Changing Safari's theme

[Lomoco]

I installed a new theme via shapeshifter, but it didn't affect Safari. How do I make safari use the system's theme that I installed instead of it's own?

[cosicave]

I do not know the answer to your question. However, I know that Safari is exremely stable and perhaps just will not be persuaded to behave in any way other than it's designers intended.

But I have found another solution which improves almost everything: Firefox.

The only thing Safari beats Firefox on is in that it is slightly better handling JAVA. For that reason, it is now the only time I use Safari.

Other great Browsers (both of which accept different themes easily) are Opera and Camino.

But the various 'Add-ons' and nice themes in Firefox win me over for everyday use.

[New2macG4]

I don't much like Safari's theme either, too dark. I only use it for Java (Pogo & Yahoo games) & the TechTracker site. Otherwise, I use Camino for everything else. Its features are much better than Safari & works better on my Mac than FF, as much as I loved it on my PC. Opera looks like a very good browser, but I can't get my head wrapped around it.

[cosicave]

Responding to New2macG4: I agree that Opera is a completely different approach and I use it far less than Firefox. These two Browsers have similar ideas but approach the problem from very different angles. For that reason, I figured that it would be better to use one OR the other. I also found Opera slightly less stable under some conditions.

Camino is a lovely thing though and feels more like Safari, only nicer and more 'customisable'. Perhaps I should use it more...

[Kasey/clark]

I have found that Opera is incredibly better on mobile devices than on a desktop/laptop. I run Opera mini on my G1 and it's an order of magnitude faster than anything else I have seen.

[PeterRossy]

wow, great thanks! Its really cool for me.

[rah711]

I'm new to Mac and I have a question please. Does using firefox on your mac increase your risk of unwanted junk, virus, etc??

[Vonnage]

>'The only thing Safari beats Firefox on is in that it is slightly better handling JAVA' - unfortunately, you are badly mis-informed.

Actually, Safari has a lot of benefits over Firefox. For instance, the new and upcoming web standards in CSS3 and HTML5 are often only viewable in Safari so for web designers Safari is the better option. Safari also loads pages with complex code faster than even Firefox can, and the coders of Safari are much more on-top of the latest web techniques.

Of course Firefox still surpasses IE in pretty much everything, even though IE9 makes an attempt to catch up with modern web standards - it still falls far short of the mark. And yes, Firefox is easier to 'customize' or add 'themes' to - but the very reason Safari doesn't have this "feature" is the very reason WHY it's so fast and slick - add-ons such as themes/extensions actually slow down the time it takes sites to load up their code, so the more complex the site you're trying to view - the more your browser theme/extensions will get in the way.
Also, users of Firefox have noticed that with certain sites using specific web technologies, firefox add-ons can actually cause the site to freeze up and crash - sometimes even resulting in Firefox itself crashing out.

If you're going to use Firefox as your main browser, install as FEW add-ons as you possibly can - only use ones you absolutely can't live without, and when you're not using them disable them in the Add-On Panel. Things will run much smoother for you all-round. Also, when adding themes to Firefox - try to use basic themes that don't require all sorts of add-ons themselves to work or display right. The more complex the theme - the more likely it is to interfere with the sites you want to view.

[Vonnage]

To answer the original question of this discussion:

The system theme should have come with a Safari theme built-in, including all the files needed. If it didn't try installing a totally different theme and see if that changes the appearance of Safari (try and see if there's a theme that specifically mentions it includes a Safari theme). If it still has no effect then the program you are using to change the system theme doesn't have the capability to alter the look of Safari.

You can either try finding and downloading an alternative program that can alter Safari's look, try changing Safari independently from the software you are using (to see how click here.) Or if all-else fails, stick with themes supplied by Apple themselves.