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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 Coming in . . .

CCI 2.5 is a major release with many new features, including a full implementation for Snow Leopard!

Cozy 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!
New "Glossy" Button Theme. Especially for Snow Leopard, we've designed an entire new theme you can swap out for the standard Aqua buttons.
Crystal Docs Icons. You can install (and uninstall) these icons right from the CCI Preferences Panel. They cover most standard types of OS X documents, as well as a starter set of icons for third-party apps.
More Menu Enhancements.
- Check for updates from the global menu.
- Access the global menu with a right-click on any titlebar.
- Access even more text tools from the redesigned global menu.
Robust toggling between button themes. You can now fully switch between Aqua and the CCI button styles.

. . . CrystalClear Interface 2.5?

Eight New Preset Themes. These beautiful new themes are are designed to complement the set of eight "Frosted Crystal" desktop pictures introduced with CCI 2.2.
Cool New Preference Options. Do things with your Mac's windows you just couldn't do before, like:

Make (almost) all windows resizable.

Make all toolbars customizable. Ever wanted to rearrange, make smaller, or eliminate text on standard Preference window toolbars? Now you can!

New Interface Fluff. We've revived the overlay "shine" option of CCI 1.9 and fed it some serious steroids. Now available in two beautiful flavors!
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.
More Stable and Robust. Lots of bug fixes left from the previous release, plus requested features like being able to swap CCI's graphics out for Aqua entirely (including scrollbars and "traffic light" buttons).

CrystalClear Interface 2.2

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.

CCI 2.2 will be the last free release of CrystalClear Interface. CCI 2.5 will be released soon, at a price of $12.00. Users who make a donation of at least $6.00 for the current version prior to release will receive a free license for CCI 2.5. Watch this site for release information updates.

CCI 2.2

Last update: Version 2.2.1.1. (09/09/09)

CrystalClear Interface 2.2 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 @ 2008-10, Leland Scott, Musings from Mars

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