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Mac Themes Garden

damien.zone

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Re: Mac Themes Garden

#21

Post by rhet0rica »

rhet0rica wrote: post #6

It blows my mind how diverse these are, and how diverse their creators were. One single artist, Martha Royer, made over two hundred themes: https://macthemes.garden/authors/martha-royer/ (They're not all amazing in quality, but the sheer industriousness is staggering.) I was lurking around the equivalent Windows community in roughly the same era (well, a couple of years later) and it was nothing like this. Far fewer…

Self follow-up: https://macthemes.garden/themes/aa2e2f4e6f87-openstep-4/ and https://macthemes.garden/themes/168f21725acd-nextstep-4/ appear to actually have the correct assets for a NeXT look. Scott Naness seems to have been a cut above the rest for authenticity—there's also OS/2 Warp 4 and even vintage Windows 2.0 skins in his library.

Also, special mentions for obscure GUI clones:

- Xerox Star: https://macthemes.garden/themes/ede837fa5df1-xerox-star/

- QNX: https://macthemes.garden/themes/c46eae6cd818-mac-qnx/

- Solaris CDE: https://macthemes.garden/themes/8ba34a581676-macsolaris/

- the classic X Athena widgets: https://macthemes.garden/themes/533452549350-xlook-athenaxlo...

- Rhapsody, because obviously: https://macthemes.garden/themes/b0c635d1faf0-rhapsody-k2/

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#22

Post by zapzupnz »

betterThanTexas wrote: post #15
rezmason wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have mentioned a couple other things: 1. Kaleidoscope (the most common OS 9 theme system extension) runs fine under emulation, so if you just want to _enjoy_ these themes, your best bet is the SheepShaver emulator (in my opinion). 2. Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative desktop environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz. And then you can build theme support on top of something like that. But most…

> Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative desktop environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz. Yea but why use a mac at that point? I don't see anyone on the linux side of things making anything that acknowledges why people use macs in the first place; the entire ecosystem is built to reproduce the IBM PC (...in a unix/like environment). Particularly with its disastrous keybindings and perplexing UI decisions…

The pipeline from Windows to Linux is fairly clear. The pipeline from Mac to Linux is less evident; the dyed in the wool Mac users tend to stay that way, using Linux for work rather than a daily driver.

Queue a Mac-to-Linux user to contradict this, and there's plenty of them, but we Mac users are truly the dictionary definition of the sunk cost fallacy in more ways than one.

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#23

Post by cosmic_cheese »

rhet0rica wrote: post #6

It blows my mind how diverse these are, and how diverse their creators were. One single artist, Martha Royer, made over two hundred themes: https://macthemes.garden/authors/martha-royer/ (They're not all amazing in quality, but the sheer industriousness is staggering.) I was lurking around the equivalent Windows community in roughly the same era (well, a couple of years later) and it was nothing like this. Far fewer…

Though they were a step down from Kaleidoscope schemes and appearance manager themes in terms of what they could do, those early OS X themes remain some of the nicest looking, highest fidelity themes on any platform. In particular, those made by Max Rudberg[0] hold a special place in my heart.

Modern theming systems have high DPI support which is in theory an upgrade, but the desktop appearance zeitgeist has skewed so flat and dull that the extra pixels make no material difference.

[0]: https://maxrudberg.com/themes.html

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#25

Post by Lammy »

I miss this era so much.

> Turns out this action didn't have a keyboard shortcut until Mac OS X? Didn't know that!

Edit your Finder and/or System with ResEdit and you can add or change any keyboard shortcuts you want.

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#28

Post by DiscourseFan »

cflewis wrote: post #12
bix6 wrote: post #5

I would do anything to have Monkey Paradise on my current computer.

Incredibly I was thinking the exact same thing. Computers used to fun! I miss the candy iMac theming.

Probably would have to be a passion project. I don't think there's a large enough market for it. Maybe someone should contact the Apple UI team to import these old themes?

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#29

Post by DiscourseFan »

zapzupnz wrote: post #22
betterThanTexas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative desktop environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz. Yea but why use a mac at that point? I don't see anyone on the linux side of things making anything that acknowledges why people use macs in the first place; the entire ecosystem is built to reproduce the IBM PC (...in a unix/like environment). Particularly with its disastrous keybindings and perplexing UI decisions…

The pipeline from Windows to Linux is fairly clear. The pipeline from Mac to Linux is less evident; the dyed in the wool Mac users tend to stay that way, using Linux for work rather than a daily driver. Queue a Mac-to-Linux user to contradict this, and there's plenty of them, but we Mac users are truly the dictionary definition of the sunk cost fallacy in more ways than one.

I've been burned by ArchLinux too many times before...

Re: Mac Themes Garden

#30

Post by cosmic_cheese »

zapzupnz wrote: post #22
betterThanTexas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative desktop environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz. Yea but why use a mac at that point? I don't see anyone on the linux side of things making anything that acknowledges why people use macs in the first place; the entire ecosystem is built to reproduce the IBM PC (...in a unix/like environment). Particularly with its disastrous keybindings and perplexing UI decisions…

The pipeline from Windows to Linux is fairly clear. The pipeline from Mac to Linux is less evident; the dyed in the wool Mac users tend to stay that way, using Linux for work rather than a daily driver. Queue a Mac-to-Linux user to contradict this, and there's plenty of them, but we Mac users are truly the dictionary definition of the sunk cost fallacy in more ways than one.

It doesn’t help matters that desktop environments that try to do things “the mac way” and don’t just mimic macOS superficially (like Pantheon/elementary) don’t exist. Everything is either Win9X-like (KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, LxQt, etc) or tablet-like (GNOME). For the most part, to a longtime Mac user switching to Linux feels like switching to a bizarre alternate universe Windows that’s built around the Linux kernel instead of the NT kernel.
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