“As a designer, I like things to look good. This includes my desk, my computer, and of course, the operating system. That’s just one of the reasons I choose to use the Mac operating system,” James Dempsey blogs for Creative Guy.
Dempsey writes, “But Mac OSX isn’t perfect for me by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll skip over the commentary about OSX 10.1 through 10.3 and the ugly pinstripes we had to put up with. And when Apple introduced the brushed metal look of the Finder and many applications, I liked it… for a very short while. Now it just annoys the crap out of me. I probably wouldn’t mind quite as much if the ENTIRE GUI was brushed metal, but this mix of Aqua white, gray and brushed metal is horribly annoying to me. I just want to stand in Steve Jobs’ office door and scream ‘PICK ONE ALREADY!'”
Dempsey writes, “Thankfully, I don’t have to put up with it. There are plenty of GUI hacks available for Mac OSX. And I’m not talking just about the overall theme, but functionality hacks and add-ons as well. The following are just some of the GUI goodies I love and use.”
Themes:
• Unsanity’s ShapeShifter: Siro and Eternal Aqua themes
• Uno: stand-alone installer theme
• Site: InterfaceLift’s theme section
• Site: MacThemes forums
• Site: MacThemes.net
Icons:
• Iconfactory’s Pixadex
• Iconfactory’s & Panic Software’s CandyBar
• Site: InterfaceLift’s icon directory
• Site: IconFactory’s freeware icons
• Icon set: David Lanham’s Agau
Desktop Images/Wallpapers:
• Site: InterfaceLift’s wallpaper section
• Site: Deviant Art
Add-ons for customizing (hacks):
• FruitMenu
• WindowshadeX
• FontCard
• Xounds
• Mighty Mouse
• Menu Master
Dock:
• ClearDock
• Transparent Dock
• Onyx
Menubar add-ons:
• MenuCalendarClock
• YouControl
Services Menu Hack:
• ICeCoffee
• Service Scrubber
Also covered:
• Deskshade
More information and links for all of the apps covered here.
MacDailyNews Note: Besides using some of the above – Transparent Dock to name one – we also use PopCopy, SpiritedAway, and MenuMeters in all of our Mac OS X Menubars. What do you use to customize Mac OS X?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Why isn’t this in Mac OS X already (part 2)? The American Balloon releases PopCopy 2 – June 17, 2006
MenuMeters: CPU, memory, disk, network monitoring menubar tools for Mac OS X – June 05, 2006
there’s nothing like uno to give os x a really clean look. especially now that they stopped shrinking the apple menu and spotlight icons!
None. I like my Mac just the way it is.
It is easy to get carried away with too much (useless) crap.
Menu meters (there is a utility within OSX which does this), weather bug, widgets (with real time doppler radar, for instance), etc. Bla Bla.
SSSLLLLLOOOOOWWW.
And people wonder why their software updates screw up… these hacks muck with the standard configurations that Apple tests against. Standard configurations are why I bought into Apple.
I use UNO to give applications a unified appearance throughout. http://gui.interacto.net/
Well said AJ
“Witch”. For when “command-tilde” won’t let you switch between open windows. I don’t even try the crap-shoot of command-tilde” any more – it’s all “option-arrow” (the shortcut I set up for “Witch”) for me. And it’s free!!!
I use mine to work. Not play. dumbest article ever.
buy a barbie if you want to play dress up.
I like my Mac as is … this guy wants to stand at Jobs’ door and yell at him cause his Mac isn’t pretty enough …. how bout just getting down to work …. stupid article …
I wish that’s all I had to worry about here at work in the Windoze world. It would appear that someone needs a little perspective.
I would never install all that crap on my Mac. What a useless article…
I customized my Mac by putting a racing stripe down the middle of the screen.
I also have flames on the sides of my mouse and monkey nuts hanging from the bottom of the monitor.
You guys are more harsh than Michael Moore’s underwear…..
The only addon i have is You Control Tunes which puts very handy itunes controls in the menu bar. very handy tbh and very simple. also very free. I dont want to pay to have shiny HD icons, so i leave them as they are, very pretty anyway.
I agree, the rest is just useless crap, although i am guilty of having a look through it all to see if there was anything good.
Tweaking my Macs has always added a dimension of fun to my work. I use a bunch of those things… but, then I was a ResEdit freak and colorized the Finder and made my own icons way back whenever.
Transparent Dock is a good thing, because it actually speeds up the Dock quite a bit. Plus having floating Dock icons is cool.
WindowShade X and FontCard are EXTREMELY useful. I’d not classify them as interface tweaks.
iClock is another good addition. It does too many things to list here.
For PowerBooks… er… MacBooks, SlimBatteryMonitor replaces the stock battery gauge with a cute colorful battery icon. Yeah, it’s actually useful, since it takes up much less menu bar space than the stock gauge.
iColon (nice name, huh?) colorizes the Airport (orange), Bluetooth (blue) and Battery menu items.
So, have some fun! isn’t that what Macs are all about?
The man is clearly gay.
All this tweaking and adding surely has an impact on your Macs capacity to run the important stuff?
All I’ve conceded to is a few fun icon changes. No hit to my system thanks.
im with AJ and ALL OK.
but having said that, i dont like brushed metal. it annoys me alot.
cant wait till leopard!
The point about making things uniform is valid.
The rest is “personal” preference (as in… “personal” computer).
ear-rings
and maybe a little lipstick.
I mean really, who takes the time to notice such things?
I can’t imagine what it must be like to be driven to the point of distraction by the attributes of the computer interface. Dysfunctional machinations yes, but cosmetics? Who has time for such trivial details, except for maybe those anal types who arrange the can goods in their kitchen cabinets in alphabetical order and stencil their name in their underwear?
None. I like my Mac just the way it is.
I agree. One in one hundred thousand super geeks might find it necessary to modify the MacOSX interface – because it isn’t perfect – but that is all. This isn’t an issue.
No one thing will ever be perfect for everyone, which is why we’re all ‘individuals’. Macs are good for what it is and I wouldn’t change a thing on what’s already ‘perfect’ for me.
I gotta agree: Performance trumps Cosmetics. If it were butt-ugly like XP, I might be driven to enhance its look with 3rd party software. Luckily for me — and every other OS X user — it isn’t Windows ugly.
Besides, any REAL designer knows that form follows function. If you look at the “problem” (whatever problem creates the need for using a GUI-based computer) and then look at the “solution” that the Mac provides, you’ll notice that the form is pretty much dead on in most respects.
I don’t want everything to look the same.
I tend to try every hack, haxie, tweak, customization, utility, add-on, mod, edit, theme, Finder replacement, etc., … but then soon start yearning for that “stock Apple” look and feel.
I don’t even like custom desktop pictures much. I can barely use PathFinder (useful but cluttered!)
Same goes for web browsers. OmniWeb, Shiira, Firefox, Camino…I always end up back at Safari, happily.
The most radical thing that sticks, is I plunder Keynote themes for background images to use as my desktop picture. :shrug: But even that is “officially Apple” in feel.
Bottom line is, they are doing something right, after all.
Neutral Grey Desktop image (flat background with a hint of soft grain added) – being colour neutral is essential for design/photography work
Unsanity’s Silk – system font changed to Helvetica condensed – smart, compact and highly legible – speeds up navigation. work flow and gives more room on the screen. Apple’s system font (Lucida) is far too big and open… makes the OS look like a children’s book and is very slow and clumsy to navigate.
Butler – used ONLY to place a row of active icons for my 20 favourite applications on the right side of the main menubar – fantastically efficient, out-of-the-way, drag and drop.
Unsanity’s Window Shade – essential window collapsing – as in OS 9 (somethings can’t be bettered!!).
KillDock – instantly quit and launch the dreaded Dock (Apple’s ‘Clippy’) from the comfort of the menubar.
Dear Children,
Free choice is the greatest gift I gave to you.
Use it as you will. If you don’t like change, then don’t change. If you do, then change freely.
Personally, I find a small GUI change here and there to be refreshing in a way…and fun.