As Clear As You Want

Windows were meant to be clear. Apple's Dictionary defines windows as

"an opening ... that is fitted with glass or other transparent material in a frame to admit light or air and allow people to see out"

So why not let a little light shine through?

Any Color You Want

Tired of gray? CrystalClear Interface 2.0 lets you create windows with any color your Mac can display. Pick a color right off your desktop if you want a really smooth look. 

Change your window colors any time you like to suit your mood or complement your desktop. 

But you can color more than just your windows. With CCI 2.1, you can set separate colors for

  • Sheets
  • Alerts
  • Text backgrounds 
Custom Window Frames

CrystalClear Interface lets you choose from among:

  • 8 different frames for regular windows
  • 6 frames for panels
  • 3 frames for sheets
  • 3 frames for alerts

Of course, each of these frames can be further customized with its own color and alpha value (transparency).

Indulge Your Mood With Preset Themes

CrystalClear Interface includes four prebuilt themes designed to complement different kinds of desktop pictures (including the four included in the CCI download package):

  • Aurora
  • In the Dark
  • In the Air
  • In the Garden

CCI Themes are simply a fast shortcut for switching the frame style, transparency, and color of windows and text areas . . . all at once! Time permitting, I’d like to let users save their own themes in a future release.

Auto-Contrast Text
Text contrast changes as you change your window's color, frame and transparency.
Rounded Boxes
CCI turns all those boring rectangular layout boxes into beautiful, color-matching rounded ones.
Etched Text
Why should etched text only appear on “metal” windows and buttons? With CCI, it appears the same way on all windows and buttons!
Background Blur
CCI automatically blurs the background of your windows, reducing the possibility of distraction with your see-through windows.
Recessed Buttons
If you like this style, you have the option of using it for all popup buttons.
HUD Style Windows
Fans of Apple’s HUD window style will be happy to see that CCI extends the style logically to all “helper” windows your apps use.
A Few . . .

CrystalClear Interface has many more tricks up its sleeves. Some you may notice right away, but others are more subtle. Here are a few of the ones I’d like you to know about:

  • Window animations. Windows fade open and animate closed, unless you turn this option off.
  • Single Application Mode (SAM). SAM is the default application switching mode, but you can turn this off too. SAM reduces window clutter by keeping only one application active at a time. Use the built-in application switcher (⌘-Tab) to switch applications. See more about SAM in the CCI Documentation.
More . . .
  • Disabling CCI. If you need to disable CCI entirely, or just for a particular application, you can do so in the CCI System Preferences pane.
  • Minimizing CCI. If you’re having trouble using CCI with a particular application, you can try “minimizing” it before disabling it entirely. Just click the checkbox at the top of the CCI Preferences window.
  • Transparent colors. Ever wanted to use a translucent black background when working in an application like Smultron or Coda? Well, now you can.
. . . Things
  • Matching table row colors. Instead of the same grey and white alternating row colors for tables all the time, CCI dynamically sets the colors to match the color you've chosen for your outline views.
  • Rounded text fields. I see no reason why search boxes are the only text fields that should get that smooth, rounded-corner look. So in CCI, they aren’t.
  • Movable windows. By default, CCI lets you move windows by any exposed background area, not just by their titlebar. You can, however, disable this if you prefer.
What's New in . . .
CCI 2.2 Global Menu

Most of the major changes in CCI 2.2 show up right in the CCI Global Menu (see screenshot). But there's a lot more that's changed under the hood, too!

  • Easier Handling of Incompatible Applications. In CCI 2.2, you can minimize or disable CCI right from the global menu. In addition, CCI will maintain a list of applications known to require minimizing or disabling and post an alert when you launch one of these. From the alert window, you can elect to make one of these options.
. . . CrystalClear Interface 2.2?
  • Specify Your Desktop's Brightness. Since CCI can't see through your windows to account for the brightness of your desktop picture, this new feature will keep you from having to change themes when your desktop picture changes to something very dark or very light.
  • Text Format Panels. Also in the 2.2.0 global menu is a set of Text Format tools that will come in handy whenever you're in an editable text view and can't find the Font or Color panels, or you can't add the formatting ruler or table options.
  • Improved Text Contrast. In version 2.2, the new code for determining the proper contrast text is much more compact, requires less processing, and is more robust and accurate to boot!
  • New Window Animations. Yes, I'm still fiddling with these! This time around, the windows fade in as in version 2.1, but they zoom out more like Quick Look panels.
  • Custom Application Mods CCI 2.2 adds complete themes for the Inspector panels in iWork (Pages, Keynote, Number), and adds some custom mods for iMovie, iPhoto, Xcode, and Leap.
CrystalClear Interface 2.2
Donate to CrystalClear Interface Development

If you aren't already familiar with CrystalClear Interface, you should take a few minutes to peruse the Documentation page, which explains the software’s various functions in more detail and includes some useful tips.

This is likely to be the last free release of CrystalClear Interface, so if you enjoy using this software, please donate a few bucks as an incentive for me to continue releasing updates! The suggested amount for donations is $5.00.

CCI 2.2

Last update: Version 2.2.1. (09/01/09)

CrystalClear Interface is Copyright @ 2007-2009, Leland Scott, Musings from Mars. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Use of this software is free of charge, but redistribution or modification is prohibited without the author's permission. All rights reserved. The author assumes no responsibility for any damage to your system that may result from the use of this software.

CrystalClear Interface and this Website @ 2008-09, Leland Scott, Musings from Mars
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