changing desktop themes

[mellowstrung]

Hi. I am a new Mac user and I am frustrated with this confounded machine. I am trying to find out if I can change my desktop theme like you can with a Windows based computer. I have found websites, like freshmeat, that have complete desktop themes but, alas, I cannot figure out how to get them to work. I f anyone can tell me how to do this I would greatly appreciate it. I am using OSX by the way. Thank you, Sara

[sasha]

I learned by the seat of my pants also. Try this: drag any image you want to the desktop or download an image file to the desktop. Open the hard disk window and click once on Pictures. Make a new foldr there and drag the image file from the desktop into it. Close the window.
From the Apple menu open up Systems Preferences and click on the Desktop/Screensavers icon. In the window that opens choose Desktop tab then click Choose Folder. The computers home window will drop down. Click on the Pictures folder in the column to the immediate right which will open a new column to it's right with your new folder in it. Click on the new folder once the hit the Choose button in the lower right corner. The home window will roll up to reveal the Desktop/Screensaver window again with a thumbnail of your new image[s] displayed. Click on any picture and it will appear as a desktop image full screen, stretched, centered or tiled however you wish.

[Donaldd1]

Hi. I am a new Mac user and I am frustrated with this confounded machine. I am trying to find out if I can change my desktop theme like you can with a Windows based computer. I have found websites, like freshmeat, that have complete desktop themes but, alas, I cannot figure out how to get them to work. I f anyone can tell me how to do this I would greatly appreciate it. I am using OSX by the way. Thank you, Sara

I am using an OSX as well. What you do is find a suitable theme. If you like that theme, You take and press shift command 4 and a cross will show up as your mouse. Click and drag over the image, It will copy it, And you have your theme. put it into IPHOTO, And them change your desktop background in system preferences.:cool:

[jordan0420]

I too am interested in changing my theme however i am looking into a theme change not just a mere background change. i would like the default windows to be different and such. for example in linux the user is able to customize the pre-login, bootup, and the complete ui down to startup sounds. am i able to do this with osx 10.5?

[macmad]

Right click on the finder window and it will show several options. Select Change desktop background and it will open up system preference to the Desktop & screen Saver option or go under the apple and select System preferences. The second icon (Desktop & Screen saver) is the one to click on. Pick whatever you like and if you do not see what you want, click on the + button below the selection and you can call up any pic you want. Same thing for the screen saver.

[jordan0420]

i know how to change the wallpaper and screensaver i was interested in changing the whole GUI platform

[macmad]

What do you mean by changing the whole GIU platform? Do you wish to change the startup pic? You can do this, but it calls for you to go into the System files and unless you are very experienced or have your installation disk handy, I would not recommend it.
You wish to change the finder program?. There is software that you can get and really improves the experience. A better finder comes to mind.
Finally, are you trying to make your Mac look like a windows machine? Why?

[FALL3N]

An application you can download called 'CandyBar' can make the changes similar to the Windows theme. While you cannot change everything, there are a lot of things you can change... Apart from that, I'm sure you can go into some inner folder somewhere (I don't know where) and replace some system files with your own images so that it has different definitions for things, like scrollbars and buttons and stuff Again, I do not know this to be true, I just did a similar thing on my old iPod, which is another Apple product, so it would make sense if they both worked in a similar way...

[russellscomet1]

Hey bud I understand what you are saying i'm in the same boat Window people have no idea how And old mac user don't understand what you are saying because happy the way it looks now and are a custom of taking what apple sells for premium and thinking its perfect. answer to you your question short answer is if you are using 10.6 and above its very hard and will corrupt your system very easy.
if you are using 10.5.4 below there are few programs such as manufique and shapeshifter but be careful some of these will f your system.
Check out http://www.deviantart.com/

[royng]

What do you mean by desktop themes? Is is wallpaper.

[royng]

what do you mean by desktop themes are you referiing to wallpaper

[royng]

ok i get it. If you change the theme, there is no 'set up' theme basis for the mac. you can the change the backgrounds, obviously you can use MightyMouse (google it) to change the cursor set you can use ShapeShifter (mentioned above) to change the appearence of the user interface you can't change the login window/start-up/shut down screens that's about it. Generally though, the MacOS looks very good on it's own, and most people are happy with it. you can change some things, but mostly it's buggy and not really worth it

[royng]

If you were wanting themes, you could try out ShapeShifter ( http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter ) or ResExcellence ( http://www.resexcellence.com/ ) as good starting points.

[macmad]

User themes are the background picture(s) you see when you log into your mac. These are set at a user level, so it can vary to the user wishes. This is controlled in the system preferences. You wish to change the position of the dock, look in system preference too. You wish to change what drives show up on your desktop, that is set in the finder preferences. Click on finder in the menu bar. You want to change what you see in a finder window, look under the view option in the menu bar. The icons, some of which you can control, is application specific., so launch the program and check the preferences.
You want to change the picture that the Mac starts up in, you can change that too. That calls for you to go into the system files and for that reason, I will not divulge that location. If you are experienced enough, and do backups religiously, you already know the location.

[ilaureano]

Almost all the characteristics of the Mac are controlled in "System Preferences" (Apple menu, ther's a shortcut in the dock); in the Personal -> Appearence you can choose the color of the windows, the color if the highligted text, the way windows look, how many items will show in the "Recently used " menu item. Every icon in the system preferences control panel controls one aspect of the GUI, they're too many to mention all in this space, I suggest you acces the System Preferences panel and experiment a bit, don't worry, you won't ruin anything and you can undo all your changes. Hint: in every panel you acces in the lower right corner appears a ? circular icon; that's the help. Click on it and your Mac will give you a brief explanation of what every setting do.
Besides, right clicking on yor desktop (the "show view options" menu item) will give you options that control the size and look of the icons. Right clicking on the icons in the finder will give you options about the aspect and behaviour of that item (of course, the options change from item to item).
Controling and customizing of every aspect of the Mac GUI (Graphical User Interface) is a very broad aspect of using MacOS X. So broad, so interesting and so popular that many books have been written about this. Experiment, that's the Mac way.

[royng]

I agreed with ilaureano go and check out at system preferences. Hope you have your problem solved.

Good luck,

Regards
Roy