themes posts

Elixir offers new RapidWeaver theme and special bundle

by Christina Warren (RSS feed) on Jan 29th, 2009

Here at TUAW, RapidWeaver is our longstanding-favorite WYSIWYG web site creation tool. I personally like to to use RapidWeaver for rapid prototyping or for creating sites that don't need a CMS backend. One of the best parts of RapidWeaver is its extensive library of beautiful themes. Elixir makes some of the best looking RapidWeaver themes around and have just introduced a new design to the fold: Aqua.

The new theme is $12.95 US, but for the next three days, Elixir is bundling all of its themes together, including the new Aqua thme, for $54.95 US. Elixir has shied away from bundling themes together in the past so this is a great opportunity to get twenty great looking RapidWeaver themes (compatible with both 3.6 and 4.x) for a really reasonable price.

I like Elixir's themes because they are not only attractive, but they come with extras and multiple customization options. Couple that with RapdiWeaver's built-in theme-editing abilities and you can create something really slick without exerting a lot of effort.

If you purchase the Elixir Extreme Bundle, youll also get a 50% off coupon for use at Elixir's sister site the Icon Lab. The bundle will only be available for the next three days, so if you're looking to put a little more color in your (Rapid)weave, better get a move on.

Tags: elixir, rapidweaver, themes, web design, WebDesign

Filed under: Software, Beta Beat

Bowtie: iTunes controller with style

by Brett Terpstra (RSS feed) on Dec 7th, 2008

I like the idea of iTunes controllers, but a lot of the apps I try are too CPU intensive or just plain feature-bloated, so I just live with some AppleScripts set to hotkeys. I discovered Bowtie a little while ago, though, and it's a perfect fit for my needs. It's tiny, unobtrusive and its look (and even functionality) is extremely customizable. It provides system-wide hotkeys for skip forward, skip back and play/pause. Depending on the theme you have loaded, the interface can provide cover art and song info, star rating controls and clickable buttons for basic playback control.

If have some web design knowledge, Bowtie can be themed with a little CSS and Javascript. There is a starter pack available at MacThemes (several themes from the pack are pictured above); the download is in the first post of a running thread from which tips and tricks for customization can be gleaned.

Bowtie has been out as a beta for a while, and I'm uncertain what its current development status is. I really haven't run into any show-stopping bugs, though, which is impressive for such an early beta. Of course, it's a fairly simple machine with a focus on doing a few things well and looking great in the process. What's not to love?

Tags: controller, itunes, themes

Filed under: Multimedia, Odds and ends, Internet

Education-oriented iWeb Themes

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Sep 16th, 2008

While it's a bit too late for our Back-To-School series, here's an announcement for those in education (student, teacher, parent, or administrator) who use iWeb to create school or personal websites.

Jumsoft has announced five new iWeb themes specifically for education. The iWeb Education Themes run the gamut from Primary (at right) and Teens themes for younger students, Cool Class for everyone, and College and University for those in the post-secondary educational world.

Each theme consists of a number of templates for the various page types found in iWeb: Welcome, About Me, Photos, My Albums, Movies, Blog, Podcast, and Blank.

The themes are available for US$9.99 each, or as a package for US$29.99. iWeb 2 is required to use the new themes.

Tags: iweb, mac, themes

Filed under: Internet Tools

GrApple themes bring Safari's UI touches to Firefox

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on Jun 17th, 2008

For those of you who aren't looking forward to Firefox 3's default new look today, might I suggest an FF2 theme called GrApple Yummy, from Aronnax. It makes Firefox a dead ringer for Safari. In fact, Aronnax claims it looks three times more beautiful than Safari. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

GrApple Yummy is available in two flavors, blue and graphite. Blue contains three-color window controls, while graphite, as you might imagine, has gray window controls.

Both themes are donationware.

Tags: aronnax, firefox, grapple, themes

Filed under: iLife, Odds and ends

New iWeb themes from Jumsoft

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Jun 8th, 2008

iWeb 2 (the iLife '08 version, that is) comes with an assortment of 26 different themes, but if you're tired of trying to mod the Comic Book theme for your new blog, you may want to look at ten new iWeb themes from Jumsoft.

There's a good assortment of styles in the Jumsoft collection. I personally find the Teddy theme to be a bit twee and Flowered World is too feminine for my taste, but YMMV. My personal faves from the new collection are the sparse and paper-like Simple Info, and the pastel and plastic Business. An installer app is included to make sure that your new themes end up in the proper place on your Mac.

Jumsoft sells each theme for $9.99 or you can buy the entire pack of ten themes at a 30% discount for $69.99. If you're an iWeb fan and want some additional design options, take a look at the new themes.

Tags: ilife, iweb, templates, themes

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Leopard

DragThing 5.9 with Leopard support and full dragabilty

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 19th, 2007

DragThing, which could have my favorite Mac app name ever, is a launcher that will open up anything you (surprise!) drag to it, and can also work as a Dock alternative and a visual clipboard. The idea is that everything you need is just a click (or a hotkey press) away.

And now, this thing has hit version 5.9, with full support for Leopard (an entire week early!), and a host of other updates. Actually I'm not sure how much a "host" is, but there's a lot-- a new look, icon reflections (optional, in case you don't want things too shiny), new themes, live previews, and the ability to insert and rearrange items in the Dock using just the eponymous dragging action. Very slick.

DragThing is available over on the website-- a single license is $29, and you can get five and ten packs of licenses for $99 and $149. Trust me-- it's a real drag.

[via DF]

Tags: clipboard, daring-fireball, dragging, dragthing, leopard, preview, themes, update

Filed under: Software, Productivity

Dockables: Control your Mac from your Dock

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Aug 10th, 2007

We have a pretty wide array of choices when it comes to controlling our Mac, but Dockables adds even one more way to do things like shut down, start a screensaver or sleep the display. More of a collection of tiny apps than a full-blown utility, Dockables simply installs a folder in your Applications folder that contains 12 separate one-trick-pony apps (they're actually just packaged AppleScripts with pretty icons) that can perform the following actions: Shut Down, Start Default Screen Saver, Restart, Empty Trash, Eject Media, Sleep, Log Out, Close Applications, Hide Applications, Mute Sound, sleep display, and take a screenshot. The idea is that you drag just the Dockables that you want to your Dock, thus providing one-click access to the actions you use most. A few Dock dividers and alternately themed Dockables are even provided for yet more options for controlling your Mac with style and organizing everything just the way you need it.

Dockables is provided as donationware from COCOApps.

[via MBW Picks]

Tags: control, Dock, Dockables, Mac, themes, utilities

Filed under: Software, Hacks, Odds and ends, Apple

Keynote '08 Picture Frames hack

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Aug 8th, 2007

Brian sent us (thanks!) what is probably the very first Keynote '08 hack. He found that there's a new stroke option in the program called Picture Frames, which are various types of framing graphics to put around a slide. The standard choice screen lets you choose from 12, but Brian opened up the Keynote files, and found that there were actually 72-- apparently Apple included Frames for its own Themes, but didn't allow the user to use them separately.

Fortunately, all it takes to show the extra frames is their names in an xml (actually a .plist) file inside the Keynote .app folder, so Brian cracked it open, and added all the names. Turns out, also, that no matter how much you stretch it, the Picture Frames choose can only show 50 at a time, so Brian even created a customized .plist file that shows his 50 favorites-- all you have to do is download it from him, put it inside your Keynote .app file, restart Keynote, and you've got access to almost all the Picture Frames that Apple does.

It's pretty clear why Apple didn't want people playing around with custom frames too much (opening a Keynote file with a custom frame requires that you have it installed, apparently, so sending a Keynote file to your friend without the custom frame could lead to trouble), but who knows why they didn't at least give you the option of using all the frames everyone has. Thanks to Brian's superfast hack, now you can.

Update: Just to make it clear, it's fine to use these hidden frames, since everyone has them installed. The problem with sharing frames comes when you send someone a slide with a frame you created-- they don't have that frame installed, and so they won't see it.

Tags: hacks, iwork, keynote, keynote08, keynoteuser.com, pictureframes, plist, themes, xml

Filed under: iLife, Software, Features, Internet Tools, .Mac

iWeb '08

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Aug 7th, 2007

I need to come right out and say it: I am really, really excited for iWeb and all the new .Mac changes. With the first version of iWeb, Apple didn't seem to quite 'get it' yet; everything you could build into your pages had to more or less come from your Mac desktop. In a web 2.0 world though, that just doesn't cut it for so many aspiring iWeb users. Many of us have Twitter accounts, pictures on Flickr and stuff we create at zillion of other sites that we'd like to integrate into a personal website, and iWeb 2.0 reveals that Apple finally understands this.

Web Widgets

Finally melding the power and ease iWeb brings to publishing your Mac's media with the rest of the internet is iWeb's arguably biggest new feature: Web Widgets. While this page is a little skimpy on details, we can now embed code snippets from the endless community sites cropping up on the web into our iWeb pages. As an awesome bonus I can't wait to see in action, iWeb also offers a live preview mode that will include these widgets, so you can see your site in action and be sure everything gels before publishing.

Publish to a personal domain

This feature doesn't get its own page at the new iWeb site, but hopeful iWeb power users will likely appreciate the fact that you can now publish your sites to personal domains. Details are even slimmer for this one, but it sounds like Apple finally shared some of Mac OS X's built-in FTP abilities with iWeb, allowing us to set up our own personal sites for one-click publishing.

Continue reading “iWeb '08”

Tags: .Mac Web Galleries, .macWebGalleries, AdSense, domains, Google, iWeb, themes, widgets

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools, Mods

On TextMate extras

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Dec 31st, 2006

Like me, there are probably a lot of fresh new TextMate users out there in the audience thanks at least in part to MacHeist, so I thought it would be pertinent to point out a few helpful resources Allan Odgaard (TM's developer) maintains at macromates.com. Of course the searchable mailing list and IRC channel are handy for getting your discussion on, over which TM user Brett Terpstra just shared a WordPress templating bundle he's created - quite possibly a good addition to that theming workflow we just blogged.

Another powerful resource is the TextMate wiki, which houses a plethora of learning tools and resources such as a bundle repository if you're looking for some features or a language not included by default, as well as an RSS feed for bundle changes. Of course, what text app would be complete without user submitted themes? Last on my resource roundup (but by no means the end of what's available) are a few TextMate plugins, including a WebMate plugin that turns TM's Web Preview into a full-fledged WYSIWYG HTML editor based on WebKit.

There's a lot more from where all this came from, so dive in or simply get your feet wet with this swiss army knife of text editors.

Tags: addons, bundles, html, plugins, resources, textmate, themes, wiki, wordpress, wysiwyg

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools

iSticky offers notes with reminders, sending via Bonjour, more

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 12th, 2006

Sticky notes are great, but sticky notes that can have reminder alarms, be sent to other Macs via Bonjour, sent over the web and SMS, archived and more - are better. If any of these features have your inner nerd excited, then check out iSticky - a sticky note app on steroids. Also on the feature list are themes, categories, encryption, document linking and more.

While we don't think iSticky is Universal yet (at least, the author isn't bragging about it on the site), a demo is available. iSticky also offers a wide range of licenses depending on which features you need and whether you need a family/business pack. Prices run from $16 USD (single license, Bonjour sending but not over the web) up to $90 USD for a 12 license pack with all the toppings. Check it out if Apple's Stickies just aren't cutting it for you anymore.

Tags: archive, bonjour, categories, category, internet, isticky, net, send, share, stickies, sticky, sticky notes, StickyNotes, theme, themes, web

Filed under: Internet Tools

Skin Thunderbird with a Mail look

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Sep 19th, 2005

Apparently someone by the name of "Riz" has a love-hate relationship with Apple's Mail, for Riz has gone and created a pretty darn accurate Mail theme for Mozilla's Thunderbird.

While I don't have a copy of Thunderbird to test this, it seems the look, feel and most of the icons are all present, offering a bit of a home away from home if you prefer Thunderbird's functionality, yet miss Mail's good looks.

[via Hawk Wings]

Tags: mail, skin, themes, thunderbird

Tip of the Day

Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.

Learn More

TUAW flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Featured Galleries

TUAW bloggers (30 days)

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Steven Sande	45	3
2	Dave Caolo	33	4
3	Mel Martin	30	0
4	Mike Schramm	29	0
5	Michael Rose	19	22
6	Josh Carr	18	24
7	Victor Agreda, Jr.	15	6
8	TJ Luoma	14	25
9	Ken Ray	12	2
10	Erica Sadun	10	1
11	David Winograd	9	4
12	Aron Trimble	9	3
13	Joachim Bean	9	3
14	Sang Tang	9	0
15	Chris Rawson	7	0
16	John Burke	6	3
17	Megan Lavey	6	9
18	Brett Terpstra	4	5
19	Lauren Hirsch	4	0
20	Kent Pribbernow	3	0

More Apple Analysis

AAPL on BloggingStocks The Apple category feed from BloggingStocks.com
AAPL Quote, News & Summary The AAPL financials page from AOL Money and Finance
iPhone analysis from BloggingStocks iPhone tag feed from BloggingStocks
Macintosh news and reviews on Download Squad The Macintosh category feed from Download Squad

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)