[HN Gopher] Mac Themes Garden
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Mac Themes Garden
Author : speckx
Score : 211 points
Date : 2025-05-07 19:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (damien.zone)
(TXT) w3m dump (damien.zone)
| milesskorpen wrote:
| Such a blast from the past. Had so much fun with these back in
| the day, along with Winamp themes. I can't tell if I've aged or
| tech has aged such that this kind of thing isn't really around
| any more. Probably both.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Can these be installed on modern macs?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Nope.
|
| I liked Kaleidoscope, but it got old, really quick.
|
| Some of the themes were outstanding, but some were damn near
| unusable.
|
| Themes relied on system hooks that would make modern security
| professionals defecate masonry. OS X got rid of all that stuff.
| Twisell wrote:
| I applaud your great prose. This metaphor is so powerful and
| yet viscerally painful!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Can't claim credit. Got it from some other geek. Can't
| remember where.
| rezmason wrote:
| The short answer is, sadly, no-- Apple has the modern macOS UI
| locked up.
|
| The long answer is, if you're willing to disable systemwide
| security features, you can experiment with modifying the
| appearance of macOS, but to my knowledge no one has made a real
| attempt to in a while. Furthermore, the themes on display here
| fit a paradigm where the UI is a composite of bitmap images,
| whereas the modern macOS is largely built from vector graphics.
|
| But if you vectorize every bitmap in an old theme, so that
| individual pixels of color are converted to vector graphic
| rectangles; if you learn how modern macOS builds its
| appearance; if you make a robust solution and thoroughly test
| it, so that it will work 100% of the time with every app ever;
| if you do _all_ of that, you will still be unable to _share_
| your creation with most Mac users, because very few of us would
| disable systemwide security for the sake of running a third
| party system enhancement.
|
| That's one of the major contributors to the success of Mac OS 9
| theming: third party system extensions were commonplace, they
| were the backbone of the ecosystem, and Apple had no mechanism
| for preventing their use.
| rezmason wrote:
| I should have mentioned a couple other things:
|
| 1. Kaleidoscope (the most common OS 9 theme system extension)
| runs fine under emulation, so if you just want to _enjoy_
| these themes, your best bet is the SheepShaver emulator (in
| my opinion).
|
| 2. Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative desktop
| environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz. And then you can
| build theme support on top of something like that. But most
| applications wouldn't use that desktop environment for their
| own UI.
| betterThanTexas wrote:
| > Nothing's stopping us from creating an alternative
| desktop environment for the Mac, such as XQuartz.
|
| Yea but why use a mac at that point? I don't see anyone on
| the linux side of things making anything that acknowledges
| why people use macs in the first place; the entire
| ecosystem is built to reproduce the IBM PC (...in a
| unix/like environment). Particularly with its disastrous
| keybindings and perplexing UI decisions.
| zapzupnz wrote:
| The pipeline from Windows to Linux is fairly clear. The
| pipeline from Mac to Linux is less evident; the dyed in
| the wool Mac users tend to stay that way, using Linux for
| work rather than a daily driver.
|
| Queue a Mac-to-Linux user to contradict this, and there's
| plenty of them, but we Mac users are truly the dictionary
| definition of the sunk cost fallacy in more ways than
| one.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I've been burned by ArchLinux too many times before...
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It doesn't help matters that desktop environments that
| try to do things "the mac way" and don't just mimic macOS
| superficially (like Pantheon/elementary) don't exist.
| Everything is either Win9X-like (KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE,
| LxQt, etc) or tablet-like (GNOME). For the most part, to
| a longtime Mac user switching to Linux feels like
| switching to a bizarre alternate universe Windows that's
| built around the Linux kernel instead of the NT kernel.
| anthk wrote:
| GTK 2/3 has a setting to use the Emacs keybindings. Pair
| it with Budgie with a menubar and a dock and you are set.
| gyomu wrote:
| Apple hardware quality is just orders of magnitude beyond
| what competitors do. The day this stops being true
| (whether because Apple slips too much, or because
| competitors step up in major ways - not sure which is
| likelier) I expect we'll see a lot more Mac-to-Linux
| migrations, with the virtuous circle kind of benefits
| that this can bring.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > The pipeline from Windows to Linux is fairly clear. The
| pipeline from Mac to Linux is less evident; the dyed in
| the wool Mac users tend to stay that way, using Linux for
| work rather than a daily driver.
|
| This has been my own observation as well. Although I do
| have to say, System76's COSMIC DE has been the first one
| that is actually making me consider going to Linux full
| time since I've switched to Mac from it. macOS has only
| been continuing to annoy me more and more lately.
|
| The problem for me is hardware. Asahi isn't there yet,
| and I'm not giving up my M4 Pro MBP. There's no other
| laptop on the market that checks all the same boxes. But
| for now, I've just bypassed the mac's weak points by
| using Aerospace, and if I'm honest with myself I don't
| want to give up the ecosystem integration either.
| rezmason wrote:
| > Yea but why use a mac at that point?
|
| I ask myself that with increasing frequency. Looking at
| all the Linux options feels like wandering through
| Akihabara, but one day the macOS that remains will be so
| unlike the macOS I enjoyed, that I'll jump the fence.
|
| Anyway, if someone does make a new Mac desktop
| environment, it'd probably be for fun more than anything.
| Or a Terry Davis scenario.
| perardi wrote:
| As others have commented: no.
|
| There was a time, though, long ago...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsanity
|
| ...the brief era of "Haxies". There was an application called
| ShapeShifter that allowed for Mac OS X theming.
|
| That epoch is long gone, and I can barely even find
| screenshots. But it existed.
| betterThanTexas wrote:
| I didn't have root access to my family computer during this era,
| and I will forever be angry at apple for not allowing us to
| continue this fun until today.
|
| EDIT: actually it looks like this is significantly older than
| that. I definitely didn't know enough to theme OS 9 when it was
| my main driver.
| bix6 wrote:
| I would do anything to have Monkey Paradise on my current
| computer.
| cflewis wrote:
| Incredibly I was thinking the exact same thing.
|
| Computers used to fun! I miss the candy iMac theming.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Probably would have to be a passion project. I don't think
| there's a large enough market for it. Maybe someone should
| contact the Apple UI team to import these old themes?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why do you think computer users today would be so much less
| interested in customizing their desktop that there would be
| no market for it? I think if a tool/app were to appear that
| customized the modern macOS finder to this extent, it would
| be #1 on the AppStore within hours
| bix6 wrote:
| Is it even possible to make something like this with
| macOS restrictions?
| mrweasel wrote:
| Using Monkey Paradise as your desktop theme would somehow take
| a bit of the edge of that next database upgrade.
| rhet0rica wrote:
| It blows my mind how diverse these are, and how diverse their
| creators were. One single artist, Martha Royer, made over two
| hundred themes: https://macthemes.garden/authors/martha-royer/
| (They're not all _amazing_ in quality, but the sheer
| industriousness is staggering.)
|
| I was lurking around the equivalent Windows community in roughly
| the same era (well, a couple of years later) and it was nothing
| like this. Far fewer people had the patience for WindowBlinds
| (the Kaleidoscope equivalent) or deep OS modding, and they tended
| to all be the same few types of person with more-or-less the same
| tastes--mostly the kind of guy who thought that an RGB fan in a
| brushed aluminum tower PC was the height of self-expression.
| (Basic Windows Plus themes were way more primitive than what was
| possible with the right tools.) It's astonishing to see what
| looks like the entirety of the pre-dot-com-crash web's wonderful,
| weird diversity reproduced in perfect miniature over in the Mac
| space.
|
| Although I keep scrolling, and I haven't found a legit NeXT theme
| yet. There are a few that get close but nothing with the actual
| UI assets. Maybe this is an opportunity...
|
| EDIT: For those curious, here's roughly what themes on OS X
| looked like in the 2000s: https://macgui.com/downloads/?cat_id=10
| mr_sturd wrote:
| I remember trying to make my own on Windows XP. If I remember
| correctly, the theme files could be opened with an application
| which extracted resources from .exe and .dll files.
| Affric wrote:
| That Martha Royer page is amazing.
|
| "I remember mama"
|
| wow!
| rhet0rica wrote:
| Self follow-up:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/aa2e2f4e6f87-openstep-4/ and
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/168f21725acd-nextstep-4/ appear
| to actually have the correct assets for a NeXT look. Scott
| Naness seems to have been a cut above the rest for authenticity
| --there's also OS/2 Warp 4 and even vintage Windows 2.0 skins
| in his library.
|
| Also, special mentions for obscure GUI clones:
|
| - Xerox Star:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/ede837fa5df1-xerox-star/
|
| - QNX: https://macthemes.garden/themes/c46eae6cd818-mac-qnx/
|
| - Solaris CDE:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/8ba34a581676-macsolaris/
|
| - the classic X Athena widgets:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/533452549350-xlook-athenaxlo...
|
| - Rhapsody, because obviously:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/b0c635d1faf0-rhapsody-k2/
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Though they were a step down from Kaleidoscope schemes and
| appearance manager themes in terms of what they could do, those
| early OS X themes remain some of the nicest looking, highest
| fidelity themes on any platform. In particular, those made by
| Max Rudberg[0] hold a special place in my heart.
|
| Modern theming systems have high DPI support which is in theory
| an upgrade, but the desktop appearance zeitgeist has skewed so
| flat and dull that the extra pixels make no material
| difference.
|
| [0]: https://maxrudberg.com/themes.html
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I used Siro for years in that era, great looking theme. IMO
| it was cleaner than the official theme, since this was
| Apple's "brushed metal" era when someone decided that the
| Finder should literally embody a filing cabinet.
|
| https://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=1318
| pocketarc wrote:
| > the desktop appearance zeitgeist has skewed so flat and
| dull that the extra pixels make no material difference
|
| Yeah, this is definitely one of the saddest things about
| modern UI fashion. We have the highest-resolution, highest-
| DPI, cleanest-looking extra-bright, extra-deep-black HDR OLED
| screens, and... we've got flatter UI than ever, UI that
| would've looked dull even on a 90s CRT.
| sdrothrock wrote:
| In the 00s, I remember leaning on LiteStep and Stardock (I
| think?) for theming rather than anything specific to windows
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Those days were pretty cool. I think that whole scene is
| pretty much dead for Windows now? Not a shell replacement,
| but I guess rainmeter is still going it looks like? But not
| sure if any of the shell replacements are still around or
| even a possibility/thing for W11 these days...
| timeon wrote:
| > Martha Royer, made over two hundred themes
|
| Actual Mackintosh design included!
| anthk wrote:
| Fluxbox and blackbox among GTK had over 2000 themes.
| Eramdam wrote:
| (Mac Themes Garden author here) Yes, Martha Royer is the one
| name I kept seeing when recording the themes (and I'm not fully
| done yet!) and the diversity of her creations was stunning to
| see. If I remember what I read from README files she left in
| her archives correctly, she made over 300 of these! (Website
| currently has ~200, hopefully by EOY I'll be done recording
| everything).
|
| There are quite a few NeXT-inspired ones but I can't judge if
| they use the actual assets or not
| https://macthemes.garden/search/?q=next&page=1
| sprash wrote:
| Seems like somebody forgot to read the pamphlet[1].
|
| 1.: https://stopthemingmy.app/
| internetter wrote:
| 1. I vehemently disagree
|
| 2. This is targeted at distro maintainers, not end users.
| wpm wrote:
| https://itsmycomputer.idowhatiwant.dealwith.it
| mrweasel wrote:
| You know what? I'm gonna start theming it even harder.
| WillAdams wrote:
| There was one theme, which had a feature which I _really_ wish
| had become a standard --- the title bar collapsing down to the
| size of the text when "window-shaded" by double-clicking --- I
| never liked that feature until that theme came along, and it is
| about the only thing about Mac OS 9 and earlier that I miss.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I miss dragging a window to the bottom of the screen so that it
| became a tab, and then clicking the tab would restore the
| window back into the Finder frame. I don't use GUI windows like
| I used to in Classic OS. I now barrel my way around with CLI,
| and then 'open .' when arriving at the destination. So would I
| still use that tab feature today if available? Probably, not,
| and that's probably why it's no longer a thing even if other
| people that wouldn't use it have different reasons for not.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Isn't that much like minimizing a window to the Dock?
| dylan604 wrote:
| maybe if you squint while tilting your head as you look at
| it. tabs could be moved around and rearranged. minimizing
| to the dock has zero control
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Also, you could read the window's title without hovering
| it. And they would persist across restart, AFAIR.
| WillAdams wrote:
| You can drag icons around in the Dock.
| Eramdam wrote:
| Try using the window buttons on macthemes.garden ;)
| egypturnash wrote:
| I was so hyped for a moment when I thought that maybe this was a
| site for a new MacOS theme program. I miss Kaleidoscope.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Back in the day, Kaleidoscope schemes and later appearance
| manager themes were one of my favorite things about owning a
| computer. Combined with Classic Mac OS extensions it seemed like
| there was nothing you couldn't do when it came to customization.
| Even modern desktop Linux, as vaunted as it is for its
| customizability, struggles to compare.
|
| Now of course Classic Mac OS was a security nightmare but I wish
| that a modern OS would try to replicate that incredible level of
| flexibility in a more secure manner. Will it be difficult? Sure,
| but I don't think it's impossible. I believe that something
| resembling the "app extension" architecture employed by modern
| macOS which runs extensions as sandboxed processes which are
| given access to special APIs would be a good starting point.
| anthk wrote:
| CWM + window search + keybindings was and it's still superior
| to whatever theme you are trying to apply. I have a patched
| Zukitre GTK2-3-4 theme with custom ~/.Xdefaults. I nearly don't
| need neither decorations nor a taskbar. Just hit win+w, begin
| typing, your window it's there. Magic. I don't even need to use
| a mouse.
|
| OTOH, yes, Gnome's blandnes sucks a lot. With Plasma and a bit
| less, XFCE, you can do far more with a desktop, even Budgie
| it's far better than Gnome3.
|
| And I miss tons of GTK2 themes from its era. Bluecurve looked
| better than everything from today. OSX, Windows, Haiku,
| whatever. That theme looked colourful, positive and extremely
| usable, with proper and visible menues, buttons, scrollbars and
| so. Nowaday both OSX, GTK4 with Adwaita (far less with Zukitre)
| and Windows are a nightmare on usability.
|
| Once you disable the overlay scrollbars under GTK4 and force
| the GTK theme to Zukitre (once installed) at
| /etc/profile.d/gtk.sh (a line with 'export GTK_THEME=Zukitre'),
| most of the dumb choices from Red Hat/FreeDesktop go away for
| the average Joe user.
|
| Zukitre has gray widgets (not full white, damn UI pseudo-
| designers), usable buttons and proper scrollbars (again,
| disable the overlay settings for GTK). And, for sure, COLOR
| CONTRAST, damn it.
|
| Mac System 7 did it fine; so did Platinum under Mac OS 8-9.
| Neutral gray colors, usable widgets. Ditto with OSX, but the
| stripped bars sucked at first, yet Tiger and Snow Leopard look
| perfectly usable. The same with Windows 95, even Windows XP and
| partially 7. Windows 10 is unusable with flat widgets with no
| contrasts and hints for Windows. Windows 11 it's even worse.
| Current MacOS, with the same overlay scrollbars and lack of
| contrast it's a huge downgrade from Snow Leopard.
|
| Even the old Motif/FVWM under Unix had a nightmarish usability
| for the non-CS student, but it had 3D widgets on Motif/Athena
| (Xaw3D) and grabable window _borders_. Go try resizing a window
| under Gnome3 or Windows 10. Or moving a window at a quick
| glance.
|
| UI designers should stop following trends and just give up on
| merging tablets and desktops. It doesn't work.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| I'd totally pay to have these (especially a good vanilla Mac OS
| 8/9 theme) in a usable from on a Linux box today. I liked them
| then, and I'd still like to have them now. Anyone want to make
| one that works on Plasma/GTK and take my money?
| compton93 wrote:
| A guy on reddit was working on one named PrismWM but he went
| AWOL. There was a mac os 9 lookandfeel in JDK 1.1 that could be
| updated to a modern version of Java as well.
| davidmurphy wrote:
| As a lifelong Mac geek (I work for the Computer History Museum,
| where I organized our Macintosh 40th Anniversary and Lisa 40th
| events), I just want to say love this :)
|
| The nolstalgia is real. Thanks for your hard work!
| emremremr wrote:
| Looks like they're missing the greyscale original Mac one.
| Lammy wrote:
| I miss this era so much.
|
| > Turns out this action didn't have a keyboard shortcut until Mac
| OS X? Didn't know that!
|
| Edit your Finder and/or System with ResEdit and you can add or
| change any keyboard shortcuts you want.
| Eramdam wrote:
| (author of the blog post here) Oh! I didn't know that, do you
| have guidance on that (i.e: what specific resource types needs
| editing in ResEdit)? I wouldn't mind getting rid of QuicKeys
| and going with a native solution haha.
| Lammy wrote:
| Here you go - I took a look on a Mac OS 9 VM, and the System
| suitcase is what you want; MENU resources; resource ID -16489
| on here but expect that to vary by version. Select the menu
| item you want and you can set a "CMD Key" in the bottom right
| corner https://i.imgur.com/wcqQ27j.png
|
| Don't do this on the running System suitcase. ResEdit will
| warn you about this too. Make a backup copy, make your
| changes to the backup copy, then boot from some other blessed
| System Folder (install CD is fine) and swap them out.
|
| The _mindset_ where you can edit anything on everything is
| what we truly lost when we lost the Classic Mac OS. These
| themes are merely one embodiment of that mindset. It 's just
| Resources all the way down; Any user-facing String, any UI
| graphics, any icons, any cursors, any sounds, any menus, any
| window definitions, any dialogs. ResEdit can even be extended
| to support editing custom (non-Apple) Resource types, to say
| nothing of the more powerful third-party Resource editors
| like Resourcerer.
|
| Applications' code even lived in `CODE` resources in the
| original 68k days before the era of PowerPC and Code Fragment
| Manager moved that stuff to the Data Fork. A classic 68k-only
| Application would be a 0-byte file if one copied it to a PC
| improperly and discarded the Resource Fork. It's literally
| _all_ Resources and that 's so cool!
|
| Here's Apple's ResEdit Reference if you need it: https://deve
| loper.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/ma...
|
| Relevant Folklore:
| https://www.folklore.org/The_Grand_Unified_Model.html
|
| Relevant Inside Macintosh: https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/
| pdf/Inside_Macintosh_Volum... (warning: massive PDF)
|
| I highly highly recommend you and anybody else interested in
| Classic Mac OS spend some time with David Pogue's excellent
| Macworld Mac Secrets 5th Edition: https://archive.org/details
| /mac_Macworld_Mac_Secrets_5th_Edi... (there's a 6th edition
| that covers early Mac OS X topics, but that just muddies the
| water)
|
| edit: and keep your unmodified System suitcase backup
| somewhere besides the System Folder to ensure the Startup
| Disk control panel can't "bless" the unmodified one instead
| of the edited one. You can tell which suitcase is "blessed"
| because it will have the "Picasso" Mac OS face laid on top of
| the regular suitcase icon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst
| em_folder#Location_and_%22...
| Eramdam wrote:
| Thank you for the very detailed response! Appreciate it!
| theresistor wrote:
| Kid me absolutely ran The Bug on an old PowerMac G3:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/8191e1471dc9-the-bug/
| kalleboo wrote:
| I was all about Tephra!
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/75d29921d7bc-tephratrianon/
| antfarm wrote:
| Good memories! Back in the days I used Kaleidoscope to style my
| PowerMac (System 7.5) to look like BeOS, but most importantly, I
| had an extension that gave me the column browser in the Finder
| that I had seen on the NeXT Cubes at university. In most courses,
| I was the only student who used a Mac for homework assignments.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Probably not an extension, but this app?
|
| https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1003-greg-s-browser
|
| Greg Landweber was a huge contributor to the Mac customization
| scene at that time. I'd love to know more about his work, but
| never could find much online.
| rf15 wrote:
| I remember theming my mac and windows machines as a kid! Somehow
| all we're left with is corporate sponsored blandness and a user
| base who does not care about having fun with what they own, they
| just want a basic tool to browse the web. (and I guess ownership
| is much more muddied now anyway)
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think what you say is partly true--systems are definitely
| more locked down nowadays and we mostly just accept what
| corporations give us. But I think this is also, at least in
| part, consumer-driven. Computers are less of a novelty
| nowadays, so fewer people are interested in tweaking and
| configuring for the sake of it, while more are just looking to
| get work done.
| happymellon wrote:
| > But I think this is also, at least in part, consumer-
| driven.
|
| I can't disagree more.
|
| Consumers haven't requested this, and up until this ability
| was taken away people did theme their XP, etc.
|
| There weren't many options without hacking but changing the
| XP blue bar to silver or green regularly happened. People are
| just taught to accept that this is how it is now though.
| happymellon wrote:
| Actually, I would take this a step further.
|
| I took my old white polycarbonate MacBook to the Apple store
| a few years back to get a new battery. I had a few people ask
| me about it, and even one lady asked at the genius bar
| whether she could get a MacBook in a colour. People pick
| aluminium chassis because the alternative is cheap gray, fake
| metal chassis. I miss the era of colourful iMacs and I think
| other people do too, and not just geeks.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Back then you could only change the colors, but the decorations
| stayed the same. You had to use third party tools to make real
| changes. That's still true today, although the colors you can
| change on your own are much more limited. The difference is
| that these theming communities are much less active, and that's
| probably because nearly everything lives in the browser.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I miss the times, across all platforms, when you could just pick
| an accent color or two for things like window borders, filled
| radio buttons and so on. On GTK you could take someone's window
| theme, someone else's widget theme, and go "that, but in orange".
|
| You could even, if it didn't come by default already, have the
| active title bar in a different color.
|
| Maybe 99% of people didn't use this. Maybe they hired an
| authoritarian at GNOME to make the adwaita "one theme to rule
| them all". But it used to feel like I the style choices for my
| own computer's gui belonged more to me as a user.
|
| Often, that meant picking a theme that I liked, from the very
| active theme-design community (the garden lists more than 3000
| themes, although I'm not a mac person) and then just tweaking a
| color here or there.
| reddalo wrote:
| Nowadays, between non-native apps (e.g. Electron based ones),
| webapps and apps that force their own color scheme, it's
| practically impossible to have a unified theme across all apps.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Indeed. Accessibility? What accessibility?
| rainingmonkey wrote:
| KDE still does this quite well
| kps wrote:
| Better than Gnome, but that's not a high standard. It's a
| mess, but KDE at least _wants_ to improve things, with the
| 'Union' project --
| https://quantumproductions.info/articles/2025-02/moving-
| kdes...
| pocketarc wrote:
| It was the same thing with MySpace vs Facebook. Removing user
| customization may be better for... I don't even know what
| reason, but it has made all tech feel just a little bit more
| sterile.
|
| We now praise dark mode as some big achievement, but... we
| -had- dark mode, before. The Mac Themes Garden has countless
| "dark mode" themes.
| eabeezxjc wrote:
| Ideal for https://beyondloom.com/decker/
| doodpants wrote:
| I miss the days of Kaleidoscope. I even created a couple of
| themes myself; the one I'm proudest of is Crayon OS:
| https://macthemes.garden/themes/a83c1d81e770-crayon-os/
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