Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope is the ultimate in user interface customization for the Macintosh, letting you switch between completely different interface designs provided by plug-in modules called Schemes. Top 5 DL's are for version 2.3.1, the final (language specific) release.
[Items 1 - 5]: Full installer, Kaleidoscope version 2.3.1, Language; English (Kaleidoscope231US.bin), German (Kaleidoscope231DE.bin), French (Kaleidoscope231FR.bin), Italian (Kaleidoscope231IT.bin) & Japanese (Kaleidoscope231JP.bin)
[Items 6 - 11]: Earlier Releases, English language only: Versions 1.0.1 (Kaleidoscope101US.sit), 1.6 (Kaleidoscope16US.sit), 1.7.1 (Kaleidoscope171US.sit), 1.8.2 (Kaleidoscope182US.sit), 2.0.1 (Kaleidoscope201US.sit) and 2.2.2 (Kaleidoscope222US.sit)
[Items 12 - 13]: All 4,010 schemes in one zip file ("kaleidoscope_schemes.zip", 650 MB),
"kaleidoscope_banned.zip": Apple issued takedowns against any scheme that tried to replicate OS X's "Aqua" look, a selling point of its then-new OS
The official site closed circa January 2015, but its vast scheme collection can still be browsed on the Wayback Machine. In the complete alphabetical listing, click on an author's name to preview all of their designs. Approximately 3,700 of the 4,010 schemes can be downloaded from this archived version of the site.
As for the rest, here's a download of all 4,010 schemes in one zip file:
But wait, there's more! Apple issued takedowns against any scheme that tried to replicate OS X's "Aqua" look, a selling point of its then-new OS. This next download compiles 32 of the "banned" schemes:
CompatibilityArchitecture: 68k PPC
Comments
@cbone
Indeed, technically Kaleidoscope isn't the only extension to slow things down. Every little thing will count towards it.
What surprised me about it, however, is that no matter how much I bloat my OS 9 install (which I do, and a lot), nothing ever slowed it down in any perceptible degree, be it for gaming or otherwise, until I came across Kaleidoscope. That must probably be because the configuration I'm running the system on is no humble machine (for Mac OS standards, anyway): a 1.5GHz Mac mini G4. But even that configuration has been slowed down with Kaleidoscope (although it only posed a problem for gaming). I find that quite impressive.
Very true, Jatoba.
I use an extension manager like extension overload or the system's extension manager to switch to a minimal 'game set' of extensions to boot into to play trouble-free on my real-world and emulated Macs, but this has been true of many Mac extensions, not only Kal
Just a little side note, it seems Kaleidoscope eats away part of the system's overall speed, but this was only noticeable when playing certain games, like Prince of Persia. Playing other games like Puyo Puyo 2 seemed to work just fine. Maybe it's the presence or use of the "toolbar" at the top of the screen, which is skinnable via Kaleidoscope, that lowers the speed or framerate, or causes slowdowns. Disabling Kaleidoscope's Control Panel and Extension made things butter-smooth again.
tl;dr People should think twice before enabling Kaleidoscope if they plan to game on the Mac!
One other thing to note is the "delft.sit" file among the 4010 regular schemes. It stops decompressing things early on with StuffIt 7.0.3 by throwing an error, while StuffIt 5.5.1, 6 and StuffIt Deluxe 4.0.1 decompress all the files, but throw a different, more specific error saying "Delft blue Scheme" (one of the archive's files) couldn't have the integrity of its resource fork verified.
What that means I don't know, nor if the scheme can still be used normally, but I made sure to confirm that it wasn't the fault of whoever uploaded the .zip pack: this issue arises even with the archive.org version of the file. (They also share the exact same checksum.)
Edit: I checked the rest of the 4010 schemes archive, and found a few more that behaved exactly the same way as "delft.sit":
- hauntedhouse.sit
- hypersleekprojade.sit (message mentions the data fork instead of the resource fork)
- icestationzebra.sit
- iosxgold.sit
- lhasa.sit
Hopefully these 6 schemes still work 100% fine and that the warning/error message is nothing to worry about? (Unlike the "banned" one that is indeed truly broken.)
All the rest of the archive is 100% flawless, as far as I could tell. In the end, the 4010 SITs produce 4021 folders (which I recommend segregating into subfolders from A to Z, with an extra one for number and special characters, to make Finder operation smoother). The 32 "banned" SITs produce 32 folders (assuming the broken "klassikacid.sit" also is meant to produce just 1 folder).
But anyway, moral of the story for anyone trying to unarchive this monster archive under Mac OS (instead of OS X), don't use StuffIt 7.0.3 if you wanna have a go at those 6 schemes: use StuffIt 5.5.1 or something instead. Unarchiving it all under Mac OS X may or may not be easier.
The file "klassikacid.sit" among the "banned kaleidoscope schemes" pack is completely corrupted.
Is there any alternate source to the banned schemes pack or that specific .sit file that we can track and retry?
@scott Praed
Worked for me on 2.3.1!
I found this on serial 9-2018.
Tried this serial
Kaleidoscope 1.x to 1.1.1
AC10-M345K-VW98C-359
Is there any way to register this now, or is it completely dead? The registration notice is haunting me on my vintage build D:
These guys did a Yosemite scheme for Kaleidoscope 2. Start bugging them to release it!
http://simplebeep.com/podcast/e3-kaleidoscope-scheming
For anyone interested, use AC10-M345K-VW98C-359 to register.
"Another way to change your Mac's face is by using Themes. There were a lot of themes on the Internet , some of the best are aqua theme, and Liquid theme."
I use Liquid Metal on my Pismo and it rocks. Not to mention, Themes are a lot less resource-intensive...
Another way to change your Mac's face is by using Themes. There were a lot of themes on the Internet , some of the best are aqua theme, and Liquid theme.
"A complete list of scheme files dowloadable from the official site can be found here:
http://kaleidoscope.net/schemes/schemes/"
This link is working,but I did not found it on kaleidoscope site.
THANKS
A complete list of scheme files dowloadable from the official site can be found here:
http://kaleidoscope.net/schemes/schemes/
You can still view descriptions and sample images by going to http://kaleidoscope.net/schemes/ and selecting the appropriate links, but any download links you find using this second link will NOT work.
I will try build a backup of the files in case the link goes offline. It's 4,011 files long!
"For the truly lazy (and to avoid an insane number of links in this post):
http://www.google.com/search?q=Kaleidoscope+(themes|schemes)"
Of course i checked this method too,but would be to simple to found what I need
Im looking only Windows scheme.If have some one information where I can download this scheme please put here link.
Thx for reply. I checked Your method but they are not works for me.
Scheme archive on www.kaleidoscope.net is not working any more.
regards
eastone
Firstly, try http://www.kaleidoscope.net/schemes/ (still up as of 2009.06.12 17:38 GMT-4)
Several other sites which gather these files are still up as of this date, as well. Apple apparently created a tool for converting Kaleidoscope schemes into Appearance Manager themes, but I'm not sure if it was ever released to the public.
For the truly lazy (and to avoid an insane number of links in this post):
http://www.google.com/search?q=Kaleidoscope+(themes|schemes)
Where I can get schemes in 2009?