UnityGK - January 13, 2005

Author: Si Buckmaster
Version: 1.0
Reviewed by: Jason Clarke
User Rating:  84%
Mating styles made popular by SIRO with matte-finish dark greys and blacks, UnityGK features pulsing, neon-white accents that create an almost interactive experience for the user. Although it suffers from the same text-color issues as other dark themes, the cool, futuristic stylings of UnityGK make it easier to let those concerns slide.

Aesthetics
Could UnityGK be the spiritual predecessor to the long-awaited BBX Omega? John the Baptist to Omega’s Jesus? Well, let’s not get too carried away. There are, however, hints of William Bart’s much-anticipated theme in Si Buckmaster's debut creation: matte black plastic textures, starkly contrasting LED accents and pulsing highlights. While those similarities exist, UnityGK’s author credits a different theme, SIRO, and the keypad of the Nokia 7270 cell phone as his primary inspirations.

SIRO’s influence is seen in the elongated window widgets, where a central, white faint glow is replaced by a brighter outline once depressed. These neon-white accents carry throughout the theme. A white line appears at the bottom of selected drop-down menus, while active buttons are surrounded by a pulsing white glow.

On the subject of details, the author has done a great job with the scroll bars and menu extras. The former are slender and elegant, while the latter have all been updated to a crisp white. The only overlooked element is the a-sync progress wheel, which, though modified, is missing one frame so the circular syncing motion is jerkily interrupted once per revolution.

But besides this minor quirk, the overall effect is an interface that invites the user to touch and click, just like a cell phone’s keypad, and exactly the effect you want in a theme.

Usability
The love-hate saga between GUI customization nuts and dark themes continues. The theme does almost everything right, but it also forces the user to make a few adjustments to his or her routine. I almost always use the Finder in icons mode. With UnityGK, that’s a big no-no. The light grey text makes it impossible to read the names of icons and folders, and as a result, columns view works better, though you still run into issues in the final column (where the big icon and all the nitty-gritty information is displayed), as UnityGK employs a combination of a white background and light text. List mode seems to be the best option, and as much as I hate to use the Finder like that, I’m willing to put up with it for the wow factor of the rest of theme.

If you use Photoshop or any of the Macromedia apps, you might as well forget about UnityGK, and all dark themes for that matter. Your only option is to disable ShapeShifter for those apps. It stinks, but at least there’s a viable work-around.

Over the long haul, UnityGK starts to wear on the eyes because of minimal contrast between the dark greys and blacks. I found myself tilting my LCD screen and adjusting its brightness to maximize that contrast. Overall, there are definitely inherent usability issues resulting from the theme's darkness, but it can be worth the trouble of using it for its coolness.

Extras
UnityGK features two subtle variations and comes packaged with 12 application skins, two minimalistic desktops, Flat White Bezel icons by Laurent Baumann and a cursor set. Of note is the excellent iTunes skin, whose only flaw is an impossible-to-correct color issue, which prevents the skin from being dark enough. If you’re looking for an even greater UnityGK makeover, check out the Adium theme and status icons, boot image and boot and log-in panel, and Delicious Library shelf theme, all available as separate downloads from the UnityGK Web site, unitygk.com.

Conclusion
In conclusion, UnityGK is a dark theme that comes as close to being usable on a daily basis as any of the other dark themes out there. Several friends have been surprised, and a couple of them remarked how cool and futuristic the theme looks. It’s definitely worth a try.

Posted by phillryu on January 13, 2005 | Comments (6)

Comments

Posted by danielgrenell at January 14, 2005 12:07 AM | Edit | Delete

i like it, it has an indescribable charm.

Posted by Chris McElligott at January 15, 2005 01:48 AM | Edit | Delete

Its a great theme but really I don't think Black themes and OS X work.

Posted by serg. at January 16, 2005 05:29 AM | Edit | Delete

on an iMac, black themes just don't work. period. as good as they might be, the frame of the iMac clashes with black themes in a terrible way.

Posted by Slippy at January 16, 2005 09:52 AM | Edit | Delete

Jason Clarke said: ""I almost always use the Finder in icons mode. With UnityGK, that’s a big no-no. The light grey text makes it impossible to read the names of icons and folders, and as a result, columns view works better""

You have to use a dark background, that's the point with this theme imo
I use a black background -but you could use a dark grey one- and it's sweet :-)

It works pretty well with X-94 icons. Try it you might like it ;-)
http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/details.php?id=1382

That's not a big no no at all I must say

Posted by Si Buckmaster at January 26, 2005 02:33 PM | Edit | Delete

Jason Clarke said: ""I almost always use the Finder in icons mode. With UnityGK, that’s a big no-no. The light grey text makes it impossible to read the names of icons and folders, and as a result, columns view works better""

UnityGK-1.0 works best with the Finder Icon View background colour set to dark grey. See the ReadMe file for instructions.

Thanks for the 'glowing' review! ;-)

Posted by TheCelavi at February 28, 2005 10:01 AM | Edit | Delete

tryrtytry

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