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Theming for Mac OS Ventura

R

rteer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 7, 2022
10
36
Hey guys,

Been working on theme customisation for OS 13 Ventura. I've just set up a new account here after years of being inactive on forums but ths is by no means my first Rodeo. Wanted to create a post here for OSX theme discussion for OS Ventura.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to dedicate some time to developing a theme switching application. At this moment I have been able to achieve working theme customisation in Ventura, but want to develop my scripts into a working utility application to allow for quick and easy theme creation and application.

Any discussion on the topic is welcome here and I implore others to get involved and contribute as much (or as little) as possible. The customisation community is a great place to bounce ideas off one another and share your findings!
 
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Application of Nord based theme on Ventura WIP
Screengrab 1.png


Screenshot 2022-11-11 at 09.08.45.png
 
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Work in progress mockup of theming app idea. As of current the application of the theme above is using modified versions of the .car files and generating a new snapshot, much like theming in previous mac os iterations.

The intention for the application is to allow for the system files to be cloned, stored as a backup.

The backup files are then taken and decompiled modified with resources that are stored in a bundle, and recompiled

The recompiled modified files will then be pushed in to replace the system files and a new snapshot can be created.

This means that any of the themes applied will be applied to the applicable system files on that specific device/ os version. Also allowing users to create themes and preview the themes in the app prior to applying them to the system
 

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fisherking said:
would be amazing; i miss the days when we could really customize the look of our macs. customization, GUI options... never something apple's had much use for. looking forward to seeing where this goes. 👍
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Totally agree on this, Ive found that Ventura is surprisingly open in terms of what can actually be done, I feel that we could really do something interesting and allow the same if not a higher level of customisation that we achieved back in the old days of shapeshifter and candybar
 
allan.nyholm said:
I think I could use some of your help @rteer

Excellent work - does the accent colors change throughout the system, such as the contextual menu highlight?

I have a hard time with colors in general - they are hard to really figure out..
Click to expand...

They do indeed, though they are a little darker than intended :( I'll be making some more amendments this weekend and post an update, I did the same thing a while back on Big Sur actually and had to really play around with them to get them working correctly.

Gonna do another port of milk with all of the applicable accent colours again for Ventura also shortly to see the limitations on the light theme :)
 
I wanted to extend an invitation your way to my Discord, well a friend and mines. It's where partially where the glowengine and other theming things are discussed.
If you're interested of course.

We could really use your professionalism and your visions on how your would change themes like your proposed.


I have seen a few scripts for Big Sur and Monterey that rely on changing icons system-wide, and I have no doubt that the same script could be modified to be used for themes.

macOS Theming Temple Discord https://discord.gg/NjxSgC7tu7
 
rteer said:
They do indeed, though they are a little darker than intended :( I'll be making some more amendments this weekend and post an update, I did the same thing a while back on Big Sur actually and had to really play around with them to get them working correctly.

Gonna do another port of milk with all of the applicable accent colours again for Ventura also shortly to see the limitations on the light theme :)
Click to expand...
Have you seen if any of the TintColor options could be tinkered with for allowing the colors to be more correct in relation to Nord palette if they are a little darker than intended. If of course you haven't already been testing.
 
allan.nyholm said:
I wanted to extend an invitation your way to my Discord, well a friend and mines. It's where partially where the glowengine and other theming things are discussed.
If you're interested of course.

We could really use your professionalism and your visions on how your would change themes like your proposed.


I have seen a few scripts for Big Sur and Monterey that rely on changing icons system-wide, and I have no doubt that the same script could be modified to be used for themes.

macOS Theming Temple Discord https://discord.gg/NjxSgC7tu7
Click to expand...
Yup same theory actually with the shell scripts to allow the icon modification, awesome stuff man I'll get myself joined up on the discord over the weekend and drop you a message 👍

With glowengine how is that working as of current? I've seen it spring up a few times in the past few days but my understanding was that it it was reliant on something like macforge to handle the injection?
 
rteer said:
Yup same theory actually with the shell scripts to allow the icon modification, awesome stuff man I'll get myself joined up on the discord over the weekend and drop you a message 👍

With glowengine how is that working as of current? I've seen it spring up a few times in the past few days but my understanding was that it it was reliant on something like macforge to handle the injection?
Click to expand...

The glowengine has an injector that's not dependent on MacForge - it is an injector still, but you can use the ´glowd´ injector without MacForge. Then again, it's only injecting glow(engine) It's name is just glow, but the bundle name is glowengine.bundle.

perhaps the author or either glow or the developer of ThemeEngine & Mousecape, Alex Zielenski has a few tips to bring your theming app idea to fruition. I know that the developer of glow really wishes for something like that
 
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rteer said:
Hey guys,

Been working on theme customisation for OS 13 Ventura. I've just set up a new account here after years of being inactive on forums but ths is by no means my first Rodeo. Wanted to create a post here for OSX theme discussion for OS Ventura.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to dedicate some time to developing a theme switching application. At this moment I have been able to achieve working theme customisation in Ventura, but want to develop my scripts into a working utility application to allow for quick and easy theme creation and application.

Any discussion on the topic is welcome here and I implore others to get involved and contribute as much (or as little) as possible. The customisation community is a great place to bounce ideas off one another and share your findings!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the initiative, rteer, old times are "resurrected".
Whenever possible (for M1), I'll be happy to contribute.
 
Will .car files that work on Catalina, also work on Ventura, or do they need to be modified?
 
allan.nyholm said:
with the use of MacForge and PaintCan plugin, yes.

directly installing on your drive? uhmm. could be, I haven't been brave enough to try myself
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Hi Allen.:)


I thought rteer's app didn't use MacForge and PaintCan.
 
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Clickme said:
Hi Allen.:)


I thought rteers app didn't use MacForge and PaintCan.
Click to expand...
Oh, I read that too - I'm trying to break free of MacForge myself.. I was just comment on general use of Catalina car files that probably wouldn't be a good fit with being replaced directly.

If you have some files from that time, then I can only suggest you try coping them in on Ventura.
 
allan.nyholm said:
Oh, I read that too - I'm trying to break free of MacForge myself.. I was just comment on general use of Catalina car files that probably wouldn't be a good fit with being replaced directly.

If you have some files from that time, then I can only suggest you try coping them in on Ventura.
Click to expand...

I'm still on Catalina. I'm thinking about upgrading to Ventura, but not until I know I can mac it look like a Mac.
 
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I've seen some pretty impressive efforts, but none of them really look right. Considering all the trouble needed to do any theming, the only way it would be worth it to me is if the end result is a damn near perfect.

A lot of times the padding is pretty bad. Or the buttons are too small.

And until something is done to get the actual full titlebar back, none of these are ever going to cut it.
 
fisherking said:
i never understand people who are more concerned with the appearance of an OS over the capabilities and coding of an OS. either way, the ventura GUI looks exactly like a mac, as it is, in fact, the current mac OS... 🤔
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You ever heard of a hobby?
 
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CasualFanboy said:
You ever heard of a hobby?
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please read what i wrote. i was discussing "people who are more concerned with the appearance of an OS over the capabilities and coding of an OS".

that's very different from people who explore hobbies, like customizing their OSes, or collecting stamps... or trying to start arguments on web forums 🙄
 
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fisherking said:
please read what i wrote. i was discussing "people who are more concerned with the appearance of an OS over the capabilities and coding of an OS".

that's very different from people who explore hobbies, like customizing their OSes, or collecting stamps... or trying to start arguments on web forums 🙄
Click to expand...
Which is why people provide feedback on OS changes like the System Preferences because they are concerned about the capabilities and coding of the OS.
 
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