I recently released a major new version of CrystalClear Interface (CCI). Among the most significant enhancements in version 2.5 are its full compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") and its ability to finally theme the Finder. Because of new limitations to system add-ons imposed by Apple, taming Snow Leopard has been a daunting challenge, but the final outcome is a version of CCI that's the most stable, robust, and compatible yet. The extended struggle with Snow Leopard over the winter is one of the primary reasons I've decided to require a license fee for CCI 2.5 ($12.00).

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Besides the set of Crystal Document icons previewed recently, another feature of the forthcoming CrystalClear Interface 2.5 is a new set of eight beautiful preset themes, shown below. (Click the images for a closer look.) The themes are designed to complement the eight Frosted Crystals desktop pictures released with CCI 2.2. Of course, you can still set colors, frames, and transparency settings for Mac OS X windows to your own taste, as always. The preset themes are ones I've enjoyed and find a convenient shortcut to designing custom themes.

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This is a set of 74 document icons intended to complement CrystalClear Interface and the set of Crystal Albook system and application icons I released a couple of years ago. The set covers most of the document types used by Apple's applications as well as a limited set of document types for third-party applications. The icon set for third-party apps will be augmented substantially as time permits.

These icons are available for download now, and they will be included in the forthcoming release of CrystalClear Interface 2.5 (more on that in another article). In CCI 2.5, you will be able to automatically install and uninstall the various icon sets displayed below, including any of the Crystal Docs icons for any of the third-party applications you use. The new icon install feature will be included in the new CCI Preferences window.

Enjoy!

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I posted the new version of CrystalClear Interface a few days ago, and then proceeded to hunt down and squash a couple of last-minute bugs. Yesterday, I was also moved to make one of the hard-wired features a configurable option. While not as dramatic an upgrade as version 2.1, CCI 2.2 nevertheless has a large number of new features, enhanced features, and bug fixes, as well a great deal of code optimizing. This article summarizes the more significant changes since version 2.1 was released in June.

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.frostHolder { position: relative; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: auto; width: 329px; height: 312px; } .frostedBg { position: absolute; width: 329px; height: 312px; background: transparent url(/images/frostedimages/background.png) no-repeat; } .frostedimg { position: absolute; right: 0px; width: 324px; height: 307px; margin-top:2px; margin-left:2px; margin-right: 3px; margin-bottom: 3px; -webkit-box-reflect: below 0px -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(transparent), color-stop(0.82, transparent), to(rgba(255,255,255,0.9))) 0 0 0 0 stretch stretch; } .title { float: left; width: 125px; height: 45px; top: 186px; position: relative; }.gradientBox { position:relative; width:470px; left:0px; right:0px; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; margin-top: 45px; padding:15px 12px 10px 2px; height:381px; background: url(/images/frostedarticle_bg.jpg) top left repeat-x; -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 3px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); -moz-box-shadow: 0px 3px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 8px; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 8px; -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 12px; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 12px; -webkit-box-reflect:below 1px -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(transparent), color-stop(0.9, transparent), to(rgba(255,255,255,0.9)));}#credits { text-transform: uppercase; font-family: Trebuchet-MS, Verdana, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.3em; font-weight: bold; font-size: 7pt; margin-top:50px; color: rgb(70, 70, 70);text-align:center;text-shadow: 0px 1px 1px rgba(253,252,252,0.9); z-index:5;} These are snippets of the 9 "Frosted Crystal" desktop pictures that'll be distributed with CrystalClear Interface 2.2. (...)

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The latest release of CrystalClear Interface is now available. Version 2.1 is a much more significant upgrade than I'd planned when I began working on it in February! Some of these are highly requested enhancements, while others are here simply because they please me.

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The beta release of CrystalClear Interface 2.0 is now available on its new website. Also on the site is a documentation page describing all the features of this new version. Be sure to peruse that information—especially the tips and troubleshooting sections—before you try it out.

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The Transparent Experiment Lives!

CrystalClear Interface 2.0 will soon enter a public beta release. This is a major step from the previous version, released in March 2008 and described in the Mars article:

CrystalClear Interface 1.9:
Going Where No Theme Has Gone Before

Those of you who found CCI 1.9 outlandish no doubt find that version 2.0 sets a new standard for outlandishness.

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This release fixes a problem with the uninstaller, and is otherwise the same as 1.9.0. (Note: Today’s update fixes the error in yesterday’s release, which inadvertently still had the 1.9.0 installer. Sorry about that!) The uninstaller now runs a new utility, GraphicsToggle, after running the installer/uninstaller, and this takes care of making sure the Leopard graphics are fully restored. See the documentation included with the download for more information about GraphicsToggle.

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This unexpected journey into the realm of transparent user interfaces has taken me much further than I ever imagined. It's been almost a year now since the first inkling of the idea rattled my brain, which led to the first release of Crystal Clear for ShapeShifter in mid-February.

Thanks to the Cocoa InputManager SetAlphaValue, I was led, Pied-Piper-like, into the enormous and strange world of Objective-C and Cocoa during the summer. I'm finally surfacing from that expedition and have brought a souvenir of my travels into the strange, terrifying, and glorious realm of Cocoa.

Each computer user will have to decide for themselves just how much transparency they can stand while working at their Mac. I was surprised at the amount of loathing that was expressed towards Leopard's newly translucent menubar last month. But I don't think it's indicative of any permanent flaw in the concept. Quite the contrary, in fact: If anything, Leopard's toying with translucency is too much of a baby step, on the one hand, and smacks of me-tooism with Vista, on the other.

Very briefly, the premise I'm proposing is that our computer monitors are essentially glorious light sources, much like the ones that shine through windows in our houses and automobiles. Just as we do with those windows, there are times when we want to bask in the beauty shining through, and other times that we prefer to close the blinds to avoid glare. On the computer, we already know how to close the blinds. I'm suggesting that there's a world of beauty awaiting computer users who can enjoy the light as well.

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I can’t believe it’s been 2 months since I published the preview article for Crystal Clear 1.5! What was going to be a 2-3 week project after that turned into a monster of a project that’s taken me on several journeys into the bowels of Mac OS X and Cocoa, the primary framework for building Mac OS X software in the programming language Objective-C. But the story of those journeys–if I ever have time to write them down–is an article unto itself.

Today, I just want to briefly report what’s going on with Crystal Clear. Besides the features noted in August, the screen movie above shows a variety of noteworthy advances, some obvious and some not so obvious. Here are the ones I want to point out in particular:

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