Changing appearances on mac..?

[Buffalo]

Bit of a dumbass Q i suppose, but i can't seem to find what i am after elsewhere...

Just spent the last three days in a seminar with the speaker using vista. I've just got home and switched the mac on and decided it looks too grey and a bit dated

How do you alter the appearance of the mac (tiger? In preferences it just seems to do buttons and highlight. I was thinking about changing the whole look....

Apologies in advance for sounding like a trend-searching fop....

[robbieduncan]

Apple do not support themes and other garish, Windows style modifications. If you really do want to you can use Shape Shifter

[PJR]

Agreed.. Shape Shifter is quite nifty. I did used to use it. But the novelty wore off quickly for me and I preferred OS X au natrel. Unsanity, the company that makes it, also makes some other nifty add-ons for OS X that are worth looking at.

P,

[qube_TA]

Upgrade to Leopard.

[PJR]

qube_TA said:

Upgrade to Leopard.

Does look a bit nicer. But by & large, its near as makes no difference the same. Plus much of the Unsanity stuff, including Shape Shifter doesn't work on Leopard. Not that it matters to me. I think its fine as it is.

P,

[Buffalo]

Thanks, I'll have a look. I'm not after that much really, just maybe a change from the light grey and maybe a font or two..? Who knows...

In general i don't like cluttering the thing up with lots of weird add-ons, but it's nice to be individual, right..?

Cheers ~PHIL

[cyberface]

Largely, the Mac system is more stable than most Windows installations because of the control Apple have over the hardware and software - not because Apple coders are better than Microsoft coders - they aren't. Microsoft have the best software engineers in the business. Apple's guys have *much* better dress sense though, and senior management don't make tts of themselves sweating like a horse and doing the 'developers developers developers' monkey dance (sorry microsofties )

Installing what are known as 'haxies' to alter the appearance and window behaviour of Cocoa in OS X is certainly possible but the vast majority of the programs out there will reduce stability (because they change behaviour and window response / appearance to what some applications may not expect), and ALL of them reduce security. Anything that can freak around with window edges, title bar colours etc. will be using InputManagers and probably SIMBL and is a known security risk.

You can do some cool things with InputManagers, but personally I avoid them like the plague because they are a complete security sidestep (e.g. the neat InputManager / SIMBL combo that blocks adverts in Safari could be easily configured to capture all keyboard input and send it to a hacker's website. That's your passwords and internet banking safety down the toilet if someone releases a bogus 'ad-blocker' package...)

Mac OS X is secure because most people use it in 'standard' configuration and don't piss about with it - as it works rather well out of the box. Start messing about with it, and you can make it worse than Windows or Linux. IMO if you want that sort of individualisation then a great starting point is Linux, with Compiz and Xfce - there is a nice 'OS X-like' window theme you can download for Compiz that has Exposé and Spaces replicas, but because it's Linux you can hack it to your heart's delight as it was designed to be user-configurable.

OS X can do the same, sure - but you'll have to be a bit more aware of what you're doing and the consequences of the changes. Changing plists to alter easy stuff is cool and trivial and won't affect system security. Installing an app that intercepts messages being passed around the WindowServer.... well that's a whole new ball game. Good luck!!!