Pinstripe New Default Theme for Mozilla Thunderbird on Mac OS XThursday April 1st, 2004Kevin Gerich wrote in to tell us that Pinstripe is new default theme for Mozilla Thunderbird on Mac OS X. Pinstripe, a collaboration between Kevin and Stephen Horlander, is designed to fit in with the Aqua graphical style and is already the default Mozilla Firefox OS X theme. Mac users can try out Pinstripe in the latest Thunderbird nightly. me thinks. Macintosh, you mean Apple computer still exists. Didn't know that them there 'puter was around still. I'll be hog tied! ;-) Mac users love eye candy right? Where's the usability improvement on themes? Have you actually used Jaguar or Panther for more than a week or are you just annoyed that you can't afford a Mac? I have tried a laptop running Jaguar and I found it more difficult to use than the KDE environment. Linux might be harder to use but there is just so much free stuff available for it while the Mac apps cost so much and the hardware is just not as flexible as off the shelf PC parts which are numerous and cheap. I found the only benefit of Jaguar was the sex appeal and video editing software. But since I get my sex the old fashioned way, horizontally, and I don't edit video there is no benefit to a pricey mac. If you are a developer then there is even less benefit to using a mac since you would have to wait for Apple to mac binaries for upgraded applications and give it their proprietary blessing - yuck. What are you talking about? Most open source software will run on a Mac, even software designed to run under X. You can run KDE on a Mac if you so want. So don't know what you're talking about lack of software or needng to wait for Apple to bless things. Now it's true that there's less flexibility in the hardware but the upside is that things are more likely to work out of the box. That's not true for PC laptops which also suffer from an inabilty to mix and match components so, if you're buying a laptop, that argument works in favour of Macs. For pepherials you have basically the same choice you would for a PC. The benefit of using a theme that replicates the look and feel of the platform is that it makes the app more seem familar to users of that platform. It also prevents the application from sticking out (so much) like a sore thumb. This is just a step on from usng nsITheme to get various widgets to have a native feel on all platforms or perfoming other bits of system integration. Pinstripes isn't just about sexifying Mozilla for elitist Machead-eyecandy-whores. You know there is a lot to be gained usability-wise by making a UI that is more inline with the rest of the operating system's look. #10 Re: Re: Re: Who do mac users care so much for eyeby Ben_Goodger Thursday April 1st, 2004 4:19 PM So you're saying I'm right. Macs are easier to use but cost more so some people are bitter :D > So you're saying I'm right. Macs are easier to use but cost more so some people are bitter :D Nope Macs are easier to use for novices but if you have lots of serious development work to do the limitations of the UI weights you down. I would rather have a little more technically challenging system that promises significantly more development functionality. Just my personal preference. Even if I could afford the fancy machines I still wouldn't buy one since development sofware is always lagging behind on the Mac. Take Java for example. The linux and PC binaries of the runtime environment are always available before apple has packaged up their binaries. I just don't like that lag time of a couple weeks or even months. Actually, the Java implementation on OSX isn't all that related to the Sun one, so it's not just a matter of packaging up binaries. For example, 1.4.2 on OSX uses a shared VM, and 1.5 from Sun will (from what I've read, I'm not exactly an expert on Java). The release lag is a little annoying though. I believe (but do not know for certain) that the Java implementation on OS X is quite closely related to the Sun one. There are certain aspects which are different but the majority of code is probably shared. Prior to OS X, Mac java support was useless, apparently because of limitations in the (antique and peculiar) operating system. Java could not easily be made to work on the platform because there were all sorts of differences, and so it was never updated. OS X on the other hand is a real operating system that works, at its heart, just like any other Unix; so Java basically runs on it. I don't know whether Apple's actual VM is completely original or based on Sun's C code, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were. Also, the VM is a relatively small part of the platform; if they have a 1.4 compliant VM then most of the Java API (the stuff that's written in Java) should just work, with a few exceptions for user-interface issues. By the way, Java 1.5 on other platforms does not use a shared VM, at least as I understand it. You are probably thinking of the new 'Class Data Sharing' feature, which basically causes Java to preload some of the system class libraries. Because these are preloaded as a read-only memory block, this class data can be shared between different Java instances by the operating system, so if you run multiple Java programs (using the same installation of the virtual machine) it reduces memory consumption as well as improving startup time. However, it's only this data that is shared; the actual Java processes are still separate. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/vm/class-data-sharing.html --sam I'm sorry but you are just ignorant. The "Mac GUI is for idiots, *hur**hur*" is an pathetic, old fallacy that PC users used to use to make themselves feel superior, and it shows your total lack any any knowledge about the Mac. Perhaps though you would like to enlighten me with some specific instances of where Mac's UI is "weighing you down". I did find it pretty funny you chose Java to attack Apple on the "Development Software" front since. 1)The current non-beta version on Mac is the SAME as for PC and Linux (1.4.2 ). Yes there was some lag time at the very beginning, but it was out much faster than it took the previous version. And more than likely Java 1.5 will have an even shorter lag time. It's not like any serious Java programmer is going to require the latest version for their use, or require that their users/customers use it in that early time frame so its a moot point. Since we're talking Java and Development Software how about... Java Development Software. Both NetBeans 3.6 RC2 and Eclipse M8, two Popular Java IDE's *gasp* came out with Mac versions at the SAME TIME as PC, Linux, etc. versions. "Where's the usability improvement on themes?" Could you be a bit more descriptive on what you mean? Thunderbird for Mac OS X has been sexified. This is a very nice looking theme. I am glad that the Mozilla Foundation understands the fact that each platforms have certain requirements for making a program look, feel and function "native" to it. Will users on Mac, Windows and Linux eventually have the option to switch between the pinstripe or qute (or "classic" and "modern") at some point? Many people theme their systems and one might looks better regardless of OS on a particular theme... Looks nice. How about making it available as an option for Tbird in Windows? I would guess two reasons: a) It probably relies on native widgets, so wouldn't look the same on other platforms b) Apple would sue their arse off --sam While the Pinstripe theme relies on calls to the Mac OS, there's no need for Mac widgets. But it should be relatively straightforward to package the Pinstripe icons with the default Windows theme (i.e. swapping the Qute icons for Pinstripe icons). Even if there isn't consensus to replace the Qute icons, there certainly seems enough user interest to bundle the Pinstripe icons as an official alternative theme on Windows (i.e. just like the old NS4 theme for the Suite). Is there any way to revert to the original theme, IE, not use Pinstripe? I LIKE the look of the standard Thunderbird (and Firefox) themes. -Z |