Combining Leopard themes your way

I’ve recently been asked to make a small tutorial on how to combine one aspect of iTunesque with iLeopard, because iLeopard did not include that specific option and did things differently.

Here is therefore a tutorial on how to combine elements of themes you like on Mac OS X Leopard.

Tools

Before doing anything else, the user should download some tools. Now, the free Architect exists, but it’s not exactly what you’ll want, because it requires an (as of yet) unreleased application which will cost 10 USD to apply themes.
This tutorial is therefore useless if you plan on waiting for Façade, this unreleased app. Theming with Architect + Façade is easier than this tedious method.

Instead, we’ll take a look at other tools, more “primitive”, but which will ensure that you can do the whole process for free. It’s going to be more tedious, however.

So, go to MacThemes and grab ArtFileTool and ArtTools, and grab ThemePark as well.

These three tools each serve a different purpose, because they each deal with different kinds of files. So, how to know which one you’ll need to use?

Leopard’s UI: which file does what

So far, Leopard theming isn’t completely doable. It will only be considered “nearly completely doable” when Architect and the accompanying app, Façade, are officially released.

Because of the current absence of an “all-in-one” theming application besides Architect, we’ll have to edit the files separately. Here is a (simplified) summary of what each file does.

The so-called “ArtFile” is known to draw most of the UI elements, from traffic lights to the shape of buttons, via list headers.
This file can be read thanks to ArtTools.

The “SArtFile”, on the other hand, draws the menu bar (when not transparent) and the colour of the drop-down menus available from that menu bar.
This file is read thanks to ArtFileTool.

Finally, the “Extras” files (two of them) were used in Tiger, but are now only used for progress bars and scroll bars.
These are edited with ThemePark.
Note: PowerPC Mac users need only use the “Extras.rsrc” file, whereas Intel Mac users have to use both the “Extras.rsrc” and the “Extras2.rsrc” files (on Intel Macs, Extras is used for PPC apps, and Extras2 is used for Intel-only and Universal apps).

Where are the files?

This is the more annoying bit: the theme files are located deep within the Mac OS X “System” folder, and most of the few released themes come with an automated installer only, not with the files themselves readily accessible.
If you want to combine two themes, I therefore suggest the following method: install the first, copy the resulting files to your Desktop in a “Theme 1″ folder (or some other easily accessible place), and then install the second before copying the resulting files to a “Theme 2″ folder.

Fortunately, you can reach these files’ locations easily using Finder’s “Go To Folder” feature (Shift-Cmd-G).

ArtFile.bin & SArtFile.bin:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Resources/

Extras.rsrc & Extras2.rsrc:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/

And now that you have those files, you’re ready to roll.

Using the files

ArtTools and ArtFileTool are applets that will decode and re-encode ArtFile and SArtFile respectively, whereas ThemePark directly edits the Extras files.

If you want to use elements from one theme in another, here (finally) are two short examples.

Example 1: scroll bars

Say I want to use the scroll bars of iTunesque in iLeopard, because I see that iLeopard only has grey scroll bars in Graphite mode, not the blue ones similar to the iTunes ones.
Scroll bars are found within the Extras files, so, as an Intel Mac user (I have a MacBook), I have to use both Extras and Extras2. They are completely identical files when you look at the output in ThemePark though, so you can copy resources from one Extras2 into an Extras without a problem.

In the iTunesque Extras, in the “pxm#” field, I do a search by name of “scroll”, because these resources are named. If I open the iLeopard Extras and do the same search, the same results will appear, and from then onwards, it’s a simple “copy & paste” operation (select all the images in one resource of your “source Extras”, copy, and paste in the same resource of your “target Extras”). Tedious, but it works.

At the end, if you’re an Intel Mac user, be sure to “Save As” both Intel and PPC, so you end up with an Extras and an Extras2.

Example 2: traffic lights

Say that you want to use the traffic lights of iLeopard in the KISS Me theme (based on MobileMe).
Traffic lights are found in the ArtFile.bin file, so you’ll decode both the iLeopard and the KISS Me files with ArtTools.

The result is a long list of folders, all containing different UI elements. And the folder called “titlebarcontrols” contains all the traffic light resources.

Here, replacing is easy: you just copy the titlebarcontrols folder of iLeopard to KISS Me, and encode the result with ArtTools.

Applying the modifications

Saving your theme as you want it to be isn’t enough. You still need to apply it.

If you try replacing ArtFile.bin directly (or any other of the theme files), nothing will happen, because they are protected.
Instead, what you have to do is delete the file (authentication is required), and only then can you drag & drop your new theme file into the destination.
Basically, the method for applying a new theme file is not “replace” or “drag & drop”. It’s “delete, drag & drop”.