Good News, About My Objectbar Mac Osx Brushed 10.2

Well I have been tinkering around...

And I found a way to have my text and shortcut key images on menus, not have to have their backgrounds based on the overall skin and selected backgrounds...

By using Transperancy... (sounds confusing I know).

But, what this means... Is you can have multiple overall menu/bar skins and both normal and mouseover(selected) skins for the menus. With very few BMP files...

IE: brushed bar, aqua standard white/greybar, Milk, with say tangerine, lime, strawberry etc. mouseovers(selected) on menus all in one theme, and you only have to change skin options on each menu and not have to change every BMP...

I am starting to work on the major imac colors, and also a jaguar lepoard print menu mouseover(selected).

Also I have fixed the Network, Display and Eject Icons, so they are the right porportions, and not squashed.

I am looking at a week to finish this...

Also the theme over all size should be smaller, transperent sections in bmps, reduce file size.

P.S. Any one happen to have CLEAN images of the shortcut key graphics, IE with transperent backgrounds... or better yet a font type with them ala a wingding?

#6547

Sorry Mageguru, I dont have any good images of the shortchut commands. But I just wanted to say I am much looking forward to your aqua style bar. I have seen the screenshots for your brushed bar and it looks amazing. With those other bars I always knew there was something missing. None of the other bars ever had those neat little shortcut key command icons. Those are so vital to the mac os x finder bar overall look. Thanks for all your hard work.

#6583

Actually, Smoke's bars do have the shortcut key graphics on them. I am presently using his LunaOSX V10.2 and it is cool.

#6665

Actually, they did have them. But I chose to remove all bitmap entries.

I did this for a few reasons.

Bitmap entries make the menus kinda slower.

Bitmap entries create a lot of work to maintain and to make new themes.

Real apple menus do not contain bitmap entries.

It's hard to match the fonts on a bitmap entry with the PC versions of lucida grande without redoing everything. I did try what you did with transparent sections in the bitmaps but in the end I got tired of it.

Our keyboards do not have apple specific keys and those keys do not function, they are purely cosmetic. I'd rather have actual functions that we can do showing.

Also when you have a application in focus it shows windows accelerator keys and consistency is important. To me functionality and consistency is more important than having the menus look 100% exactly like on the Mac. Especially since we don't tend to screenshot menus anyway.

Not that I disrespect anyones work but those are my reasons.

#6668

Well, I personally never use keyboard shortcut commands, so if I dont have the real keys to press, it doesnt matter. I just think those apple symbols really do add a lot to the apple look. Without them, or with windows symbols (YUCK!), it just doesnt look right to me. But thats just me. I know you can use the apple pro keyboard with windows, so maybe the buttons on the keyboard will actually work. I have never tried it, but who knows.

One question, on his final release. (its in a later post) Are those different strawberry , lime, and jaguar colors real options in jaguar, or are they just something that maguru made up to look cool. I actually have never used jaguar. I play around on os x 10.1.2 at school. They dont have jaguar and have no need for it. So I was wondering if those finder bar themes are actually real.

#6701

Well, even if you did they wouldn't work cause of the way objectbar seems to only use them when you have the menu open. Maybe you can, but most people don't. And like I said, It's just cosmetic and not functional and it adds complexity.

If said symbols where in the font I might use them but they are not. Using bitmap entries is kind of a kludge in my opinion. Kind of like when I was using litestep and we had to make bitmap menus for our gnome type bars.

Also let's say by some stroke of luck an apple keyboard does work. If a certain key gets mapped to the winkey you can't press it and 2 other keys at once in objectbar.

You also kind of forget that we *cough* are still using windows.

I might do something else with them but I refuse to do bitmap entries.

#6724

Yes the bitmaps do slow down the performance quite a bit. For now they are worth it though. They are purely cosmetic, but to me worth it. I agree the performance is a bit sluggish. Why dont you edit the font and change certain un-necessary characters to those apple symbols. Than you could incorporate them into the theme and not have to use bitmap images.

#6737

Well to me they are not worth it. =Þ That's my point. I mean it is cool to have it looking just like it. But you have already noticed how the bitmap fonts look bolder than the rest.

It's really hard to match a photoshopped font to a normal system font.

So I figure it's best to cut out some of the work, some of the size of the bar and have the fonts looking consistent by having all the fonts be regular. And on top of that make it easier to make new themes and or entries for the menus.

I don't know how to make my own fonts. But I'm sure that the ones who did would know how to put in those keys when they converted the font.

Well I made a decision and I'm sticking by it. You don't have to use my OB themes if you don't like it. I make my stuff to please myself first and foremost and then if someone else likes them that is just a plus.

I'm just saying the reasons why I don't use bitmap entries anymore.

Also pretend that Apple did release OSX for intel. Do you think that they would cause confusion among the users of it by having those keys in the menus when we don't have them? For consistencies sake I think they probably would use what we do have on our keyboards.

#6740

I have never tried your ob themes. Where can I get them?? I'm saying someone should try to edit a font and make some mac symbols in the font. Then bitmaps would not have to be used and there would be good speed, and you would have the great looking symbols.

#6741

On my site, right now though I have PC accelerator keys so I don't think you'd like them from what you have said above.

Please go over my posts thouroughly, I listed more reasons other than speed.

We have PC's, so to me it makes sense to try to convert the mac functions to PC functions. Because we are still on a PC with a PC keyboard.

#6742

No, Apple probably would not change those keyboard shortcut commands. They want to get people to switch to Macs right? Well, putting in keyboard shortcut commands for windows intel based keyboards is not going to do that. They would most likely keep the apple symbols and make people who care to use them buy an apple keyboard. Plus, a keyboards a keyboard. Theres no real huge difference between and apple keyboard and an intel-based keyboard. The only difference is that they have a couple of slightly different keys. So for that reason, no I dont think Apple would change their menus to reflect the intel keyboards shortcut keys.

#6744

Aha, but we can't make anyone buy an apple keyboard espeicially when it's dubious at best exactly what functions those keys would do on a PC.

It's a hypothetical thing but going either way would not make anyone switch to a Mac anyway.

And that's the thing on the PC. You can't expect everyone to have an apple keyboard so you have to cater to the what people have the most of. Unless all you want is a good thing to take screenshots with. But again most people don't have the menus open when they take screenshots.

If all you care about is how the menu's look then I suggest you just stick to those OB themes with bitmap fonts in them.

It's not like they look bad without the bitmap fonts anyway. I mean I actually think it looks tacky with bitmap fonts in there with not really being able to match the fonts properly.

#6750

True, smoke, true. But I still think there are many reasons not to change the os x to cater to a pc's needs. This would encourage more people to drop pc's and switch to macs, because they would realize that Macs's are the real native hardware that goes along with os x. But, still os x for intel-based pc's would be VERY popular!

#6758

It may happen sooner than you think...

Apple has had not only Dawinx86, but internally they have the Aqua gui running on it...

And a few weeks ago Apple sent out several test boxes, running this on a AMD athlon built boxes, to some public testers....

So we know Apple is at least looking at the possibilty...

Add to that, OSX native apps do run on DarwinX86, and moving from PowerPC architecture to x86 when everything is OSX native will be easier than when Apple moved from 64k Mac's to PowerPC.

#6762

Oh yeah, I also have to add when we change the menus in objectbar to cater to win users we are not changing OSX. Because we are STILL on windows after all, with PC keyboards. Oh yeah, they always had a x86 version interally going back to when it was NeXtstep.

#6765

Actually shortcut keys are enabled on this...

The symbol with the arrow pointing up ='s the SHIFT key

The symbol with the 4 loops ='s the CONTROL key

The symbol with the pointed box with an X ='s the \ key

Same type of convention that programs like Photoshop

use when going between PC and MAC.

But then again Objectbar does have a limitation on this...

the shortcut keys only work when the menu is open.

#6768

If Apple ever ports OSX to the x86 systems, it will be a dream come true, especially if I can do dual boot with windows for compatability reasons

Who knows, some disgruntled apple employee could always leak it to the public..., It could happen...

#6769

Originally posted by MageGuru@Dec 22 2002, 12:40 AM

Actually shortcut keys are enabled on this...

The symbol with the arrow pointing up ='s the SHIFT key

The symbol with the 4 loops ='s the CONTROL key

The symbol with the pointed box with an X ='s the \ key

Same type of convention that programs like Photoshop

use when going between PC and MAC.

But then again Objectbar does have a limitation on this...

the shortcut keys only work when the menu is open.

#6771

Hey what do ya know! The apple character symbols do work with windows keyboards. Looks like apple wont be changing their menu shortcut symbols after all!

#6773

They stilll are not on our keyboards though. And in adobe, which was used as an example they *where* changed.

As they are with all programs I have seen that have mac versions.

#6774

Originally posted by smoke@Dec 21 2002, 03:44 PM

I got a legend to the apple keyboard so I can match keys. The arrow with the X in it is the delete key.

#6775

Yeah I probably will go with your method as far as functions go on my OB themes.

#6777

-Smoke

I do like your theme. Its very clean. I would use it, but I want aqua man! (no pun intended) If you think you might want to make one, then I am all for trying it out. I'm sure it would look pretty good.

#6790

Well rest assured that is on my to-do list.

#6800

Originally posted by ztiworoh@Dec 21 2002, 04:41 PM

If Apple ever ports OSX to the x86 systems, it will be a dream come true, especially if I can do dual boot with windows for compatability reasons

Who knows, some disgruntled apple employee could always leak it to the public..., It could happen...

It's not going to happen... There is simply too much variation in PC hardware to support and microsoft would squash them by playing hardball. Apple is around because they make cool looking hardware and this hardware "just works" because they control so much of it plus they have a cool OS. I've got both a PC and mac and I would never use an X86 based Mac. What would be the point?

Look at what happened to BeOS when they ported over to X86. Where are they now despite having a cool OS?

Besides, with this new IBM chip coming out soon there won't be a reason to port over to X86.

Disgruntled apple employee? No it's microsoft employees that leak Oses to the public. Where do you think the devil's own version of XP came from. Think about the name for a minute.

#6832