BBX Mercury X - April 18, 2004
Author: Max Rudberg
Version: 1.3
Reviewed by: Phillip Ryu
User Rating: 
63%
Max's BBX: Mercury X is a "remix" of Bill Bart's original BBX Mercury for Kaleidoscope. And the difference between a "remix" and a "port" is pretty huge. Max's own version of the classic skin brings all the best elements to OS X, with perhaps even more polish, thanks to nifty OS X innovations such as drop shadows and animated buttons.
Aesthetics
By any standard, BBX: Mercury X is a beautiful theme. Mercury is basically a mesh between highly reflective silver and black plastics and metals, and while this may sound generic, the effect is unlike that of any other theme. This is due to Max's enormous talent at making elements that should be uninteresting, interesting.
For an example, the buttons throughout Mercury are beyond imagination. While a simple, sharp, reflective silver button is easy to imagine, Max's go beyond whatever you could think of. Buttons have a very smooth, and realistic metal feel to them. They are not sharp and cartoony, as to be expected; instead, the push buttons pulse so smoothly, and with such a pleasant pulse, that it is hard for me to pull myself away from them to write this review. Why are Mercury's push button animations such a cool experience? It's hard to say, but they are clearly not a fluke. Max also revives the translucent black menus seen today in so many themes. Instead of the standard, spare black menu that cuts out from these other themes, Max's have elegant and subtle light stripes running down each side, making the menus that much more interesting.
One minor gripe? I was personally a bit disorientated by the theme's unique window widget symbols. Instead of the standard x/-/+, Mercury presented itself with a square, down arrow, and cross. Luckily, Max came through once more. Standard symbols are selectable in the Appearance settings of Apple's System Preferences. Now, I can satisfy myself with standard symbols engraved on the metal.
Usability
While you'd think a shiny, metallic and plastic theme would be hard on the eyes, Mercury is not. I suspect this to be partly due to the mix of hard, reflective elements (the titlebar, menu, progress bars, and scrollbar) with much softer, smoother elements (buttons, popups, tabs). Also, here is a minor issue involving Cocoa metal windows, minus Safari. (In other words, iChat.) The reflection in the titlebar unfortunately obscures the text somewhat, though luckily, it leaves the text still totally readable. Hopefully Jason Harris will be able to fix this minor bug for a future ShapeShifter release. Nevertheless, the final result is undeniably usable. (Even Microsoft Office works in Mercury!) Just be careful about active push buttons. They tend to kill productivity pretty efficiently.
Extras
Being a Max Rudberg production, BBX: Mercury is, of course, filled with goodies. There are application skins for Safari, iChat, Addressbook, Calculator, and even an amazing one for iTunes. The iTunes skin has to be seen to be believed. Somehow, Max managed to work around the limitations, and produce a shockingly complete iTunes skin that matches Mercury almost perfectly. (Only the slight lavender tint is missing).
Also included in the package are several desktops and tile ready images by the the notorious Bill Bart. Several work very well with the theme: I especially love the Ship Plate tiles. However, quite frankly, many of these desktops are dated, and I hope Max or Bill considers adding a few more in the future. (They were designed for the original Kaleidoscope scheme many years ago.) Mikkel Madsen's icons are also linked to from the theme package, and these are pretty amazing. Include the nifty extras such as the metallically modded Finder labels, and you get one heck of a package. This is truly a classic.
Comments
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at April 19, 2004 06:33 AM | Edit | Delete
You may notice the lack of an "extras" category. We decided that ShapeShifter's inclusion of application skins, thus striking out their classification as an "extra", made the category less important than it already was. From now on, we will take extras into consideration in the Reviewer's Weight score.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at April 19, 2004 07:13 AM | Edit | Delete
wow, this theme did very well. i recognize that it is probably a good theme, but i've never been able to get into it myself.
Posted by Chris McElligott at April 19, 2004 07:55 AM | Edit | Delete
It looks amazing, this is a great theme. People are going to be in for a surprise :)
Posted by TheIceMan at April 19, 2004 08:07 AM | Edit | Delete
OhMyGOD! the iTunes skin is SWEET!
Posted by Heiesuke at April 19, 2004 09:35 AM | Edit | Delete
The link for it links to Ipulse, I also searched Maxs site and only found the 1.2.2 version of it, I'd love to test it out.
Posted by ZachRL at April 19, 2004 11:03 AM | Edit | Delete
A personal favorite. Makes all my PC using friends jealous. Looks slick and professional, for that reason, this is the theme on Jag that I switched to when I went to meetings. Excellent work.
Posted by Frisbee at April 19, 2004 11:29 AM | Edit | Delete
Is there an option for the old square push buttons? the new ones seem inconsistent...
Posted by Edward Husted at April 19, 2004 11:44 AM | Edit | Delete
Looks great, When I hit download I get iPulse. Wish I can Try it Out.
Posted by Hatake at April 19, 2004 11:48 AM | Edit | Delete
Any word on the long-awaited BBX Omega?
Posted by Caesar2099 at April 19, 2004 11:55 AM | Edit | Delete
Yeah I want the old square buttons again...
Posted by Ian at April 19, 2004 01:11 PM | Edit | Delete
"However, quite frankly, many of these desktops are dated"
old school rocks! :) Velocity engine was really nifty.
I trully miss the old days of skinning. The new controls and such what I've seen look stunning!
Don't know what it was I found facinating about BBX Mercury/X either glossy parts or the Airfix grey effect it has through out the whole theme with the neat shiny black rubber parts, quite facinating.
Posted by Edward Husted at April 19, 2004 01:46 PM | Edit | Delete
I got it to download I had to use Explorer for some reason Safari kept d/l ipulse anyone else have that problem??
Posted by Poopy at April 19, 2004 02:32 PM | Edit | Delete
Hatake, BBX Omega is vaporware. It will never see the light of day, much like most of that guy's themes (not talking about Max).
Posted by sb at April 19, 2004 04:44 PM | Edit | Delete
Go here if you have the stomach to read through 24 pages of speculation, flames, and BS!
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=feb4ff330359a8a1efd1f9f43450d5ec&threadid=178485&perpage=50&pagenumber=24
SB
Posted by brian at April 19, 2004 05:28 PM | Edit | Delete
people are still talking about Omega? who cares...wasn't that around two years ago? face it, you'll never see it, or when you do, it won't be anything special.
Posted by Gramage at April 19, 2004 06:46 PM | Edit | Delete
Superb. The iTunes skin is unbelievable. TiSkin, you served me well...
Ever thought of making a purely grey version Max? Like the iTunes skin?
As for BBX Omega, you people need to lighten up. BB goes and releases a teaser, just to let folks know that he's working on something, and then, through no fault of his own, people blow it out of proportion and it goes nuts. He's being majorly hated on for being lazy and slow, and all we know of the work he's doing is the teasers! He wants to wait untill he can release the theme as perfect as possible, and for that, he needs to wait for shapeshifter to be updated to meet his requirements.
If it weren't for billy bart, we wouldn't have the beautiful BBX Mercury X today, max's (brilliant) adaptation of one of BBs old K-Schemes.
Cut the guy some slack. He's an amazing designer, and I have no doubt that when BBX Omega is released, it will be awesome. Whether or not you'll like it is up to you, but don't judge it before you've used it.
Posted by Ernest Liu at April 20, 2004 02:51 AM | Edit | Delete
Thank goodness he made it for Jaguar! The only complaint I have is the steel window... it seems kind of plain. Great work!
Posted by Heiesuke at April 20, 2004 04:33 AM | Edit | Delete
Wow the link was fixed an I was able to DL it, it's awesome 5 stars IMO. Love it. I'm gonna put up a Desktop theme section in my galleries on my site, maybe interesting for some of u themers to see other pros using ur themes.
Posted by Jason Williams at April 23, 2004 10:46 PM | Edit | Delete
BBX Mercury is one of my favorites....hehe. I've used it for a good 5 days, which is pretty long for me :-)
I especially love the labels; they seem to work best with a 12 pt font and on a dark backrground...they look weird once they reach the second line though.
Posted by iNeusch at April 24, 2004 08:57 AM | Edit | Delete
Many one of the only theme from Max I'll never use :(
Posted by Spaztik at April 26, 2004 05:26 PM | Edit | Delete
Yes, the round push buttons kinda seem out of place. EVERYTHING is square except for the push buttons... come on now, be realistic. This is the only reason I don't use this theme. I want to, but, I don't like those smooth edges in the way of all the 90 degree angles.
Posted by Dooh at May 3, 2004 02:18 PM | Edit | Delete
@ZachRL
A PC version of the skin has been released some time ago...
Posted by at May 6, 2004 11:37 PM | Edit | Delete
absolutely incredible... nothing is left out. max really does an incredible job of taking care of every last detail!
Posted by at July 15, 2004 07:48 PM | Edit | Delete
i think it may come out yet.
Posted by outsider at February 4, 2006 10:56 AM | Edit | Delete
zdrowa żywność, mieszkania Warszawa, ogłoszenia nieruchomości, projektowanie stron, tworzenie stron, agencja reklamowa, reklama w internecie
Posted by git at February 4, 2006 11:51 AM | Edit | Delete
zdrowa żywność, psycholog, nauka angielskiego, soczewki kontaktowe, psyche sf, jk, ns, projektowanie wnętrz, hydraulik, opcat, domy opieki, freetimes, jidds, fabrykapoe, sfworks, polskepoeje, pb, pp, jk, wypadki, opony, agroturystyka, klimatyzacja, apteka, dentysta, fs, kray, eway, angs, gits, akupunktura, sw, sf, puz
Posted by zenon at February 18, 2006 03:12 PM | Edit | Delete
Posted by zenon at February 18, 2006 03:15 PM | Edit | Delete
Posted by zenon at February 18, 2006 03:21 PM | Edit | Delete
promocja i reklama
pozycjonowanie stron - projektowanie stron
katalog stron
katalog stron
katalog stron
forum dyskusyjne
zabytki Krzeszów
projektowanie stron reklama promocja
projektowanie stron pozycjonowanie stron
optymalizavcja stron pozycjonowanie stron seo
Posted by zenon at February 18, 2006 03:29 PM | Edit | Delete
odzież dziecięca
kinder kleidung
children clothes
odzież dziecięca
lekarze
podajniki przesiewacze przenośniki
ceramika
href="http://www.vena-ceramika.pl">ceramika
href="http://www.stefaniszyn.pl">ubezpieczenia
href="http://www.omnitek.com.pl">telekomunikacja
href="http://www.alpinistyczne.pl">prace alpinistyczne wysokościowe
href="http://www.teresalaskowska.art.pl">malarstwo
Posted by zenon at February 18, 2006 03:30 PM | Edit | Delete
ceramika
ubezpieczenia
telekomunikacja
prace alpinistyczne wysokościowe
malarstwo