Amadeus is a colour scheme created as a plug-in for the popular Kaleidoscope MacOS human interface munger by Greg Landweber and company. Amadeus replaces and rejuvenates your Mac’s interface.
If you don’t have the Kaleidoscope control panel installed, download the Kaleidoscope package from your local info-mac mirror or via The Kaleidoscope Way web page mentioned above. Once you have Kaleidoscope installed, drop an Amadeus colour scheme file into the Kaleidoscope Color Schemes folder in the Extensions folder of your System folder, open the Kaleidoscope control panel, and select the Amadeus scheme.
A note on versions
Amadeus 1.0.9 is the final release of Amadeus for Kaleidoscope 1.0.1, and is still available for Kaleidoscope 1.0.1 users. Kaleidoscope 1.5.x uses a different internal file format, requiring this completely redone Amadeus for Kaleidoscope 1.5.
Migrating Amadeus to a 1.5-compatible version yourself by using the ‘Scheme Updater’ application supplied with the Kaleidoscope 1.5 distribution is not recommended due to the resulting unpredictable behaviour, and you may have found the results unsatisfactory. I am not responsible for the behaviour of any such ‘user upgraded’ file, and I’ve had to spend seemingly forever creating a useable Amadeus for Kaleidoscope 1.5 for you instead.
I suggest trashing both the Scheme Updater and the Classic Schemes pack (Eclipse et al), which were created by using the Scheme Converter.
Distribution and legal information
Modification of the contents of the Amadeus for Kaleidoscope package for redistribution is prohibited. Modification of the colour scheme for redistribution is prohibited without my express permission. Make your own colour scheme and name it yourself.
Amadeus for Kaleidoscope 1.0.1 is freeware. However, Amadeus for Kaleidoscope 1.5 is shareware and there is a small $3 registration fee; please support shareware by registering your copy. Please see the ‘Registering Amadeus’ textfile for further information.
Design rationale
Amadeus is a classical interpretation of the planned Apple human interface of the future, similar to the well-known Aaron and Apple Grayscale window schemes. Amadeus draws more from classic System graphic design and common sense than these schemes do.
Where other schemes are blatantly three-dimensional with twee highlights merely for the sake of it, Amadeus attempts to remember the user and to provide a clearer interface. Amadeus aims to allow the user to spend less time thinking ‘Wow, drawing that pointless and ugly highlight must have taken ages – why is it there? What does it mean? Why am I thinking about this?’ and more time simply using a clear interface.
Amadeus also pays more attention to the needs of users of display modes showing less than 256 colours than many other colours schemes do. This attention can be discerned in 256 colours if you use applications whose own palettes differ considerably from the standard Apple system palette.
Design features
• Full support for screen depths of 16 colours and less.
(This is often overlooked or handled badly in other color schemes.)
• Scrollbar arrows that can really be pushed for increased feedback. They move!
• Buttons that stand out from the backdrop so you can see them!
• Truly dimmed elements you don’t try to select. They fade away!
• No confusing highlights when you’re pushing.
• To folder icon or not to folder icon? The choice is yours.
(If you wish to use the folders, please restart after selecting Amadeus ƒ+ to avoid any odd cosmetic effects)
• Clearly-named resources - useful for scheme designers.
• Engraved window dragging zones, or ‘racing stripes’.
(The ‘engraving the racing stripes’ innovation in the original Amadeus has started something of a fashion, and other good colour schemes – notably TealEaves and Copperplate – have adopted this to good effect and chosen the same side in the ongoing secret war of Innies vs Outies.)
Suggested use
Here’s how I use Amadeus. If you like my taste in colour schemes enough to use Amadeus, you might be interested in the details of exactly how I intended my Mac desktop to look. If not, skip this section.
I prefer Apple’s Windowshade control panel to the Aaron windowshade widget, which always hangs off the right side of the screen whenever I need it most and gets confused with the window resize box. I suggest turning off this widget by ResEditing the WPrf resource in Kaleidoscope, and lobbying Apple to support true double-click Windowshading in future system software. I don’t recommend turning on active scrolling with the SPrf resource, since you will soon discover that no Mac is fast enough to make active scrolling truly seamlessly possible in popular up-to-date bloatware such as Netscape and Word.
I do recommend installing SideFX, by Sylvain Demongeot. SideFX allows you resize your windows from the edges that Kaleidoscope makes movable, via your choice of click-modifier keys. It’s incredibly useful, and is available from /info-mac/gui/ on your local info-mac mirror, just as Kaleidoscope itself used to be before they created /info-mac/gui/ks/.
Espi Sans Bold 10, included with Kaleidoscope 1.5, is my system font of choice, with Geneva 9 for Finder views. The Truth may very well be out there, but I’m not having Apple’s Truth font on my screen.
I use Amadeus ƒ+, with additional folder icons, to give the familiar folder icons I’ve used for the past five years. I’d rather have those than think about replacing a disk full of custom icons based on the flat shape, and the bigger the clickable area the better. Familiarity breeds contentment.
A note on naming
Amadeus is named for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the dead famous 18th-century Austrian composer responsible for the chart-topping ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, ‘Don Giovanni’, ‘The Magic Flute’, and a host of earlier, less polished, works. These works would not have been possible without the tutoring and encouragement of Wolfie’s forebear, Leo, who was renowned as a teacher, as an authority on the tools of the trade, particularly the violin, and as a composer in his own right.
A note on culpability
I blame Greg Landweber first, but Leo Breebaart foremost.
I’d also like to thank the denizens of the scheme designers’ mailing list, whose discussions made reinventing Amadeus considerably easier than it would otherwise have been.
This reworking of Amadeus would not have happened at all without the feedback I received from satisfied Amadeus users around the world. Speaking of which...
Feedback
Unlike the designs of Aaron or Apple Grayscale, the design of Amadeus is not dictated by Apple. Your comments and suggested modifications are welcome.
Known issues
With Kaleidoscope 1.5, the ghost thumb can obscure the edge of the scrollbar arrows and leave a line. This bug is fixed in Kaleidoscope 1.5.1, which is so much faster, too. I suggest using Kaleidoscope 1.5.1 or later – or 1.0.1.
