subtleGradient comments on Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!

"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by credit builders

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:26:57 PDT

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"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by unsecured card

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:29:51 PDT

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"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by credit starters

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:08:34 PDT

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"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by bankruptcy

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:19:27 PDT

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"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by Thomas Aylott

Wed, 7 Dec 2005 14:15:09 PST

If there’s only 1 thing that the Mac has that no one can deny, it’s a pretty slick UI ;)

"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by Tracey

Wed, 7 Dec 2005 12:40:33 PST

I’m suffering from Linux envy after that screenshot!

"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by Thomas Aylott

Mon, 5 Dec 2005 03:53:08 PST

You should not use a brushed metal window if your application:

Is a multi-window application—for example, Interface Builder

Is a document-based application—for example, TextEdit

—Apple Human Interface Guidelines

"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!": comment by Thomas Aylott

Sun, 4 Dec 2005 10:55:28 PST

Don’t forget that the metal look of the Mac OS will probably change in the next version of the OS.

Many people really hate the Metal look of the OS right now.

Metal will probably look like iTunes 6 in Mac OS 10 .5

"Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!" by admin

Sun, 4 Dec 2005 10:50:00 PST

I love the way Mac OS X applications work. It’s relatively simple to crack open an app and customize its UI.

Pimp my textMate

There have been a few people on the textMate mailing-list recently that have been interested it making the drawer white text on black. I popped open the nibs to see if I could make it happen. I couldn’t. But, I did do some fun stuff.

Let me show you how to do this right quick.

Read the rest of the article to find out the thrilling conclusion!

Find your app
1. /Applications/TextMate.app
Pop open the .app package
1. Right-click the TextMate icon and select Show Package Contents
Navigate to the English.lproj folder with all the nibs in it
1. Or, if your TextMate.app is in your Applications folder, simply click /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
Double-click the Document.nib file
1. This will open in up in Interface Builder, assuming you have the Mac OS X Developer Tools installed.
Open up the Inspector panel
1. Command-Shift-I or Tools => Show Inspector
Check the Has Texture checkbox in the Inspector panel
Save
Relaunch TextMate
Feel empowered by blatantly flying in the face of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines
1. You rebellious anarchist! ;)

Repeat this process until you feel hip.

There are all kinds of other things you can modify in there.

Convert Aqua windows to Metal
Convert Metal windows to Aqua
Use the Unified title/toolbar look
change buttons, icons, fonts, sizes, etc…
reposition elements
add functionality
- I added a indeterminate progress bar to the Web Preview window and bound it hidden and animate properties to the isLoading property of the webview.

It’s just insane what all you can do in there. BTW, Interface Builder automatically makes a backup of any .nib file you change. No worries! Of course, only a fool (or a dangerous rebellious anarchist, like you) would modify anything without making their own backup copy of the original app before making any changes.