For those who know and love J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the name "Mirkwood" evokes a range of emotions, from creepy to really creepy. In this dark, enchanted forest of Middle Earth, where malevolent spiders and suspicious wood elves dwell, there is a palpable atmosphere of evil, sickness and fear. It was these qualities that inspired me as I created my first color scheme for Kaleidoscope, evil, sick and fearful person that I am. Eighteen schemes later, Mirkwood remains one of my favorites, so naturally, it was among the first I chose to update for the latest (as of February, 1998) MacOs: 8.1. There are many changes beyond the addition of bevel buttons and popup windows in this new version, from ppats on the menubar to subtle color tweeks throughout the interface. I hope you approve; let me know if you don't -- or if you do, for that matter...
Anyway, thanks for giving Mirkwood 1.8 a try. As you no doubt know, it has been produced for Gregory D. Landweber's Kaleidoscope control panel, and has been optimized for use with MacOS8. If you don't have Kaleidoscope, it can be downloaded from Greg's website at http://www. kaleidoscope.net. You can find the rest of my color schemes, and, as a special bonus, a link to The Woodcarver's Gallery, where I have put up a small collection of the wood carvings I have produced over the years, at my website (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/ Gallery/5960), along with links to some of my favorite scheme designers and to a small collection of important Kaleidoscope-related files. You can find almost every color scheme ever made, including all of mine, except those most recently released, at The Kaleidoscope Scheme Archive (Eric Reid, Webmaster, http://www.kaleidoscope. net/schemes.)
The Mirkwood 1.8 package includes the color scheme, a desktop pattern and, unless you chose the version made especially for elves, who are known for travelling light, a set of custom icons. After installing Kaleidoscope in your Control Panels folder, simply drop Mirkwood in the Kaleidoscope Color Schemes folder which goes in your Extensions folder. Then open the Kaleidoscope control panel and select Mirkwood. To install the desktop patterns: OS7.x users, open your Desktop Patterns control panel and drop the patterns on the open Desktop Patterns window and select the one you want; OS8 users, open the Desktop Pictures control panel, choose "Patterns", and drag the new patterns onto the Patterns window and release (if you've been using a "Desktop Picture", you must first press "Remove Picture", then press "Patterns"). Now choose your new desktop pattern and close the panel. The new icons will magically appear when you restart your Mac.
Though it should be functional at all color depths, please note that Mirkwood 1.8 will look best on computers capable of displaying 1000s of colors or more.
Mirkwood 1.8 is e-mailware; please let me know what you think of it . As a dedicated Mac-type, I am committed to the pursuit of quality in all things, so let me know what you think -- I can't improve if I don't know what I'm doing wrong!
The Small Print: All artwork in this color scheme is copyrighted. Please do not use it for any purpose, without my prior approval. It may be freely distributed as long as it is not altered and this docu mentation accompanies it.
