The power of the dwarf is embodied in his treasure. Items of power made from iron, silver, gold, amber, jewels and polished bone. All crafted with with great skill and ingenuity in the fires of the forge, central to a Dwarfsﾕ hall. From these forges were drawn items of legend, swords which sing, goblets that never empty, and necklaces of arcane power. First among the dwarves was Eitri, a master of the magic borne in the coal fire. He served the Aesir, who would travel from their long halls in Valhalla, through the dark lands to his hall and trade favors and gifts of great wealth for the products of his skill.
This scheme is by intended to be reminiscent of this tradition, reflecting the dark colors of coal and ash, the brightness of flames flickering yellows and oranges, and the beauty of fine gold and hammered metal. In the background is the ever present smoke and the highlights of fire.
Overview:
This archive contains a collection of resources that will allow the user to completely remake their computer into something else. Enclosed are resources to alter the system, the Kaleidoscope Control Panel, Folder Icon Maker, and many other toys and goodies. To completely use every aspect of this archive, you will need
Mac OS 8
Kaleidoscope 1.7.3
Window Monkey
Folder Icon Maker
Resedit or Resourcerer
Your Tools Disk
The Kaleidoscope Color Scheme
Eitriﾕs Forge v 1.0 is enclosed in this archive. This version requires Kaleidoscope 1.7.3 to utilize all its effects. This scheme provides unique accent colors to the unpressed and pressed scroll thumbs and a complete set of Icons that will become effective upon selecting the scheme in Kaleidoscope 1.7.3. This scheme is very large, several hundred Kb in size, full of ppats and icons (It does qualify as bloated.... but I think it is really cool too).
If you are not a Window Monkey user, select the ﾔColorize Finder Window Controlﾕ and set the color (with the HSV color picker) to a Hue of 0 (zero), a Saturation of 0 (zero) and a Value of 30%. With this the finder window text will be black on deep gray. If you really want it to look nice, see the section on clippings (below).
As always, place the color scheme in the Kaleidoscope Color Scheme folder, in your extensions folder. Please note that this scheme looks very nice in 256 or greater colors and Black and White (see notes at end of readme) but does not look good in 16 color and I advise you not to use it in 4 bit color (It can get really repulsive). I made the decision to make it this way because the concept called for this degree of color to look really nice, and as black and white is supported in every resource, I did spend a great deal of time making the scheme usable in this resolution. But as the cicn resource cannot be directly edited in 16 colors, I did not put much effort into this resolution. If you use this resolution frequently, you have my apologies, but also be aware that you will probably not enjoy this scheme.
Desk Top Goodies
Desk Top Pic
Enclosed in this archive is a desktop pic that can set to a background pic with the ﾔDesktop Picturesﾕ Control Panel in Mac OS 8. If you are using an older system, the same effect can be achieved with ﾔDecor,ﾕ another shareware program.
To use this pic, open the control panel and select the pic, set the desktop and close the control panel. Before you do this, place the pic in the folder you want it to live in for good. If you move the pic after selecting it and restart your computer... well.... it is bad, very bad. It seems that if the pic is not where the control panel looks for it, your restart will freeze, and get really mucky.
The enclosed Desktop Pic is set to look best in a 640 by 480 pixel screen and will look really bad in anything less than thousands of colors. It just does, so if you cannot support thousands of colors I am sorry. You may not like this. If your monitor supports thousands of colors in a larger screen size (I envy you), you will notice a large black line across the top of your screen. This black line is formed when the Desktop pic is resized to fit a larger scheme and just looks nasty. To get rid of it, simply download a larger version of the Desktop Pic from my web site (URL Below), and install it... it will go away.
For those interested, the top 20 pixels of all the desktop pics are black (these are the pixels that are hidden by the menu bar. When the Desktop pic is resized to fit, this black bar is stretched and becomes visible.
Clippings for DT Pat/ Win Monkey
Within this folder are two pict clippings; pattern clipping - Texture and picture clipping - Gray. My own opinion is that the pattern clipping - Texture looks very nice if pasted into the Desktop Pictures Control Panel. Although it will not show up when the Desktop pic is installed, it will show up during the startup process of the computer when it is started/restarted. When used with the startup screen resources (see below), it looks really nice.
I am also really fond of the Gray background for the finder window color. But I encourage you to use the picture clipping - Gray with Window Monkey, because then you can set the text color to a nice orange that matches the menu and finder window color, which gives a nice sense of completeness. This orange color is (again in the HSV Color Picker) Hue of 30%, Saturation of 80%, and Value of 100%.
If you create a pattern or texture that you believe really looks awesome in this scheme and send it to me, I would like that, and if you would allow, I will even make it available for download by others.
A selection of Hard Drive Icons
Also in this folder is a folder containing 6 different Icons that can be used to replace the Hard Drive Icon. If you want to use on, simply get info (Command-I) on the Icon you like and select the picture of the Icon in the upper left corner of the resultant dialog box and copy (Command - C). Next open the Info box on your Hard Drive Icon (single click on the icon and select get info - Command I). Again select the picture in the upper left corner of the dialog box and select paste (Command - V).
Eitriﾕs Cursor
This is a cursor altering system extension that will change your cursor to one that looks appropriate (and really nice) with this scheme. This cursor is an edited version of one that was originally created by Mattias Ulrich. It is my understanding that distribution of edited cursors is okay with the creator.
To use this, simply drop it on the system folder and select OK when told that it will be added to the extensions folder. If you are currently using another extension that alters the appearance of the cursor, please use your extensions manager to turn the other one off before you restart the Mac, otherwise you might experience a really nasty Extension Conflict (yucky!).
Resources
This folder contains resources for the braver among you. These will require you to do things to alter your system and Kaleidoscope Control Panel. Why would you want to do this, well, because it looks so much cooler when you do. I mean it. It does!
Mac OS 8 Startup screen Resource
This is a ResEdit Resource that contains 2 pict resources that can be used to replace your systems original startup Screens. They do look nice and will enhance the whole concept of this make over. To use them you will need ResEdit and your tools disk.
How to install these, step by step.
1) Restart your Computer from your tools disk. Never, ever, EVER! edit a system that is in use. It gets messy and really bad. Your computer wonﾕt love you any more.
2) Select your system and duplicate it (Command - D).
3) Move the original system to another folder and rename it. Use a name that you will recognize but your Mac wonﾕt (Perhaps ﾒold sys in stasisﾓ).
4) Open the ﾔMac OS 8 Startup screen resource file in ResEdit, open the pict resources and select all (Command - A) and copy (Command - C).
5) Open the System Copy with ResEdit and open the Pict Resources.
6) Paste (Command - V) when these resources are open.
7) You will be asked if you want to replace the resource that have the same ID numbers or assign the new resources with unique ID, and you will be offered No, Unique IDﾕs, and Yes buttons. Select the Yes Button (This is not the default button).
8) Save the changes and quit ResEdit.
9) Rename the altered system from ﾔSystem Copyﾓ to ﾒSystemﾓ (be sure to delete the space between the two words).
10) Restart your computer and marvel at the cool new startup screen.
Note: If you want to revert to the unaltered start up screen, boot up on your tools disk and move the altered system to the trash. Move your old system back to the system folder and rename it back to ﾒSystemﾓ and restart. Ta Dah.... it is back (not near as cool.... but it is normal).
Kaleidoscope(ef) 1.7.3 patch
The Eitriﾕs Forge v 1.0 color scheme takes advantage of a really cool aspect of Kaleidoscope 1.7.3 - it has a total of 18 different accent colors. The problem is that it is not yet possible to edit the manner in which these appear in the Kaleidoscope Control Panel (although this appears to be forthcoming in a future version of Kaleidoscope - Huzzah!) The is no real relation between the lavender in the traditional Kaleidoscope Control Panel and the Hammered Gold appearance in Eitriﾕs Forge. Hence I have included a patch that will alter the Accent Color Pop-up menu and the associated Icons. To use this patch please do the following;
1) Turn off Kaleidoscope. A good time to run this patch would be when you are changing out the Startup Screens.
2) Make a duplicate of Kaleidoscope (Command - D).
3) Move the original to disabled control panels file (In your system).
4) Double Click the Patch and select the New copy of Kaleidoscope in the resultant windows. Wait while the patch does the work for you.
5) Open your Extension Manager and turn off the original and turn on the altered version. (Do not have two copies of Kaleidoscope in your active control panels folder, just like 2 cursors..... it is bad).
6) Restart you computer and check out the cool new look of your Kaleidoscope control panel.
Eitriﾕs Forge FIM Resources
This is a set of resources for the popular shareware program File Icon Maker. To use these, simply place them in the same folder as Folder Icon Maker and select them from the menu while in the program.... then get busy making special Icons for all your goodies.
Special Notes for Black and White Resolution Users.
The use of Window Monkey with the Settings described above and the use of the Colorize Finder Window set to the above described color will result in your Active Finder Header and your Folders Names to not be readable. It is important that, if you are using B&W that your Colorize Finder Window be turned off or set to a color that falls through to white. Having this setting set to a dark color that falls through to black apparently mucks up the finder header text and makes the names of folders and documents in finder windows black on black (or unreadable).
How to find those things mentioned above
Eitriﾕs Forge Home - http://www.datasync.com/~pheyk/Kaleidoscope/Index.shtml
