Overview

CrystalClear Interface (CCI) is a powerful system add-on that lets you customize certain aspects of the Mac OS X "Aqua" interface. The changes made possible by CCI fall within six distinct group:

• Transparency of foreground windows compared with those in the background or in other, inactive applications.
• Color of windows and some text fields.
• The Frame (or style) of various window types.
• The overall "Theme" of the Mac OS X interface (i.e., the style of buttons and other widgets).
• Miscellaneous Decorative settings, such as animations, shadows, and window "shine."
• Miscellaneous Behavioral settings, such as Single Application Mode (SAM), window resizability, and toolbar customizability.

All of these features are accessed using the CCI Preferences Panel, which you can summon using the keyboard shortcut ⌘-' (command-apostrophe) or by accessing the CCI Global Menu. The global menu appears as a small, round icon in the menubar of any application in which CCI is loaded. The accompanying screenshot shows where CCI's menu appears in TextEdit.

What's New in CrystalClear Interface 2.5?

One of the most significant changes in CCI 2.5 is that it's now fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). CCI 2.5 is also the first version of CrystalClear Interface that requires a license to use after the initial trial period. The other major changes include:

• Compatibility with Snow Leopard. CCI 2.5 not only now works with Snow Leopard, it's actually more stable and app-compatible than on Mac OS X 10.5. The only significant downside is that the initial loading of CCI into 64-bit applications takes longer than with traditional 32-bit apps. The delay is due CCI 2.5's use of the SIMBL framework for 64-bit applications, which must be loaded before CCI can.
• Support for Finder on Snow Leopard. Finally, CCI can theme the Finder! In Snow Leopard, Apple transformed Finder into a Cocoa application, so it can be themed like all the other Cocoa apps you use.
• New "Glossy" button theme. Designed for Snow Leopard, the Glossy button theme is also available for Leopard. (For now, the original "Gradient" CCI button theme is only available for Leopard.)
• New "Gradient" button theme for Snow Leopard. New in CCI 2.5.6, this is a beautiful, all-new button theme with consistent use of the gradient button design Apple uses in Finder, Safari, and some other applications. This provides Snow Leopard users an alternative to the Glossy theme introduced in 2.5.0.
• Robust toggling between button themes. You can now quickly, easily and fully switch between Aqua and the CCI button styles.
• Crystal Docs Icon set. This set of icons is designed to complement the Crystal Albook icon set I released a few years ago. In CCI 2.5, you can easily install or uninstall these document icons for various groups of Apple applications as well for an initial set of third-party apps. The Crystal Docs icon settings now occupy a separate tab in the CCI Preferences panel. (For a visual preview of the icons, refer to this Mars article from January 2010.)
• A new set of eight preset themes. The new themes are designed to complement the set of eight "Frosted Crystal" desktop pictures introduced with CCI 2.2. (The themes were previewed, with full screenshots, in this February 2010 Mars article.) New in CCI 2.5.5 is an updated "Dark" theme that takes advantage of the improvements in this version's handling of dark backgrounds in tables and outline views. New in CCI 2.5.6 is a redesigned "Dark Fire" theme that likewise gives users an overall "darker" look to their windows.
• In CCI 2.5.5, switch themes from the global menu. A new "Preset Themes" item lets you easily switch themes without opening the CCI Preferences window.
• In CCI 2.5.6, you can even switch desktop pictures from the global menu! A new option (Snow Leopard only) in the CCI global menu gives you easy access to the "Frosted Crystals" desktop pictures that come with CrystalClear Interface. Now you can set a new desktop picture that matches your CCI theme without switching to System Preferences!
• Light up your menubar!  Also new in CCI 2.5.5, this option for Snow Leopard users "lights up" your desktop underneath the Crystal Menubar when it's in transparent mode, improving readability of the menu titles when using a dark desktop picture. (To turn the Crystal Menubar clear, change your Desktop preferences to, paradoxically, not use a translucent menubar.)
• Toggle your menu text between black and white. This feature was included in 2.5.5 as part of the "Light Up Menubar" option, but in CCI 2.5.6 you can now invoke it separately as needed.
• Toggle your "menu extra" icons between black and white. Brand new in CCI 2.5.6, this function lets you switch to using white custom menu icons instead of the black defaults, as the need arises. (You can also easily switch back, of course!) Included in CCI 2.5.6 are 14 icons for the major Apple "menu extras," as well as icons for 14 third-party applications.
• Pointer to CCI global menu on first launch. Given the nature of CrystalClear Interface—that it's not available in all applications—new users often have trouble locating the CCI global menu. On Snow Leopard, CCI 2.5.5 implements an action that first opens the menu and then sets a small pointer window to it.
• New preference settings:
• Make all toolbars customizable. Gives you access to settings that are often hidden—for example, rearranging toolbar buttons in application preferences windows, changing the size of icons, or showing or hiding icon labels.
• Add a crystalline "shine" to your windows. The "shine" is available in two distinct styles
• Make (almost) all windows resizable. Adds a resize corner to windows that don't normally have them.
• Specify a different color for window "panels" and application preferences windows. Previously, windows and panels had the same color, though they could use different window frames.
• Redesigned window frames. The "Gradient" style has been completely redesigned as well as reprogrammed, so it's totally stable now. The "Glass HUD" frame has also been refined.
• Experimental theming of focus color. This is an attempt to replace the usual blue or graphite keyboard focus color with one that matches your current window color. At this time, it only affects one or two types of buttons.
• Easier to keep current with the latest version of CCI. CCI now uses Sparkle to notify users when an update to CCI has been released, making it simple and convenient to upgrade. When you use this mechanism to update, CCI only replaces its components that have changed, so the download is much smaller. You can also check for updates from the CCI global menu or the CCI System Preferences pane.
• Contextual Menu Enhancements.
  • You can now access the CCI global menu with a right-click on any window's titlebar.
  • Use the full-featured CCI Text Tools from any editable text view through a handy contextual, popup menu. In CCI 2.5.5, the CCI Text Tools popup menu stands out visually from other available context items.
• Redesigned and expanded "Extras" Tab. With the various major additions to CCI "Extras," this tab now has four tabs of its own:
  • Alternate Interface Paradigms
  • Graphics Options
  • Interface Fluff, and
  • Other Options
• Numerous Bug Fixes and Enhancements To Earlier Features. CCI 2.5 has made still further progress in handling text color for best contrast (including the need for correct contrast colors on buttons when using the new Glossy theme), covers more of the many non-standard elements found in some Cocoa applications, and makes further strides in ensuring reliability and stability.

Differences Between Leopard and Snow Leopard

There are a few differences between the way CCI works on Snow Leopard than it does on Leopard. Here are the most significant differences:

• App icon in menubar. On Snow Leopard, this option is only available for 64-bit applications.
• Carbon windows don't hide. When you're using Single Application Mode (SAM), windows from some applications constructed mainly from Apple's older, "Carbon" frameworks refuse to hide as other app windows do. There are exceptions, fortunately. For example, Adobe Photoshop does obey SAM.
• CCI in the Finder.  This feature only works on Snow Leopard. Sadly, Leopard users are left out of this party. :-(
• Resizable windows. This option is only available on Snow Leopard.
• Pointer to CCI Global Menu. Unfortunately, this new feature of CCI 2.5.5 does not work on Leopard.
• Light Up Menubar.
  Toggle Black/White Menu Titles.
  Toggle Black/White Menu Icons.
  All of these features, introduced in CCI 2.5.5 and 2.5.6, are designed to assist users who are running the Crystal Menubar in transparent mode, by making the menu items readable against very dark desktop pictures. Since the Crystal Menubar cannot show full transparency on Leopard, these function serve no purpose on Leopard and so are excluded from the global menu.

What about Application Compatibility?

Thanks for asking! I've actually been able to remove several apps from the "Incompatible Apps" list that CCI started maintaining in version 2.2. From testing so far, the following apps work just fine on Snow Leopard, though they still don't on Leopard:

• Espresso
• CSSEdit
• Picturesque
• Burn
• Times
• Sandvox

The following are still a problem, however, for one reason or another:

• VoodooPad
• iFreeMem 2.0
• XTorrent
• Coda

Adjusting Window Transparency

Once installed, CrystalClear Interface is set with factory defaults that you can customize to suit your taste, as explained below. By default, CCI sets the alpha value (transparency) of front-most windows to 99.9%, that of background windows in your current application to 44%, and that of windows of your current application when it is "inactive" (if they appear at all) to 33%.

In this view, the sliders on the left control the level of transparency for different types of windows.

• Sliders

  The setting you choose in each slider will be remembered and applied as a new default for your current application.

• "Set As Default" Buttons

  Clicking a "Set As Default" button saves the slider's setting as a new default for all your applications.

• Frontmost Windows

  The first slider settings control the transparency of your frontmost window (the one you're currently working in). This setting also controls the transparency of auxiliary panels, such as Inspectors and Font or Color panels, since they are programmed to match the main window's setting.

• Background Windows

  The first slider settings control the transparency of your frontmost window (the one you're currently working in). This setting also controls the transparency of auxiliary panels, such as Inspectors and Font or Color panels, since they are programmed to match the main window's setting.

• Background Application Windows

  The first slider settings control the transparency of your frontmost window (the one you're currently working in). This setting also controls the transparency of auxiliary panels, such as Inspectors and Font or Color panels, since they are programmed to match the main window's setting.

In many cases, you may find it convenient to change—either permanently or temporarily—the transparency setting of individual windows in an application. CCI gives you two ways of accomplishing this

• Windows with Specific Titles.

  The upper section of the Advanced Alpha tab shows all of the titled windows in your current application. Click on any of these, and you can adjust its transparency using the slider below. The setting for this window becomes its unique default until you remove it, by moving the slider all the way to the left.

  Using this function, you can, for example, tell Safari to never to dim the Downloads window or the JavaScript Console window. Likewise, in iChat you may always want the buddy list window to remain (nearly) fully opaque. If a window always has the same title, this is a handy way to customize your CrystalClear Interface.

• Windows of a Certain Size (But No Title).

  In some cases, you may want to customize the transparency of a window that has no title at all. You can use the settings in the bottom part of this tab for that. Simply select the checkbox, specify the size in x (width) and y (height) values, and set the slider. From then on, all windows with no titles that fit those dimensions will take on the transparency setting you've selected.

Customizing Colors

CrystalClear Interface lets you set custom colors (including transparency) for your windows and text backgrounds. The software sets some defaults when first installed, but you can change them to whatever values you like. (The quickest way to try some combinations out is to apply one of the preset themes.)

The Colors tab has six options. The top two are for text areas, and the bottom four are for windows.

• Text backgrounds.

  The color selection here applies to areas of text that aren't editable but that have scrollbars.

• Outline views.

  This color is applied to outline views, which typically have an expandable/collapsable tree structure.

• Windows.

  Changing this color affects regular windows—those that aren't preference panels, utility panels (such as Fonts, Colors, and Inspectors), sheets, or alerts.

• Panels.

  A new option in CCI 2.5, you can now set a different color for panels than for regular windows.

• Sheets.

  This color is applied to sheet windows.

• Alert panels.

  This color is applied to windows that pop up with alert-style messages. In addition, it's used on panels you use to open and save files.

What else does CCI do to customize colors on my Mac?

CCI makes some automatic adjustments to colors that are designed to enhance the beauty and consistency of the CrystalClear Interface experience. Some examples include:

• Color picker. CCI adjusts the default Color Picker panel to let you adjust color transparency, even in apps that don't normally include such an option.
• Boxes. CCI transforms traditional Mac OS X beveled box areas into rounded, colored ones. The box color is based on the window's current color.
• Focus color. New in CCI 2.5 is an experiment whereby CCI changes the focus color of some buttons to match your current window color.
• Table rows. CCI dynamically changes the color of table rows—including those with alternating colors—to match your current window and text area colors.
• Cover Flow views. New in CCI 2.5.6, views that use Cover Flow navigation get themed with a dark background matching your current outline view color setting.

Selecting Window Frames

CrystalClear Interface includes a variety of custom window frames that you can select for the various kinds of windows in Cocoa applications. There are 9 different frame styles for regular windows, 7 for non-Utility panels (most Preferences windows are included here, as well as windows such as About panels), and 3 each for sheets and alerts.

You can change the frame styles at any time to suit your taste, also combining the styles with different window colors to achieve the window appearance you'd like. Selecting one of the preset themes also modifies frame styles for the different window types. To modify a frame style for a particular kind of window, first select the Frames tab from the CCI Preferences window. This tab has three sub-tabs, described below. In each tab, the currently active frame style is highlighted in blue.

• Window Frames.

  To choose one of the 9 frame styles in this tab, simply click on the frame image.

• Panel Frames.

  To change frame styles for panel windows, switch to the Panels tab and click on the frame image of your choice.

• Sheets and Alerts.

  You can find the style choices for these types of windows in the "Other" tab.

Notes about the window frame styles

• Utility panels. Utility panels—such as the Font and Color panels, as well as Inspector panels for applications like Pages and iPhoto—are automatically themed in the translucent black Heads-Up Display ("HUD") style. These kinds of panels are not affected by changes you make in the Window Frames tabs.
• Gradient frame. This frame style is completely redesigned and reprogrammed from that in earlier versions of CCI. The style is now customized separately for sheets and for windows with and without toolbars. If you have elected to show text labels for toolbar items, that choice gets a custom gradient frame as well. Note that the Gradient frames are not affected by window colors you select in the Colors tab.

• Glass HUD frame. This window style has also been redesigned for CCI 2.5. Like the Gradient frame style, window colors you select in the Colors tab have no effect on this style.

Using Preset Themes

CrystalClear Interface includes eight prebuilt themes with fanciful names, designed to complement the set of Frosted Crystal desktop pictures that are included in the CCI download package). New in CCI 2.5.5 is an updated "Dark" theme ("Dark Light") that takes advantage of the improvements in this version's handling of dark backgrounds in tables and outline views.

• Sunrise
• Sienna Shine
• Dark Fire
• Teal Lover
• Sunset
• Dark Light
• Emerald
• Rose Garden

To use one of these themes, simply click on the theme's thumbnail image. Doing so will instantly apply the settings from that theme to all of your open windows. The curently active theme in this tab view is the one highlighted with the shiny rectangular "lozenge."

CCI's preset themes are simply a fast shortcut for switching the frame style, transparency, and color of windows and text areas . . . all at once! Note that in CCI 2.5.5, you can switch among these themes right from the CCI global menu. In a future release, I plan to enhance this feature by letting users design and save their own themes.

Installing Crystal Document Icons

New in CrystalClear Interface 2.5 is an installer (and uninstaller) for the Crystal Document icon set I recently released. These icons are designed to complement my set of Crystal Albook icons, released some years ago and based on the Albook icons designed by Laurent Baumann.

The initial set of 74 icons 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.

• Standard Mac OS X applications.

  Check this box to install icons for Automator, Font Book, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, iWeb, Preview, QuickTime Player, Safari, System Preferences, TextEdit, AppleScript Editor, Console, Archive Utility, DiskImage Mounter, and Installer. (The specific document types are listed in the Technical Notes section.)

• Mac OS X developer tools.

  If you have Apple's Developer Tools installed, check this box to install icons for Xcode, Interface Builder, and PackageMaker. (The specific document types are listed in the Technical Notes section.)

• Apple's iWork suite.

  If you use the iWork applications, check this box to install icons for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

• Supported third-party applications.

  Checking this box will let you installs icons for these apps the next time you launch them: Amadeus Pro, BannerZest Pro, Coda, DevonThink Pro, Edgies, Espresso, Photoshop, Smultron, and ThemePark. (The specific document types are listed in the Technical Notes section.)

  • Install without asking me first.

    By default, CCI will let you decide whether to install icons for a third-party app when you launch it. If you'd prefer not to be bothered with this alert, check this box.

• Install Crystal Docs Icons button.

  If you have selected any of the first three checkboxes, clicking this button will proceed to install your selections. If you already have the selected set(s) installed, clicking the button will let you know this.

  • Uninstalling the Crystal Docs icons.

    If you have already installed one of the first three icon sets and you deselect its checkbox, CCI will offer to uninstall that set immediately. You can decline the offer if you wish.

Notes about the Crystal Document icons

• Third-party icons. In CCI 2.5, there is no uninstaller for the third-party application icons, but that is planned for a future release. To restore icons for one of these applications, navigate inside the application package's Resources folder and unzip the file named <appname>-Orig.zip.

Extra Options

This tab provides a variety of additional options for customizing your Mac's interface and functionality. In CCI 2.5, these Extra options have been divided into four separate tabs, each covering a particular set of options: Paradigms, Graphics, Fluff, and "Other."

Alternate Interface Paradigms

This tab gathers CCI options that require you to Think Different about ways to use the Mac interface.

• Single Application Mode (SAM). SAM's basic function is to automatically hide all other applications and their windows whenever you switch applications. This almost elimimates window clutter but still lets you bring windows of different apps together by holding the Shift key while selecting other apps in the Finder. You'll get the most out of SAM by using Mac OS X's built-in application switcher (⌘-Tab). This option is enabled by default because it greatly enhances the experience of using the CrystalClear Interface. However, SAM takes some getting used to and isn't everyone's "cup of tea," so you can toggle this control to disable SAM for your system.
Single Application Mode (SAM)
So... What is SAM? It frequently appears as an option in applications that have some application-switching functionality, but many users don't really know what it is or how to use it. Here are some of the apps I know of that offer SAM as an option:
• Application Switcher Menu
• Quicksilver
• LiteSwitch
• MenuStrip
• Application Wizard
• Spirited Away
• AutoHide
• Shoo Apps
• Drag Thing
• Even pre-release versions of Mac OS X!
SAM reduces window clutter better than any other method I've found, and, together with CCI's control over window transparency, provides a superior way to keep focus on your frontmost, active window.
Think of it as an automated way of clicking on "Hide Others" (⌥⌘H) each time you switch apps. But what if you need to see the windows of two apps at the same time? No problem! In CCI, as in many other apps that implement SAM, you just hold down the Shift key while switching. Once you learn that you can drag and drop files, folders, images, etc., without having the source and target windows visible, you'll become a SAM expert in no time!
For the full scoop on Single Application Mode, check out my Mars article from March 2010: "The Ultimate Solution To Window Clutter: You Can Call Me SAM."
• Suppress shadows for inactive windows. As one more aid to helping distinguish the front window from the others in your current app, as well as any visible windows from other running applications, CrystalClear Interface can eliminate shadows for any inactive windows. Click this checkbox to to turn this feature on.
• Move windows by their background areas. This setting gives you more options for moving windows around on your desktop. By default, Mac OS X limits a window's movability to its titlebar and (in some cases) toolbar and status bar.
• Make windows resizable. Select this checkbox to add a "resize corner" to all your windows. (This option is only available on Mac OS X 10.6, "Snow Leopard.")

Additional information about these options

• SAM. In CrystalClear Interface, SAM is enabled through use of the Crystal Menubar application, which runs in the background. On Snow Leopard, its appearance is very muted, but if it's still running, SAM is still working. If the Crystal Menubar gets accidentally terminated, SAM will be terminated as well. However, you can toggle SAM on and off either by toggling the SAM checkbox, or by using the global menubar function "Other Tools/Toggle Crystal Menubar."
• Resizable windows. Note that some windows are resistant to this setting—for example, the System Preferences application's main window.

Graphics Options

• Button Themes. New in CCI 2.5, this setting lets you choose between two (on Snow Leopard) or three (on Leopard) different "themes" for your window's buttons and other widgets. In previous versions of CCI 2.x, Gradient was the default button theme, and you couldn't easily restore pure Aqua without uninstalling CCI completely. The new default theme features Glossy, translucent buttons. Selecting a different radio button initiates an alert verifying that you do want to change themes. Afterwards, CCI switches the graphics files to implement the different themes and restarts your application. Introduced in CCI 2.5.6, a new Gradient theme is now available as an option for Snow Leopard users. It's similar, but not identical, to the Gradient theme available for Leopard.
• Use recessed-style popup buttons. Click this checkbox if you prefer to use the recessed button style for popup buttons throughout the interface. Click it again to return to the default style.
• Suppress horizontal scroller in file browsers. This feature eliminates the horizontal scrollbar—but not horizontal scrolling—in file browsers with multiple columns. The change is purely aesthetic, for those who prefer their windows less cluttered up with scrollbars. If you don't have a mouse that includes horizontal scrolling, however, you will want to keep this feature turned off.
• Use small scrollbars. This option may appeal to you if you mostly use a scrollwheel (or equivalent—check out the amazing Magic Mouse for the ultimate scrolling experience!) rather than physically dragging scrollbars. The main advantage in this case is that it reduces "widget clutter" and saves some of your window's real estate for content.

More information about graphic options

• Button themes. Snow Leopard caches the system graphics more aggressively than Leopard did, so it's more difficult to replace the cached graphics with new ones. As a result, on Snow Leopard you will need to log out and log back in to fully switch button themes. This step isn't necessary on Leopard systems.

Interface Fluff

• Use window animations. This version of the software enables a fade animation when your windows open, and a zoom animation when they close. Window animations are enabled by default, but you can turn this feature off with this control. 
• Blur window backgrounds. This was a hard-wired default introduced in CCI 2.0, and now is included as an option you can enable or disable as needed. Why disable the blur? It turns out that the graphics function that supports the blur may strain some older systems with less memory. In addition, even the latest Macs can experience some flickering when system memory runs low, with the blur function running. Note that a change to this feature only takes effect once you close and reopen any windows already open.
• Window overlay options. An earlier version of CrystalClear Interface experimented with using a glossy (shiny) overlay for windows, but I removed it some time ago because the implementation was buggy. For CCI 2.5, however, the overlay idea is back and much better than before. You can use these options to set one of two different kinds of "shine," or elect to have no shine at all.

Additional information about fluff

• Window animations. If you find your apps feeling a little sluggish, especially when opening new windows or switching from one to another, try disabling window animations. This option requires a newer Mac with a good graphics card to work smoothly.
• Window overlays. By default, overlays are not applied to windows that contain documents for editing, since in such windows very little of the overlay would be visible.

Other Options

• Show CCI Global Menu in the menubar. By default, the global CCI menu icon appears in the main menu of all applications in which it's loaded. You can use this checkbox to move the CCI menu to the application's first submenu instead if you like.
• Show application icon in menubar. By default, CCI replaces the name of Cocoa applications with the application's icon in the system menubar. This control lets you toggle that display. Unfortunately, the control is disabled on Snow Leopard, since the technique for showing the icon no longer works.
• Make all toolbars customizable. Select this option if you want to be able to customize toolbars that normally aren't customizable. The most common type of window for which this is useful is an application's preferences panel. Normally, you can't change options for icon size, or for showing only icons or only text, etc., for such windows. But with this option turned on, you can!
• Restore Default CCI Options. The button at the bottom of this tab will reset all of CCI's settings to their factory defaults. This includes any application-specific preferences you may have saved. If you click this button, you'll see a message reminding you of this and letting you opt out if you change your mind.

Preferences

Over time, the CCI global menu has incorporated a lot of functionality that isn't available in the Preferences window. This section describes the most significant of these functions.

The top items in the menu provide access to the CCI Preferences window, which is key for customizing your experience with the software. In addition, the item titled "System Preference Pane" opens Apple's System Preferences application and loads the Pane for CrystalClear Interface.

• System Preference Pane. You can access the CCI System Preferences either through the CCI menu or by opening the System Preferences application. The pane has controls for turning CCI on and off globally, and for adding applications to a "disabled applications" list. You can browse to add applications or drag them from the Finder. If you find that CCI isn't compatible with a certain application (e.g., it fails to launch with CCI loaded), try dragging it to this list and relaunching it. The pane also has a control for checking on CCI updates, and a Help button that launches this document.

CCI Tools

The functions in this section of the menu have been reorganized and streamlined in CCI 2.5. In addition, a heading has been added to clarify their role.

• Minimize/Maximize CCI for...

  This item lets you “minimize” CCI for your current application. Instead of completely disabling CCI for the application, minimizing preserves some aspects of CCI’s theming, such as etched text, transformation of utility panels into HUD style, some coloring, and a gradient window style. It also preserves access to the CCI global menu and all of its functionality. However, it disables all of the functions available in the CCI Preferences panel. If you select the "Minimize CCI for..." option, CCI will need to relaunch your current application. When it restarts, the menu option will change to "Maximize CCI for...", which will reverse the process.Selecting this option requires CCI to relaunch your application.instead of setting the checkbox in the CCI Preferences panel. For an application that’s been minimized, the menu option will then change to let you “maximize” it.

  So, why would you want to minimize CCI for a given application? Typically, you would take this step if an application has become unstable while running with CCI inside. Quite often, minimizing CCI will reduce or eliminate any instability and is a useful step to take before deciding to disable CCI for the app.

• Disable CCI for...

  Selecting this function will relaunch your current application, after which it will run without loading CrystalClear Interface. You will no longer have access to the CCI global menu in this application, but you can use the CCI System Preferences pane to re-enable it if you wish. Using the global menu item to disable an application has the same effect as dragging it into the list of disabled applications in the pane's list, as described previously.

• Themes. New in CCI 2.5.5, you can now change from one of CCI's preset themes to another right from the global menu.
• "Frosted Crystals" Desktop Pictures. New in CCI 2.5.6, you can change your desktop picture to one of the "Frosted Crystals" that come with CrystalClear Interface. These desktops are designed to complement CCI's eight preset themes.
• Light Up Menubar. Introduced in CCI 2.5.5, this option improves readability of items in the Crystal Menubar when it's in transparent mode and superimposed against a dark desktop picture.
• Toggle your menu text between black and white. This feature was included in CCI 2.5.5 as part of the "Light Up Menubar" option, but in CCI 2.5.6 you can now invoke it separately as needed.
• Toggle your "menu extra" icons between black and white. Brand new in CCI 2.5.6, this function lets you switch to using white custom menu icons instead of the black defaults, as the need arises.The feature will install the icons, restart your menu extras, and refresh the Apple icons, all in one step! (You can also easily switch back, of course!) Included in CCI 2.5.6 are 14 icons for the major Apple "menu extras," as well as icons for 14 third-party applications:

Apple	Third-Party
AirPort Battery Bluetooth Displays Eject iChat Ink Spaces Spotlight Sync TimeMachine UniversalAccess User Volume	Autopilot Bowtie Chronosync CoverSutra DropCopy Evernote FastScripts GeekTool Growl Hazel iKey MagicPrefs OpenMenuX Squeeze

• Light Up Menubar. Also new in CCI 2.5.5, this option for Snow Leopard users "lights up" your desktop underneath the Crystal Menubar when it's in transparent mode, improving readability of the menu titles when using a dark desktop picture. The feature also turns the menu title text from black to white.
• Dark Desktop/Light Desktop. These options let you specify whether your current desktop is very dark or very light. Doing so can change the contrast colors for text in your interface, making your current theme compatible with your new desktop’s brightness.
• Other Tools. This submenu has two items that were listed separately in previous versions of CCI.
• Re-Crystalize Windows makes CCI go over the window's views again to try to catch changes to background color and other settings that it missed the first time around. (Note that most of the contrast colors are now set outside the CCI process itself, so this won't always fix a contrast problem.)
• Toggle Crystal Menubar turns the Crystal Menubar on or off depending on its current state. The Menubar is launched by default when you log in, as it's needed to support Single Application Mode (SAM). So if you toggle the Menubar off, you'll also disable SAM.

Additional information about the CCI Tools

• Minimizing CCI. You can also minimize and de-minimize CCI for an application by using the checkbox at the top of its Preferences window.
• Dark Desktop/Light Desktop. If you use this feature, you should check its setting whenever you find the text contrast color misbehaving in a window. You may have left the setting on but now need to turn it off, or you may need to toggle between a Dark to a Light desktop (or vice versa)
• Switching Menu Text Color. When you toggle the color of menu text from black to white (and vice versa), the change is only visible once an application has been restarted. You will need to relaunch all your apps to put this change into effect.
• Transparent Crystal Menubar. When you deselect "Translucent menu bar" in System Preferences (Desktop) and are using the CCI "Glossy" button theme, the Crystal Menubar will take on full transparency. However, note that while changing the state of the "Translucent menu bar" option from off to on will have an instant visual effect, changing from on to off will only turn the Crystal Menubar transparent after you log out and in again.

Text Tools

I added these tools to CCI out of frustration that many of the fine apps I use for formatting text leave out one or more of the various text format panels that are part of Apple’s Cocoa frameworks. Sometimes you can’t find a Color panel, sometimes the Font panel is hidden, and outside of RTF editors like TextEdit, Bean, and DevonThink Pro, you hardly ever have easy access to the Table panel. And if you want to make a list or use your defined text styles, you can toggle the formatting Ruler on and off as well.

Besides those, there’s one incredibly useful text panel that I’ve never seen implemented in any Mac OS X application: The Font Options Panel. Once you get your hands on this, you’ll want it at the ready, as I do. (Apple has built many of its features into the Font panel you can find in iMovie.)

In CCI 2.5, the Text Tools section has been significantly expanded.

• Show Fonts
• Show Colors
• Font Options

• Styles. A lot of editing apps provide a style menu by default, but it doesn't always have the same set of tools I like at my disposal. In particular, these are usually missing:
  • Strikethrough
  • Spacing
  • Copy Style
  • Paste Style
  
• Formats. A "Formats" menu is also built in to Mac OS X's text system, but it appears less frequently even than the Styles menu. In particular, I can't do without these now that I always have 'em at my fingertips:
• Add Link
• Table
• List
• Toggle Ruler
• Copy/Paste Ruler

Additional information about the Text Tools

• Contextual Menu. Having the text tools available in the global menu simply wasn't enough to satisfy my ravenous writing appetite! So in CCI 2.5, you'll find a contextual menu available wherever you can write and edit rich text. The menu, labeled "Format," has the same set of tools as the Format menu in the CCI Menu's Text Tools section.

Help

The Help section of the CCI global menu has also been expanded and reorganized. Besides finding a link to this documentation in the menu, you'll now find the following items of particular interest:

• Uninstall CCI.

  Rather than having to find and launch a separate program to uninstall CrystalClear Interface, you can now do so simply by selecting this menu item. Of course, the Uninstall panel does give you an out if you change your mind. :-)

• Contact.

  This item provides a quick and easy way to send me feedback about CrystalClear Interface.

• Check for Updates. Rather than having to make a trip to the CCI website or to the CCI System Preferences, you can now just select this item to see if a new version has been released. CCI also now incorporates Sparkle, which will automatically notify you when a new release of CCI is available.

Tips and Gotchas

Window Frame Styles

When choosing a window frame, notice that some of them look better with a more transparent color (e.g., Smooth, Glass), while others (e.g., Deep Bevel) look best with less transparency.

Coordinated Colors

If you change your window themes, or your window colors, and find that your tables, outline views, boxes, and other interface elements are no longer coordinated with your window colors, try selecting CCI Tools > Other Tools > Re-Crystalize Windows from the CCI global menu.

Text Color Contrast

If you find that text on window elements no longer sets its color to the correct contrast (either black, or white), check your setting for "Desktop Brightness." You may have earlier selected "Dark Desktop" or "Light Desktop" from the CCI global menu, but now need to change that setting.

Drag and Drop

When the option that makes windows draggable is enabled, you may encounter a window that drags when you don't want it to. These are windows that have images or other items that you'll need to drag about, and you don't want such dragging to affect the whole window rather than the objects in question. CCI prevents most such conflicts, but you may still encounter problem windows. If you do, try holding the Control key while dragging. This usually lets you work around the problem. If that doesn't work, consider turning off the "draggable windows" option in CCI's Extras preferences tab.

Applications CCI Doesn't Theme

If CCI isn't loading into one of your applications, there are three possible reasons (that I know of):

• Carbon Apps. CCI will not run in Mac OS X applications built with Apple's older “Carbon” frameworks.It runs only in applications developed using the “Cocoa” frameworks introduced in 2000 as part of Mac OS X. Most of the applications Apple builds today are Cocoa apps, with the notable exceptions of iTunes, DVD Player, and (prior to Snow Leopard) Finder. Nearly all new Mac apps built today use the Cocoa frameworks, but a number of long-running, high-profile apps are still built with Carbon. In this latter category are all apps from Microsoft, Adobe and Intuit, as well as some older apps from Mac vendors that are now building with Cocoa, such as BBEdit (BareBones) and Snapz Pro X (Ambrosia). Another high-profile example is Firefox and related applications such as Thunderbird, Flock, and Nvu. (However, the Firefox-Gecko-based web browser Camino uses the Cocoa frameworks.)
• 64-Bit "Agent" Apps. Huh? OK, I know this category's heading may be meaningless to you. Sorry about that! Here's the problem in plain English... On Snow Leopard, nearly all standard Mac OS X applications are built to utilize the operating system's support for larger (64-bit) memory structures. CCI loads fine into these "64-Bit" apps, with one exception. If you're running a 64-bit application in "Agent' mode—that is, without a menubar or Dock icon—it will not load CCI 2.5.
  Solution? Open Finder, find the application you're running in "Agent" mode, type ⌘-I, and click the "Open in 32-bit Mode" checkbox.
• Excluded or Disabled Apps. These are applications that you've added to your list of apps for which CCI should be disabled, or those that are in CCI's list of "Excluded" apps. The "Excluded" list is set up to keep CCI from loading into apps that either don't benefit from its theming prowess, or are known to be fully incompatible with CCI. AMore about the "Excluded" list is included in the "Technical Notes" document that's part of the CCI download package.

Known Bugs

There are a number of known bugs in this version of CrystalClear Interface. Some affect only Snow Leopard, some only Leopard, and some both. A full set of known bugs is now available on this website. Here are the more noticeable bugs, and possible workarounds. All these will hopefully be resolved in a future update:

• Snow Leopard
• Expose does not work correctly in CCI's default configuration. Most windows show up with only their bounding rectangles and titles showing. The workaround is to disable window blurring. Open CCI Preferences, select Extras tab, then Fluff tab, and deselect the second checkbox on that screen. You'll need to restart any open apps to see the change. Spaces is affected by the same bug.
• Single Application Mode. Some windows of Carbon applications do not hide as they should (and as they do on Leopard) when SAM is active. Examples from my experience included Yummy FTP and MaxBulk Mailer.
• Finder unexpectedly restarts when you eject a disk image. The workaround for this is to select another item in the sidebar after ejecting the disk image, and before Finder completes the eject operation.
• Leopard
• Services Menu does not display in CCI's default configuration. The workaround is to deselect the CCI option that replaces the application's name with its icon in the menubar. Open CCI Preferences, select Extras tab, then Other tab, and deselect the second checkbox on that screen. You'll need to restart any open apps to see the change.

Application Incompatibilities

CCI now maintains a list of applications known to be incompatible when it is running normally. The first time you open such an application, you'll see a warning that gives you the option to either "minimize" CCI or to disable it entirely. The notice will also explain the difficulty and provide a suggestion about whether to disable CCI or to minimize it. You can also disable or minimize CCI from its global menu. (If you know of an application that is incompatible with CrystalClear Interface, please drop me an email letting me know, so I can either try to fix the problem or add the app to the list.)

Incompatibilities on Snow Leopard:

• VoodooPad (suggestion: Minimize)
• Sandvox (suggestion: Minimize)
• Coda (suggestion: Disable)
• XTorrent (suggestion: Minimize)
• iFreeMem 2 (suggestion: Disable)

Credits & Tech Notes

Those interested in more technical information about CrystalClear Interface—including details about its components and changes made during installation—refer to the "Technical Notes" document that's included in the CCI download package.

The development of CrystalClear Interface has benefited from the work of many fine Cocoa software developers who have been generous enough to make their work available as open source for others to use and learn by. The following is a list all of the developers CCI is most deeply indebted to (many of whom would probably prefer not to have their work associated with it!). :-) In some cases, these developers' code were mainly inspirational, while in other cases I shamelessly lifted their work and plopped it into CCI. The list is not in any particular order.