Kid me absolutely ran The Bug on an old PowerMac G3: https://macthemes.garden/themes/8191e1471dc9-the-bug/
Mac Themes Garden
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#32Earlier 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…
> Yea but why use a mac at that point?
I ask myself that with increasing frequency. Looking at all the Linux options feels like wandering through Akihabara, but one day the macOS that remains will be so unlike the macOS I enjoyed, that I'll jump the fence.
Anyway, if someone does make a new Mac desktop environment, it'd probably be for fun more than anything. Or a Terry Davis scenario.
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#33It 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 s…
I used Siro for years in that era, great looking theme. IMO it was cleaner than the official theme, since this was Apple’s “brushed metal” era when someone decided that the Finder should literally embody a filing cabinet.
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#34[dead]
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#35Can these be installed on modern macs?
As others have commented: no.
There was a time, though, long ago…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsanity
…the brief era of “Haxies”. There was an application called ShapeShifter that allowed for Mac OS X theming.
That epoch is long gone, and I can barely even find screenshots. But it existed.
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#36It 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…
In the 00s, I remember leaning on LiteStep and Stardock (I think?) for theming rather than anything specific to windows
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Why do you think computer users today would be so much less interested in customizing their desktop that there would be no market for it? I think if a tool/app were to appear that customized the modern macOS finder to this extent, it would be #1 on the AppStore within hours
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#38There was one theme, which had a feature which I _really_ wish had become a standard --- the title bar collapsing down to the size of the text when "window-shaded" by double-clicking --- I never liked that feature until that theme came along, and it is about the only thing about Mac OS 9 and earlier that I miss.
I miss dragging a window to the bottom of the screen so that it became a tab, and then clicking the tab would restore the window back into the Finder frame. I don't use GUI windows like I used to in Classic OS. I now barrel my way around with CLI, and then 'open .' when arriving at the destination. So would I still use that tab feature today if available? Probably, not, and that's probably why it's no longer a thing even if other people that wouldn't use it have different reasons for not.
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#39Earlier 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.
Apple hardware quality is just orders of magnitude beyond what competitors do. The day this stops being true (whether because Apple slips too much, or because competitors step up in major ways - not sure which is likelier) I expect we’ll see a lot more Mac-to-Linux migrations, with the virtuous circle kind of benefits that this can bring.
Re: Mac Themes Garden
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Why do you think computer users today would be so much less interested in customizing their desktop that there would be no market for it? I think if a tool/app were to appear that customized the modern macOS finder to this extent, it would be #1 on the AppStore within hours
Is it even possible to make something like this with macOS restrictions?