Themes
How Do You Say “Magnificent” in French?
Leopard went on sale October 26th, 2007. Since then, talking about Mac themes has felt a little like talking about seeing unicorns, elves, and a beautiful mythical land where you could change the colors of your environment at will. Well, I’m finally standing in that mythical land again. I haven’t spotted unicorns, but I have been able to change a color or two, courtesy of the first app to hit the market, Magnifique.
First Look: Hyperspaces
As a fairly proficient OS X user, my usage of Spaces has been binary: often, I don’t even turn it on, but when I do need it, I need complete control over every nook and cranny of each space I get. The lack of such flexibility is one reason I usually just keep it off (but it also depends on the computer at hand; the 20″ iMac in my home office offers plenty of resolution in comparison to my four year-old 15″ PowerBook.) This is where Hyperspaces is interesting: it’s not attempting to be an overhaul of the Spaces feature integrated with Mac OS X, but rather adding simple, useful little features that appeal to control freaks like yours truly.
Announcing Architect
I’ve written in the past that a thriving theming community for Leopard requires two things: a tool for theme developers, and an applier for theme users. And it looks like Slightly Pretentious Software is doing just that. Last night, the company announced Architect, a theme building application; and Façade, their theme switcher— both for Mac OS X Leopard. Aiming to be a successor to the ThemePark-ShapeShifter duo used for Tiger and earlier, the former will be available as a public beta next week. In the meantime, however, sink your teeth into their preview video on the website; it might make you a bit more pumped for Mac customization.
