Mar 10
Do you dress up your Mac or PC?
2005 at 01.33 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Let’s explore the fun world of changing the overall appearance of your Mac or PC using ‘themes’ or skins. I always have been a sucker for good looking icons. Back in the day on Mac OS 9 you had Kaleidoscope to change the appearance of Mac. The ball park changed dramatically when Mac OS X arrived on the scene and it became clear that Kaleidoscope wasn’t going be ported to Mac OS X.
So at first I was reluctant to start using one of the early apps available for that kind of thing namely ShapeShifter. My main concern was that I was afraid that such an application could render your Mac unusable.
So I waited until ShapeShifter 2.0 to jump on the bandwagon and it has been a successful ride ever since. With this app you can change the look of windows, menus, apps, buttons, absolutely everything.
So what theme am I using now? Well mine is called Milk 2.5. A good theme in my opinion is a theme that doesn't change the interface too drastically. It has to be easy on the eye so no overwhelming colors or too much beveling or drop shadows etc.
Some theme resources:
- Max Themes, by Max Rudberg - [url=http://www.maxthemes.com]http://www.maxthemes.com[/url]
- Swizcore Studios, by Kevin Husted - [url=http://www.swizcore.com]http://www.swizcore.com[/url]
- DigitalRamen, by Harlan Lewis - [url=http://www.digitalramen.com]http://www.digitalramen.com[/url]
- ResExcellence - [url=http://www.resexcellence.com]http://www.resexcellence.com[/url]
- MacUpdate - [url=http://www.macupdate.com]http://www.macupdate.com[/url]
- MacThemes - [url=http://www.macthemes.net]http://www.macthemes.net[/url]
- Xthemes - [url=http://www.xthemes.net]http://www.xthemes.net[/url]
For my icon management I'm using Pixadex to keep me organized. Pixadex is to icons, what Apple's iPhoto is to images. So you can organize your icons into categories, folders etc. You can do a search to find that particular icon quickly and easily. And it looks good because it comes from Panic and the Icon Factory.
As you can see in my Flickr screenshot I am now using the recently and much anticipated icon set MINIUM� by Sascha H�hne. Sascha is one of the top icon designers out there and I absolutely love what he has done with those icons. His other set of icons SNOW.E2 has been my favorite for years. He is using the right balance in everything he creates. My readers that are on Windows are in luck because the icon set is also available for Windows XP. So Sascha thanks for making those available to us all.
So let the fun begin and show me your favorite theme and icons. Who knows what hidden crown jewels surface here :-) Here is mine. The desktop used is from the Veer desktop collection. Some cool desktops there!
- 1. take a screenshot from your desktop
- 2. crop (or resize) the picture to 420px wide and save it as jpeg/gif/png
- 3. upload the image to your own server
- 4. post a comment by using the pMachine image tag and the full URL path to your image, for example:
Thank you for your contribution ;-)
42served
1
Hi veerle do you know what font is used in your desktop background?
I’ll try and get around to posting an image of my desktop soon.
2
Beneath my desktop @ work
Need to clean it up :)
I do not use it very often. But he… it looks organized!
3
No customisation, few icons and a flowery wallpaper to make me feel like Spring really is on the way:
4
I’m using BBlean i.e. Blackbox for Microsoft Windows, as the linux version I can change the appearance of menu and bars adding new styles or changing them by editing tiny text files similar to css..
When I can’t use linux I like to work with something similar, at least in appearance.. *uhm* sounds lame but I hate icons ;p
5
On my Mac I am using the Xi-FreshSnowM v1.1 theme with the Minium icon set. The desktop is from Bartelme Design called the Blue Crystal Wallpaper Set.
A larger version can viewed on my Flickr page
6
@bittered, it is called Ataribaby, a font from Veer.
You can preview/buy this font here.
BTW, does anybody know if you can upload a picture in ‘full’ size on Flickr? It was my intention to put it there in full size so you can see it in detail, but Flickr scales it :-(
7
Bog standard Windows XP. I couldn’t resist taking a screenshot of my dual-tft setup. Wish there was an easy way of having a wallpaper span across instead of repeating itself. Anybody know of anyway?
I don’t want to add any skin changing things like windowsblinds because I could do with the extra memory for photoshop :)
8
The previous one was the work machine, and the only reason it had tidy icons was because 2 days I had a ‘spring’ clean. This one is my home machine. My 1920x1200 widescreen laptop. It is the bollox, having soo much screen real estate. Hopefully going to flog this one and get the new 17” widescreen 1920x1200 Sony Vaio, mmmm.
If anyone wants the desktop of the Burj Al Arab, give us a shout, I can upload the full res version if needed.
9
My current desktop image is a screenshot from the Evil Dead trilogy featuring a possesed Ash, which I totally cleaned-up using Photoshop. Aside from my hard-drive and external firewire disk(s) I don’t use any custom icons.
Cheers,
Ziepe
10
Heya Verlee! I’ve been following your blog since few month’s back and this is the first time I’m posting a comment. Heres my desktop:
Nothing too fancy, I like it simple, clean - and yeah I’m kind of a fan of animes, hence the wallpaper. I placed my Taskbar on top, because to me, it is easier to reach the application menus and switching between applications (less mouse movement).
11
@Simon Davies: you can easily span your background, in the desktop properties where you choose your wallpaper, you can set the position to tile. This works for me.
Here’s my dekstop:
Bigger version
Check deviantArt for dual-display backgrounds.
12
Veerle, If you click on View Different sizes on the right sidebar on Flickr, you can see the full size image.
Here is my latest destop, also available on Flickr.
Click here for full size version.
13
@Josh: I’ve figured it out I think. If your not logged in to your Flickr account you don’t see the view different size link. But I want to ask something else about compression on Flickr. I’ve noticed how good your shots look and mine are like crap. Do you have any control on compression on Flickr? My original 1600x1024 was ok.
14
Where did you get that little powerbook icon for your HD? I’ve been wanting to change mine to that.
15
@Veerle: I don’t think Flickr worries about compression while uploading. I opened the pdf screenshot in Photoshop and saved it as a Jpg at 80%. My screen is only 1024x768 (G4 iBook), so yours should look better I would think. How did you save yours?
16
I have to be honest I am a bit dull when it comes to themes etc. but today, I found PimpZilla for Firefox, this has to be the very bestest theme ever!
http://people.zeelandnet.nl/marco/pimpzilla/
17
Here is the screenshot from one of my screens.
The other one just randomly picks wallpapers so it’s not so interesting.
18
KDE with PlasitK theme, colours tweaked by myself.
http://bler.webschuur.com/images/screenieBer.png
19
You knew someone was going to ignore that cropping detail ...
You think if they understand how to install linux and then tweak KDE they wouldn’t miss that :)
20
Already corrected while I wrote the last post, where is that delete button?
21
This is flyakiteos on windows xp, with some png icons loaded from microangelo, yzshadow, objectdock, and some other stuff I can’t remember.
Sigh ... really, one day I’ll just get a mac.
22
These are a couple of my favorites. My current one is at the bottom. Default aqua is still a beautiful theme! :)
Click the images to open up the full size snapshot.
23
This is a windowsblinds gnome theme with no icons, a kind of mac dock replacement for windows called yzdock, and the winbar which displays system info and a bunch of other stuff.
Click here for bigger image
24
Surprised nobody mentioned theme-xp for windows…
I’m using the OS panther theme for my windows.
25
@Greg Hinch: The icon of my PowerBook is made by Hein Mevissen. You can download it an all his other icons here.
@Josh: I’ve dropped the jpg screenshot in iPhoto and I uploaded it with the Flickr Export plugin for iPhoto. There are no compression settings in this plug-in.
@John Oxton: That theme made me smile… but I can’t see myself using it ;-)
@Ralph: There is no delete button. No worries if you make a mistake ;-)
@Josh Bryant: Josh, what is the name of that theme your using in the first 3 screenshots? It seems nice.
26
Phew! This is a *useful* weblog for a change! Thanx for all the info. Right into my favorites.
27
My ability to print screen seems to have gone wrong… but i wanted to post to let Simon Davies (and the rest of the work) know about Ultramon http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/
If you have more than one monitor, then its a must. It will let you stretch wallpapers across multiple monitors. It also has lots of other features such as taskbars on your other monitors, added button for moving apps from one monitor to another etc…
I’ve got it running with 3 TFT’s a taskbar on all 3 and a strecthed wallpaper and its using just 6MB…
28
Veerle >
The theme is a mod I did on “Rhapsodized” by Max Rudberg. It was actually an accident screenshot that I saw about 4 years ago when I was still using windows. Someone had messed up the hue/sat on their screenshot and it looked khaki, I got hooked on it. I had the theme for windows for the longest time.
When I moved to OS X I got Max to help me out and made an OS X version of it. However, I value consistency over looks, and I just couldn’t keep using it because iTunes and iCal looked so bad. I do miss it though, it was one of the most beautiful and useable themes I have ever used. I can send you a copy if you like for you to play around with. I have some amazing walls that really go with it as well.
29
Nothing spectacular going on on my desktop, but here it is anyway:p
Some facts:
- I’m a WinXP user and use the ‘Silver’ theme. I’ve always liked my task bar to sit in the upper part of the screen (I’ve been doing that since Windows 98 or so).
- You’ll notice that I use a Mac OS X Dock imitation thingy.. it’s called ObjectDock and it’s just a CPU consuming gadget actually ;) but it looks nice (and it doesn’t ever crash, so I haven’t uninstalled it yet)
- In my task bar, two mini-players are nicely docked next to each other: Windows Media Player and iTunes :) I only use WMP for the ‘Studio Brussel’ livestream and iTunes (of course) to manage my music collection.
- In the upper right, you’ll notice the excellent MSN Desktop Searchbar. It’s Spotlight for your PC! I typed in ‘Veerle’ just for fun :)
- Uhm.. that’s it, I guess.. and did you notice the web developer toolbar in Firefox? Just can’t live without it!
30
I love seeing screenshots. Makes me want to waste more time messing with my desktop than working. Here’s two of my favs, both using the Aluminum Alloy Theme:
Apparently I’ve been in a dark-ish mood lately. Wonder if it’s ‘cause I’m tired of my job? :)
31
A gnome 2.8, with the industrial theme slightly modified by me to fit my background (that’s hell, there is too much applet on my panels, but I can’t live without them)
32
Thank you for the Veer.com wallpapers link. I’ve downloaded “The Agriscientist” but after a while, the angel became very disturbing so I cut it off…
I do not use any Theme hacks at all, I really like the current Panther theme.
33
@Joris S’heeren - Thanks for the info, I just got back from a weekend in Belgium so your info will gimme something to do tomorrow at work!
34
@Dave Marks - I found ultramon just before the weekend, the extended taskbar sounds like a wicked idea. I like the idea of having the taskbar buttons only show on the taskbar where the window is located.
35
okey mine is not that original; and after seeing Veer colection I’ll think about changing the wallpaper…
36
That´s my desktop, not that cool i know.
37
Windows XP Home/Royale Visual Style
Wallpaper from Deviant Art
It’s all on a Dell 20.1 inch widescreen LCD
I wish I had an Apple :(
Link to full size:
http://armanchoobineh.com/images/newdesktop2.jpg
38
Jus to let you know, Max has updated his Milk themes to V.3 and it now comes in four colours:
http://www.maxthemes.com
“It comes in colors everywhere!
Milk is now at version 3.0, the big change is that it now comes in four color variations - blue, pink, green and silver. I hope this is appreciated, I know a lot of people missed the grey version and I hope some will like the new colors as well.
I have also completed Milk themes for the Sony Ericsson K700, Z600, Z608, T610, T628, T630, T616. These are available at Ocean Observation’s mobile themes page!”
39
uh, I use style xp (panther theme), objectdock for launchbar, konfabulator for widgets, the gant3 iconset and wallpaper from deviantart
40
Hey Shad,
Any chance of getting larger res of those pics?
I went to your webpage, but no contact info for you, and I’d love to have them both!
Scotty
41
It’s Windows XP, but I created a dock using the QuickLaunch bar. See http://nerdherdonline.blogspot.com/2005/02/windows-dock.html
for how to make your own dock on a PC!
42
Yeah, I dressed it up a while ago. You can view it here . The screenshot is recent, so I had to clean up the desktop… just a little bit.