Duality 3.1 - themes on Mac OS X
 

A theme application called Duality has just gone to version 3.1 - questions for the public!

What is your experience? Is it stable? What are the speed hits like? Do some themes allow the system to go faster?

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For the curious, you can find some themes from Interface Studio and MacMotiva, some are quite nice..

thanks for any input, good or bad

Jacques

I have the AlumiteX theme on my iMac -- and haven't had any problems with it at all. The question of Duality's stability is kind of moot -- Duality isn't running all the time, only when you want to change your theme.

I haven't noticed a speed hit at all -- nor have I noticed a speed increase. But I'm running OS X on an 800 MHz G4, so it wasn't slow to begin with.

I've been using Duality v3.0 for about 2 months now on my G3 266MT and my G4 DP800. The G4 is fast so it's on just for the look of Grey silver. On the G3 It makes the interface seem a little faster. I also use Shadowkiller on both macs and it makes the G3 useable. BTW I have never had any problems with the program.

As nkuvu pointed out, Duality is not the problem. Half-assed themes are the problem. I've seen many reports of people unable to get Aqua back for various reasons after installing a theme. I would only consider using them if you are prepared to reinstall your OS.
$0.02

I had no idea that Duality simply applied the theme then was no longer needed. I think I assumed Kaleidoscope's way of doing things from the pre-UNIX days, a continually running program doing the tweaks..

Thanks for the input!

Original Aqua interface RESTORE
 

I found an utility that will restore the original Aqua interface if any are having problems, see the top left corner of this website - you should see a reference to AquaRestore.

Milky Mac OS X - where are the cookies?
 

As a followup..

After perusing all the themes that I could find, I've settled on Milk - the one that's included with new Duality.

Wow! I like. It's less busy than Aqua but has all the functionality, refreshing. It really allows the gadgets and gooey-ness to get out of the way a bit more, since everything is milky instead.

Recommended, the software ran very well - no problems whatsoever.

Jacques

I have the Classic Platinum theme and I'm happy with it. I'm curious to see how compatible the existing themes are going to be with Jaguar, and whether or not the developers will be updating the old themes, though.

I'm definitely gonna restore the stock Aqua theme for the upgrade to Jaguar.

;)

What theme do you use Rusto?

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Very well documented, to avoid issues you definately should uninstall any and all themes before upgrading to Jaguar - apparently there have been some real changes to the Finder.

Duality is probably going to release version 4 of it's software after Mac OS 10.2 comes along.

Jacques

been happiest with "Silverfox"

so far the themes that i have tried have not been jag compatible..

i used to use opaqua, and i didnt uninstall before installing jag... it just simply got replaced by jag i suppose

Do you mean that you subsequently went to reinvoke your selected theme using Duality 3 and that either a) it would not cooperate, giving you an error message; or b) that it "thought" it installed the selected theme but the widgets and whatnot retained stock "Jaguar" appearance?

Obviously the Duality theme would disappear when you first install Jaguar. The Duality theme would have disappeared if you had reinstalled 10.1.x as well.

when i tried to install opaqua after jag install it said that the theme is not compatible with the system, supposedly duality 3.1 itself is, but themese have to be updated to work with jaguar

Thanks. I guess we'll just have to wait for the theme creators to update their themes. (I suppose Classic Platinum is probably busted too :( )

Found this at ResExcellence.com this morning:

I tried to use Duality 3.0 (which is freeware), and it didn't work. So, I reluctantly installed Duality 3.1 (shareware), and it works, albeit VERY SLOWLY. Much slower than 3.0 in 10.1. Anyway, it works like a charm. I am running the brushed metal theme, and I love it.

-Jim

What happened to the Duality website. I see it is no longer working? Is there another place to get the s/w? :(

Dave

Try here.

The site is now working, but the downloads page has no download links. Strange!

I've been successful changing themes in Jaguar with Duality 3.0.1, fwiw.
Theme Fur works well to upgrade existing themes to Jaguar compatibility: 4.5 rating at versiontracker.