Argent is a silver color scheme for Greg Landweber's interface-altering control panel Kaleidoscope version 1.5 and up. Assuming you already have Kaleidoscope installed on your Macintosh, simply place Argent in the "Kaleidoscope Color Schemes" folder in your Extensions folder, open the Kaleidoscope control panel, and select Argent.
My specific goal in designing Argent was to create a grayscale color scheme for people who don't necessarily like grayscale color schemes. (Catchy slogan, huh?) There are already a variety of color-neutral schemes available for Kaleidoscope, including the likes of Ice, Amadeus, and of course the venerable Apple Grayscale itself. These all have their place, but Argent is intended to be a more decorative and diverting use of the gray pallette values. The animated widgets (which demonstrate their function) and scrollbar action are derived from my earlier smash success Croesus, rendered in a silver finish in response to at least three separate requests. Like all my color schemes, inactive windows in Argent do not flatten. This is not an oversight on my part; I just feel that flattened windows spoil the 3-D illusion. Instead, I've tried to use some subtle variations in shading to cue the eye as to which window is foremost. I've tried to make Argent completely functional in 16 colors (and 16 grays, obviously) and in black and white.
Argent was partly inspired by and is dedicated to Jacob Kurtzberg, whose life and work remains an inspiration to a lot of people. In fact, this scheme was originally going to be called "Herald" in honor of his well-known creation the Silver Surfer -- the herald of Galactus, from the Fantastic Four comic book series -- but the name "Argent" has the advantage of saying what the color scheme looks like.
If you hate this color scheme and want someone to complain to, or if you want to say something nice about it and brighten my day, direct your comments and criticisms to Richard Bensam at rabensam@earthlink.net, or visit my Kaleidoscopic Creations web page concealed somewhere at http://home.earthlink.net/~rabensam/ and see the other color schemes I have released, as well as other stuff I do to waste my time.
