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I choose the Graphite look when I want a more restful mood.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Customizing your OS X Mac cheaply, Part 3: Custom colors and fonts? Yes and no


Nov. 10, 2004


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, The Post-Standard

   Over the last two weeks I explained how you can customize your OS X Macintosh by changing the desktop background and by creating a stunning slideshow of your own pictures.
   But refugees from the PC world might already know that every Windows PC comes with a built-in way to change a lot of other things, too. On a Windows computer, you can change colors and fonts easily. The 14-year-old Windows game champion next door might have a PC that looks radically different from the one your sister-in-law uses.
   Can't you do this to an OS X Macintosh, too?
   Yes and no. Let's start with the good news. Yes, you can change the look of the windows on your screen. But (and here's the bad news) you can't change them very much.
   Correction. You can't change them very much without some unofficial tinkering. I don't recommend that sort of thing -- it can leave you with a Mac that won't boot up -- so I'll try to stick with the official line here. Apple doesn't want you to change more than a couple of interface items. So I'll see if I can keep you out of trouble and tell you how to make those changes.
   As in the two previous articles, I'm assuming that your Mac is running OS X 10.3, also called Panther. If your Mac has an earlier version, you might have different menus.
   Open System Preferences and click the "Appearance" panel. It shows the changes you can make. They are:
   Appearance: You have two choices, Blue and graphite. They're not much different. I like the Blue theme usually, but I choose Graphite when I want a more restful mood. Changes take place instantly, so choose one after checking out the look.
   Highlight Color: This changes only selected text. Avoid dark colors and colors that are too light. Your choices are almost unlimited if you're running at the highest color mode ("Millions of Colors"). Open the color-selection dropdown menu and click the "Other" option. You'll see a color-selection window, You can choose from four color pickers. Try them to see how they work.
   The leftmost color picker has four sliders. Only one will be visible at first -- probably the Gray Scale Slider. Next to the dropdown menu is a color grabber that looks like a magnifying glass. Use it to acquire the exact color of any object on the screen.
   Most of the other interface choices don't do much to change the look of your Mac. I'm a huge fan of the way Apple lets you minimize a window by double clicking on the title bar. You can turn that function on or off in the second group of options.
   At the bottom of the "Appearance" panel are the font-smoothing options. Apple won't let you turn this feature off entirely, but you can restrict it to certain text sizes. If you have a standard computer display (the kind with a picture tube), choose "Standard - best for CRT" from the first dropdown menu. If you have an LCD display, choose "Medium - best for Flat Panel." Try the "Strong" setting if your vision is particularly weak or the "Light" setting if you have an out-of-focus monitor.
   At the bottom of the "Appearance" panel is a dropdown menu where you can cancel font smoothing for text below a certain size. Change the setting to 12 to see the effect on menus and on the "Appearance" panel itself. (Close System Preferences and reopen it to see the change.)
   Font smoothing manipulates character shapes in various ways to reduce the angularity on standard displays or increase the perceived sharpness on LCD screens. But small characters don't benefit much and might even look worse, so that's why Apple turns off text smoothing at small sizes. Note that you can't override it; you can only choose the size below which smoothing stops working. I've set mine to 6 points.
   Finally, perhaps I should relent a little and explain that you can, indeed, change more parts of the interface (and, of course, get yourself into trouble) with TinkerTool from www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html. It's free and easy to use, but please watch what you are doing. My favorite part of TinkerTool is the way it lets me change fonts used in the interface. Stick to the same general size if you try different fonts.