For whatever reason, skinning the Mac hasn't attracted the same fervor from deveopers as Windows skinning. An uneducated guess is that the basic OS is fairly resistant to "coloring outside the lines". With the notable exceptions of K-scope and a few Audio players, there is virtually no Mac skinning. No alternative app launchers, no clocks, address books, notepads, utilities, practically nothing. I may be way off here, and anxiously await essvid to set me straight.

The Mac customizers LOVE thier icons and seem to be happy with K-scope and custom icons. Most "customizers" for the Mac grab a cool backround from http://www.blueskyheart.com/ and toss a few icons on it and nothing more.

OS X, with it's alpha blending and novel GUI rendering tricks would be such a fantastic platform for "skinning". It's amazing to me that Apple has seeimgly eschewed thier core market - the creative types. These individuals are the least likely to be happy keeping things "stock".

Oh well, If I could second guess Apple's decisions, I'd be rich from my shrewd stock transactions.

But if I'm not mistaken, Kaleidoscope skins it all, jsut about the full OS. And perhpas skinning is not so much for the graphics guys as well as the sysops and programmers. This skinning scene we have here is very programmer driven, so I can imagine there being less of that on the Mac (it being a "graphics" platform).

don't know well mac but that's just too bad for them

I am mainly use Macintosh at work and when I want to customize I go to http://www.resexcellence.com As for OSX, there have been a few "hacks" to change it. They usually show them off in their screenshots section.

I meant to say "I mainly use..."

As someone who uses OS X off and on all day long, I have to say that I've also noticed the lack of skinning fervor on the mac but also that I don't really care that much. I'm fairly happy with the 'stock' interface myself (using the Graphite appearance option. ). I have no (major) complaints about OS X - as it seems to combine some of the best traits of OS9 and OPENSTEP (with a bundle more coming with 10.1 next month). I've also heard whisperings that Apple is working on an Appearance Manager for X.

My main inspiration for skinning Windows to begin with was that I thought it was such an ugly and 'less than well designed' UI. I'd never had any great desire to skin any of the other OS's I've used, only Win.

If I feel the need for skinning there are already a few appearance hacks for X and I could always try my hand at skinning something like Audion or Time-X. OTOH, I've still got several Windows machines all around me and I've yet to finish one of several ObjectBar themes.

The new interface of Mac Os X created by Kai Krause, (KPT Filters, Photoshop etc), and is something so awesome that I don't think that there is anyone who wants to change that wonderful design, created from the Master of Graphics. Of course, the people must be free to personalize their interface, but with MacOs, is so easy to change almost everything with the tools provided by the Os and from other sources. Kaleidoscope is great, and I believe that is question of days, for the author, who is trying always hard to have his program up to date, to find the way to work fine with MacOs X.

the last time i talked with greg (creator of kaleidoscope) he hadn't really put much effort to skinning osx yet, but assumed it would eventually be done (at least by someone.) he's a math professor
there has already been one theming program available for skinning osx, but the legal costs facing the guy (of defending himself against apple) made him just close it up :/ this was a few months ago.

my main beef with x is that it's still quite sluggish at times.. oddly.. the dock, etc. operates amazingly fluidly, but suddenly -typing- lags badly.. ah well.. it's especially apparent because the build of 9.1 included is blazingly fast. -easily- faster on my g3-400 than win2k on a gig intel.

anyway - yes, to agree with the above, virtually all shareware for mac supports k-scope, so individually skinned apps aren't as big. of special note though is audion.

i have wondered in the past if apple planned on releasing their own skinning app for x, and thus the root of their displeasure with other attempts. we'll see.

www.resexcellence.com
"No one mods on the mac! nopenopenope!"

And Aqua was not designed by Kai Krause, adni. It's a joke (originated by me, no less), a crack about Aqua being designed by Kai Krause on (insert drug here) and locked in a room with nothing but a computer with PS and Eye Candy.
Mainly made up cos it has all the properties of one of his interfaces (pretty, but godawful to interact with), only much, much worse.

And why is this topic on a Windows customisation site?

craeonics will bite

Why not?

I work on a MAC G4, and I'm quite happy with the interface that came with the machine. I've tried the kaleidoscope for Mac and found it a bit buggy, windows open in odd places, working in photoshop with it, had some problems, (at least it did last yr. or maybe I just need a faster comp. ) anyway, I love wallpapers!....and all the artists making them!!!!, even though I can't use any of the skins here on this site, I do appreciate the craft that goes into making them, and I'm in awe at the skill required to design one, it's just another art form, I like looking at them......Oh, btw, you can visit http://www.VersionTracker.com VersionTracker.com to get all the latest updates, upgrades, gadgets, customizations, coming out everday for MAC, but they have a Windows area also, palm too.

crea: For the same reason you don't go to Mac forums to ask about litestep.

Hmm, but this being a Windows customisation site does not mean there is not possible interest in what's going on on other platforms... Expanding horizons and such.

Yeah. I hear precious little about the Mac world - it's nice to hear about it now and then.

http://www.workthatmouse.com/

Arlo Rose is the other half the K dev team.

Following is an email from the list, from Eric (the "Kaleidoscope Evangelist", who manages the KSA, and the K List):

----------

on 8/17/01 9:28 PM, brian pink at [email protected] wrote:

> from workthatmouse.com:
>
> The last version of Kaleidoscope we released was 2.3.1. While we still
> support it, and encourage people running pre-Mac OS X machines to download
> and register it, we are no longer actively working on it or a version for
> Mac OS X.
>
> fuck. combine that, with Aqua, with WinXP interface by IconFactory, and
> EMBED no longer working in IE on Windows...
>
> its a sad day at my house.

Well, don't be too sad too quickly. For one, if you follow the links that
Arlo has created on his page, you can actually learn a lot of neat stuff,
totally unrelated to Kaleidoscope. You can find out that Greg has moved
from Boston to Redmond to Berkeley to Eugene in the last little while and
has worked for Microsoft! =D You can find out that Arlo has enough money to
buy whatever he wants and is able to choose to tun down Apple! =D You can
find out that I don't do much of anything! Rafting the Arkansas and
riding mules into the Grand Canyon sure were fun, though.

Anyways, you all know that Arlo has never been the programmer behind
Kaleidoscope; his primary role was as graphic designer (of the bundled
schemes and promotional/web artwork) and figurer of difficulties: it took a
lot to conceptualize a format within which a complete interface could be
represented by individual bits and pieces. I remember hearing about many
late-night meetings about how to pull off some of the tricks that
managed.

With that in mind, I don't think there is anything to despair about... at
least not immediately. You've noted that Arlo has been gone from the list
for quite some time; he's terribly busy with a myriad of work-related
activities that have slowly pulled him away from Kaleidoscope. But as you
can tell from the above description of his part in the empire, Kaleidoscope
will still function fine while he is busy.

True, the programmer is also absent at the moment, still getting
acclimatized to his new role in Eugene, setting up his new house and such.
But, as Arlo's page says, Kaleidoscope will still be supported in terms of
bug-fixes and general communication of any ideas you may have, etc. So, in
actuality, the Kaleidoscope experience is no different now than before Brian
read that note.

With respect to future versions, I think Arlo might have been a bit more
vague: the reason 2.3.1 won't be updated is because we view it as pretty
much complete. I have tremendous faith that Greg would fix any terrible
bugs that were brought to his attention, but he's been an avid protestor of
my animation ideas since I suggested them to him years ago.

Also, the reason no X-compatible version is being worked on should be very
clear if any of you have ever believed Maury's news. With Apple
threatening left and right over X reverse-engineering, now isn't the time to
[k]rak X and anger people. Let's wait until Apple confirms or denies their
intent to release a customizable theming tool and see what shakes down from
there. If they do, we all know there is no way Kaleidoscope could possibly
compete with a bundled, OS-level customization, and if they don't, well
then, maybe there will be an opening for Greg to come back and create some
magic a second time.

Until then, there are many of us who can't stand X, can't afford X or can't
understand X that will continue to use previous versions of the Mac OS. I'm
thankful to the people represented on the last few NAUSes who are making
sure that Kaleidoscope scheming remains a viable and valued art: the more
schemes people make, the more people will want to make schemes and the more
people will want schemes to continue into the future...

E

----------

The last statement is of special interest... classic MacOS is going to stick around for a -long- time (and I intend to release my own schemes, OSX version or not).

Yeah, judging from this it seems OSX isn't that popular.