an work from that . there's the AccessibilityAppearance.car that can sometimes do the trick with certain issues(it helped swapping around and renaming a few .car files for my dark theme - it was less ideal because as a user you would have to copy all original .car files out and replace them all in order to go back because I renamed from other files to a SystemAppearance.car(if I remember correctly - might have just been the VibrantLightAppearance.car - in order to change the titlebar font color to white)

 

[vista980622]

That's the line - it's really persistent.

Yeah - a SIMBL plugin is probably the way to go I think perhaps the author of cDock could help since he helped us with the Dock already and also DoctorDark for dark windows. He can't help with our menubar in El Capitan and Sierra(I asked him in a previous thread - he doesn't know which process controls the menubar he explained and if it's even patchable)

The thing about the window frames when just using ThemeEngine to edit the .car files is that there's nothing that control the tabs separately; the gradient or image goes all the way down from the top window edge down and takes the tabs too.. in order to have everything fall into place I will have to create custom gradient that stops where the tabs begin and then shift to a different color or gradient for the tabs.

There will have to a few stops and starts in a gradient for the tabs to be readable - I don't think a darken out the tabs would be preferable - if I understand correctly you would want to also darken the text for inactive tabs?

I once experimented with a theme that had a black/darker than usual window gradient/color and stopped right where the tabs begin(from the top edge) The issue with that I have to take account for margins too so that it adapts to the window with or without tabs without looking too weird according to my idea.

And with less a live preview you can imagine the copy pasting that goes on

I have an idea that has helped me before; take a different .car an work from that . there's the AccessibilityAppearance.car that can sometimes do the trick with certain issues(it helped swapping around and renaming a few .car files for my dark theme - it was less ideal because as a user you would have to copy all original .car files out and replace them all in order to go back because I renamed from other files to a SystemAppearance.car(if I remember correctly - might have just been the VibrantLightAppearance.car - in order to change the titlebar font color to white)

Woah. That is a long, extensive reply.

For the line on title bars: I can be wrong, but I believe the SIMBL patch should hook to AppKit. Based on what I read off in API diffs of Sierra's release notes, AppKit is now in charge of drawing tabs, rather than individual applications themselves.

I never figured out which exact length you went through to pull this entire theme off. Your workaround of ThemeEngine's limitations in (a) no auto-replacement of .car files, and (b) treating gradient of entire window as a single image are so clever.

The tab bar coloring is a bit strange. The issue is not for inactive tabs when the window is in focus, but an issue with inactive tabs when the window is not in focus. When the window is not in focus, inactive tabs are completely white, which looks a bit out of place. There also appear to have two different looks for inactive tabs. Top: Finder, Bottom: Safari.



Now that I think of it, Safari may be an anomaly. Probably because Safari is drawing its own tab bar, since Safari 10 has to retroactively support El Capitan...?

 

[allan.nyholm]

Woah. That is a long, extensive reply.

For the line on title bars: I can be wrong, but I believe the SIMBL patch should hook to AppKit. Based on what I read off in API diffs of Sierra's release notes, AppKit is now in charge of drawing tabs, rather than individual applications themselves.

I never figured out which exact length you went through to pull this entire theme off. Your workaround of ThemeEngine's limitations in (a) no auto-replacement of .car files, and (b) treating gradient of entire window as a single image are so clever.

The tab bar coloring is a bit strange. The issue is not for inactive tabs when the window is in focus, but an issue with inactive tabs when the window is not in focus. When the window is not in focus, inactive tabs are completely white, which looks a bit out of place. There also appear to have two different looks for inactive tabs. Top: Finder, Bottom: Safari.

View attachment 677860

Now that I think of it, Safari may be an anomaly. Probably because Safari is drawing its own tab bar, since Safari 10 has to retroactively support El Capitan...?

You're right about Safari being a different beast than Finder - in El Capitan it was night and day so to speak.. Safari was "looking good" while the Finder was problematic. I'll locate the AppKit framework and take a look - I though that the Finder had some resources - It has an assets.car file. There's a guy on deviantart "noshery" who also makes themes for macOS - he's in some ways much better than me, in that he goes through more things than me and changes stuff.

I'd like to keep things to just one file(.car) or 3 that's manageable to a point. If I can see what I need in the AppKit framework and change graphics that might be what I need - or else I just need to rethink my approach to the theme.

Perhaps the recent macOS Sierra 10.12.2 files are different in their structure .. that means more restructuring of the theme of course - sometimes Apple changes the files with small variations in size and that makes me to believe that there's more graphics inside to be looked at. Now with Sierra there's actually more .car files than with El Capitan and Yosemite due to the Touchbar on recent MBP's and there's also a MediumAppearance line of .car files.

Apple is with Yosemite and forward making the OS appear for bright window gradients. I think that as long as there's no system-wide dark Finder windows(and more 1st party apps) then we have a situation.

There's no shortage of experimenting but also a lot of messing about.

I'll return some time later this evening at GMT +1

 

[mbert]

This is all very exciting, I have been looking for something like this for long (since Flavours 2 is only available for Yosemite I have not upgraded yet).

Having read all this I am not sure if I understood everything correctly: Can the SystemAppearance.car file provided by allan.nyholm be used in combination with XRevert? This seems not quite logical to me since XRevert works by replacing or manipulating this very file, or not?

So @vista980622, if you combined those two, how did you do this?

 

[vista980622]

You're right about Safari being a different beast than Finder - in El Capitan it was night and day so to speak.. Safari was "looking good" while the Finder was problematic. I'll locate the AppKit framework and take a look - I though that the Finder had some resources - It has an assets.car file. There's a guy on deviantart "noshery" who also makes themes for macOS - he's in some ways much better than me, in that he goes through more things than me and changes stuff.

I'd like to keep things to just one file(.car) or 3 that's manageable to a point. If I can see what I need in the AppKit framework and change graphics that might be what I need - or else I just need to rethink my approach to the theme.

Perhaps the recent macOS Sierra 10.12.2 files are different in their structure .. that means more restructuring of the theme of course - sometimes Apple changes the files with small variations in size and that makes me to believe that there's more graphics inside to be looked at. Now with Sierra there's actually more .car files than with El Capitan and Yosemite due to the Touchbar on recent MBP's and there's also a MediumAppearance line of .car files.

Apple is with Yosemite and forward making the OS appear for bright window gradients. I think that as long as there's no system-wide dark Finder windows(and more 1st party apps) then we have a situation.

There's no shortage of experimenting but also a lot of messing about.

I'll return some time later this evening at GMT +1

I know this is kinda off topic, but if modifying multiple .car files can solve the issues with tab bars and other visual glitches, I'd say it's worth it. If it seems like too much of a hassle for other users of the theme to install, I'll be happy write a little wrapper app that:

• automatically backs up the original .car files
• replaces those with the .car files you created
• automatically checks for whether new .car files are available from you
• allow users to easy revert back to the original .car files
• provide an onboard instruction about how to disable System Integrity Protection

Also, same observation here. The delta package of macOS 10.12.2 replaces several .car files with newer counterparts. Replacing SystemAppearance.car with the version you have built seems to break the "Customize Touch Bar" functionality.

Again, you're a lifesaver. Thank you again for your wonderful work.
[doublepost=1482101777][/doublepost]

This is all very exciting, I have been looking for something like this for long (since Flavours 2 is only available for Yosemite I have not upgraded yet).

Having read all this I am not sure if I understood everything correctly: Can the SystemAppearance.car file provided by allan.nyholm be used in combination with XRevert? This seems not quite logical to me since XRevert works by replacing or manipulating this very file, or not?

So @vista980622, if you combined those two, how did you do this?

The SystemAppearance.car file provided by allan.nyholm can co-exist with XRevert with a catch. Install XRevert first, then replace SystemAppearance.car with the one from allan.nyholm.

Then go to System Preferences -> General -> Appearance. Change it from "Blue" to "Graphite".

This is because macOS loads resources of Aqua widget controls from GraphiteAppearance.car, rather than from SystemAppearance.car when the appearance is set to "Graphite". While at the same time, macOS still loads resources of titlebar/tool bar gradient and button shape + masks from SystemAppearance.car.

It all works together nicely.

 

[allan.nyholm]

@vista980622 That's some modification that XRevert does! Even the dropdown and checkboxes+radio-buttons are modified. Those take forever to put in - Are there any animations on clicks on the checkboxes? Or do they swap swiftly to a new state upon click?

I'm currently rocking a fresh install of macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and after seeing what you mentioned above I'll have to take on the new SystemAppearance and work with that.

Thanks you for wanting to help. These past days have been awful health wise hence the silence. I only mustered to put up a screenshot of my desktop here on MacRumors.

 

[mbert]

The SystemAppearance.car file provided by allan.nyholm can co-exist with XRevert with a catch. Install XRevert first, then replace SystemAppearance.car with the one from allan.nyholm.

Got the point.
So you are using XRevert for this greyish ("graphite") look, right?

@All - has anyone used this stuff on Yosemite? I know, there's still Flavours 2, but before upgrading to sierra I'd really like to know what i would get

 

[vista980622]

@vista980622 That's some modification that XRevert does! Even the dropdown and checkboxes+radio-buttons are modified. Those take forever to put in - Are there any animations on clicks on the checkboxes? Or do they swap swiftly to a new state upon click?

I'm currently rocking a fresh install of macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and after seeing what you mentioned above I'll have to take on the new SystemAppearance and work with that.

Thanks you for wanting to help. These past days have been awful health wise hence the silence. I only mustered to put up a screenshot of my desktop here on MacRumors.

Yea. XRevert seems like a major effort. The clicks on animations are still available. They don't swiftly snap to a new state. If you'd like to check out some of XRevert's .car file, I'll be happy to PM them to you (sadly, I don't seem to be able to do so. "This member limits who may view their full profile".)

I have been back to my home country recently, where the internet connection is poor. As a result, I am less active than before as well.
[doublepost=1482313278][/doublepost]

Got the point.
So you are using XRevert for this greyish ("graphite") look, right?

@All - has anyone used this stuff on Yosemite? I know, there's still Flavours 2, but before upgrading to sierra I'd really like to know what i would get

Yes, that is correct.
I haven't tried it on Yosemite. But El Capitan/Sierra both seem to have improved performance compared to Yosemite. I'd say go for it once you made a backup image.

 

[mbert]

I haven't tried it on Yosemite. But El Capitan/Sierra both seem to have improved performance compared to Yosemite. I'd say go for it once you made a backup image.

I tried it. It did not work. It made my UI unusable.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Yea. XRevert seems like a major effort. The clicks on animations are still available. They don't swiftly snap to a new state. If you'd like to check out some of XRevert's .car file, I'll be happy to PM them to you (sadly, I don't seem to be able to do so. "This member limits who may view their full profile".)

I have been back to my home country recently, where the internet connection is poor. As a result, I am less active than before as well.

I must have been tampering with profile settings on a bad hair day, investigating.

Thanks for the information about the animations and such. I recently purchased the XRevert package my self.

Happy Holidays.

 

[Eithanius]

Try this one: http://d.pr/f/1ibYp

Link is dead again...

 

[allan.nyholm]

Link is dead again...

Doing what I can to get it back up: http://d.pr/f/NuX8

 

[Eithanius]

Doing what I can to get it back up: http://d.pr/f/NuX8

Thank you...

 

[culpanext]

Link is dead again...

 

[vista980622]

Link is dead again...

Try this.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/km72zc37smikbet/Leopard_esque_look_SystemAppearance.car.zip?dl=0

 

[culpanext]

thank you so much

 

[allan.nyholm]

Sometimes I wish that Droplr wasn't being such irritating. My subscription expired and I can't get anything off of it for some reason. The drops does not exist anymore... which they clearly do - on their website and in the Droplr menu bar.

 

[culpanext]

Hi,
Leopardesque look system appearance is good on Sierra, but traffic light buttons some app doesn't work, etc itunes, calculator app...
Is there a solution? or are there any updates?

 

[allan.nyholm]

Hi,
Leopardesque look system appearance is good on Sierra, but traffic light buttons some app doesn't work, etc itunes, calculator app...
Is there a solution? or are there any updates?

Those apps are non-changeable AFAIK .. I have tried the different system .car theme files but none of them quite fit the bill. I imagine that calculator has in its resources its own theme files. And iTunes is really tough to change - the newer iTunes versions I haven't yet bothered to look into since the ThemePark Mac app can't write a correct iTunes.rsrc file back so that it's usable for these iTunes versions for Yosemite and up. And, I just remembered that Mavericks makeover app from MacClub.de -- If that group managed to change more than me with all my diddle daddle - then I cave in.

 

[mbert]

Those applications are not themable on Yosemite either. I am using Flavours2 on Yosemite, but the effect is exactly as described.

I am still sticking to Yosemite as long as the applications I use daily still work. Still hoping that Apple's design languages changes again before I have to upgrade...

 

[culpanext]

hi,
does it work correctly on high sierra?

 

[allan.nyholm]

hi,
does it work correctly on high sierra?

I personally have not tried - but I'd like to think that it does. If you can wait a few more days then I'll let you know - or someone else more better than me will.

 

[culpanext]

thanks Allan, I'll wait...