Digital Ramen Tutorial

ThemePark Tutorial Introduction So you want to make a theme. You've heard the rumors - it will be long, difficult, and probably dangerous. You're told that many who enter the dark cave of ThemePark are never seen again, and those that do are never quite the same again. Well, the rumors are wrong. Making a theme is not hard. A complete theme is time consuming, and designing a cohesive and usable interface requires some forethought, but using the tools is actually rather simple. This being a tutorial on ThemePark, and not the theme creation process as a whole, I'm going to assume that you already have a design. These pages will tell you how to get that design into ThemePark, how to test to make sure things are showing up as they should, and in general how to use your tools in a fast, efficient manner. Speaking of fast, let's get past this introduction business and dive into the meat of the subject. Tutorial last updated on July 5, 2004. ThemePark v1.3. copyright 2004 Harlan Lewis, used with permission Chapter 1 - The Preparation Part 1 - useful applications First things first. Download ThemePark. It can be used for free indefinitely, but to get rid of the registration nag it costs $20. ThemePark is designed for tight integration with Photoshop. You don't need the latest professional version to take advantage of this, Photoshop Elements or Photoshop 7 with the Scripting Plug-In will do. Of course you don't need any version of Photoshop at all, but you'll find the process more time consuming without it. There are a few other free programs you might want to have around. guiKitty can export elements of a guiKit, and Manifest Destiny let's you quickly browse through a guiKit to see what elements have been modified. Part 2 - creating a mockup I said earlier that I assume you already have a design. Well, just in case you don't, feel free to use the mockup templates found at the end of this section. They're just screenshots of major interface elements, but I find that creating your own mockup in Photoshop layers, and keeping these screenshots untouched for reference, works very well. Most of Apple's interface does not get along very well with resized elements, so try to keep your design to roughly the same dimensions. The more you experiment the more you'll discover that some boundaries can be pushed, but I'm not going to get into that right now. Last tip - while creating a mockup in Photoshop, it's a good idea to keep different layers separate within a button. You're going to be making hundreds of graphics to be used in your theme, and having some defined layer styles and graphics to work with will help speed things along. download the mockup templates from MacThemes download Max's mockup templates Chapter 2 - Where to Begin Part 1 - formats ThemePark allows you to create themes in one of 4 different formats: guiKit, DLTA, XScheme, or Resource-Based DLTA. The vast majority of you will want to create guiKits, but here's the breakdown. guiKit aka "For Shap…