FAQ: PF doesn't work with Shapeshifter (Finder replacement)

[strubr]

Hi,

For some reasone Pathfinder is the only application on my system
that does not get themed by unsanity's shapeshifter application.

I double checked the shapeshifter exclude list and Pathfinder is definately not on the list.

Has anyone had any issues with compatibilty between the two applications? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get Pathfinder themed?

Here is the entry from the console:

===== Mon Jan 03 2005 ===== 13:17:06 US/Eastern =====
Path Finder[395]: ShapeShifter could not initialize

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Robert.

[neilio]

Works just fine here:

http://www.cocoatech.com/stuff/pf_ss.png

Maybe try reinstalling the Unsanity stuff (application enhancer / shapeshifter) and see if that works, but I think this is probably a question better suited for the Unsanity support folks.

Neil

[cliff]

I've used Shapeshifter off and on and have found in the past that certain themes did not change a couple of items on the PF toolbar. But that was a while ago. The recent Shapeshifter along updated themes seem to work just fine for me.

[smadayag]

Only after the 3.2.2 upgrade did i have issue with PF not theming correctly. Currently, the menus do not theme, the icons and time show fine. Please let me know if you figure this out. i'll do the same on my end. It's just annoying than anything since i know it worked prior to the upgrade.

[smadayag]

So, i decide to redo everything (here are the steps):

background: Apple finder replaced with PF in /System/Library/CoreServices/
PF in /Applications/. both PkgInfo were change to FNDRMACS. after the 3.2.2 upgrade PF would no longer theme.

Steps to resolve:
1. Restored Apple's Finder in /System/Library/CoreServices/
2. Copied new 3.2.2 version over my existing PF app in /Applications
2b. Changed the PkgInfo to FNDRMACS
3. in terminal type: defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder "/Applications/Path Finder.app"

note: you need the quotes because of the space between "Path" and "Finder"
4. restart or loggoff/on

you should see PF launch with the theme specified by insanity... -sal

[Anonymous]

Having the same problem here too.
Really messed up.
Been trying different things to try and fix it for the last several weeks.
[it's a downer not having PF themed....]

Ok smadayag, I also tried your fix (to the letter), and to no avail.
Logged out. Back in. PF still not themed.

In some of my testing, I've realized that if the PkgInfo file isn't editted, i.e., the "APPLEFdR" isn't replaced with "FNDRMACS" then will PF will theme as expected... but then of course this brings us back to not having the Finder completely replaced by PF.

That's about.
Hope this helps... (the developers?), anybody else with the same prob.
Maybe we'll get a solution soon.

Cheers.

[neilio]

Sorry guys, but I'm not sure why this isn't working, but it's probably the fact that you're using the FNDRMACS hack. This is one (of the many) reasons why we don't support this configuration: there's just too many weird problems that we can't workaround or fix.

For what it's worth, Shapeshifter is working just fine with my set up, but I'm not using the Finder hack. I surmise that Shapeshifter is using the bundle name of the application so it knows which ones to theme and not theme, and is getting confused because PF isn't the correct bundle for that bundle name.

The best way to run Path Finder is to have it quit the Finder, and then if an application makes a call to the Apple Finder, it launches. Then you can just quit it again. This isn't the best solution, but the Finder launches so rarely anyway that it's normally not a huge issue.

OR, just leave the Finder running. The memory usage is inconsequential with OS X for all but the most memory intensive tasks, and the Finder uses 0% CPU while in the background.

Neil

[Steve Dillon]

I spoke too soon in an earlier post. Since I posted I have found a bug.
I have a liking for Shapeshifter themes. However closing the PF browser window results in a freeze and the inability to open a new browser window, neither are you able to quit PF4 and a force quit is necessary. Resetting to default aqua restores PF behaviour to normal.

[bluloo]

Hmmm...

I have PF 4 themed with shapeshifter and it's been working fine on two different machines.

Do you have other third party apps installed that might be causing this?

[Steve Dillon]

Good thinking Bluloo!

I did a safeboot and opened my login items one by one. I thought i had a culprit but found that the simple restart or log out/in solved the problem. So I am thankfully theme-ing and Pathfinder -ing again.

Just as an aside; I was unhappy with the inability to colour the empty windows in column view. So I changed my theme to Black Cherry 3.1, which colours the white windows a pleasing dusty pink....Thanks again

[siMac]

Hi, just been checking out the PF4 demo. It seems very nice and I would definitely be interested were it not for one problem - it doesn't play nice with ShapeShifter. Since ShapeShifter has existed I have used it for one primary reason - black menus. PF4 doesn't seem to use the normal cocoa text for the contextual menus so I end up with black text on black menus - no fun!

Could the menu text either be made to play nice with SS, or could we be provided a preference to set our own menu text colour (à la 'RSS Menu')? Then you can have my $34.95...

Thanks!

:-D

[jtaylor]

I like the new coloring scheme of PF4 but I've encountered some problems with the new version.

Right now I currently run the Milk theme with ShapeShifter. So far everything is good but there are a couple of color schemes I can't seem to change. In the shelf pull down menu are blue colored text. Also, when I click the menu bar the applications list is now in small black text.

In PF3, all worked well with my black theme. is this a current bug or is there some new advanced feature I'm missing to change this? Below is a pic to show what I'm talking about.

http://lifeofjon.com/pathfinder.gif

jon

[burgessa23]

I use PF as a finder replacement. I also use shapeshifter.

PF is the ONLY app i have that doesn't respect text color changes in the menus
is this fixable? if I use a theme that has dark menu backgrounds, I can't see the menu items in PF unless they are in the mouse over state. All other apps switch out the text to white, except PF.

I realize unsanity is, for some reason, not very popular around here, But I use quite a few of their products and this is the only issue I've ever had.


see the screenshot in this post for an example. except the issue I'm having is with the contextual menus, not the menubar ones

[grotsasha]

Why do you think Unsanity is not popular here? I have Fruitmenu installed for instance. And Steve Gehrman thinks Unsanity programmer is a brilliant guy... Yeah, we had a discussion (http://www.cocoatech.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1322)on the pro and cons of haxies, but even BrentN who explained so good all the "kitchen" of APE and possible instabilities, has Default Folder installed...

[burgessa23]

I've just seen a lot of people making blanket 'and make sure you don't have any haxies' comments in the past.

[grotsasha]

Haxies are known to make sometimes from a tiny bug a big one, because they inject code at the memory level, overwriting the code the developer had written. So when someone report a bug, it's normal that one ask to disable haxies for a while to see if it's not a conflict on this level.

[neilio]

The only reason I don't like haxies, personally, is because it does make troubleshooting Path Finder trickier. It's sometimes hard to know if a bug is Path Finder or a conflict with a haxie, so usually I will ask a user to disable all haxies if they're reporting an issue I've never heard of before.

That said, any Shapeshifter issues need to be routed to Unsanity. We're drawing our menus just like any other application, so if there's something that's not working chances are it's something that Unsanity needs to fix.

[coldforge]

Please note: this has nothing to do with system stability, core dumps, or anything. I know that Haxies are the devil and destroy computers, but my question doesn't really have anything to do with that.

I have noticed that Path Finder doesn't play nice with Shapeshifter themes w/ dark menus, because it seems to always make pop-up menu text black, like this:

http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/2852/2000050708600152381_rs.jpg

Is it nontrivial to simply pull the pop-up text color from the current system menu text color? I've been waiting for this change to come around on its own for several releases, so at this point I'm wondering:

1. If it's much harder than it looks.
2. If I'm the only one who's actually noticed.

Looking forward to a response. Thanks.

[darhorn]

i would love if this was fixed..

was just trying the qure theme which looks great except for pf, so ended up going back to uno

the button on the pf window in a dark theme are next to unusable too..

darrin

[smeger]

Hello, ShapeShifter author here.

I don't think I have any PathFinder-specific code in ShapeShifter that would cause this problem. Is the issue limited to popup menus, or does it show in drop-down menus from the menubar, too?

Does PathFinder have any weird permissions, or is it a standard user-level app? I know some people do some voodoo to replace Finder completely with PathFinder, I wonder if this has something to do with things.

Does PathFinder draw any custom views inside of the popup menus?

I've filed a bug on this on my end and am grabbing the most current build of PF to check things out.

[andyblac]

it appears to be menu's that use the small font not the standard font size for menus. ie application menu & the pathfinder icon menubar applications list

[darhorn]

and for me, it didnt matter whether pf was running normally or as a finder replacement (using defaults write method)

[davrizio]

Hello, ShapeShifter author here.

I don't think I have any PathFinder-specific code in ShapeShifter that would cause this problem. Is the issue limited to popup menus, or does it show in drop-down menus from the menubar, too?

Does PathFinder have any weird permissions, or is it a standard user-level app? I know some people do some voodoo to replace Finder completely with PathFinder, I wonder if this has something to do with things.

Does PathFinder draw any custom views inside of the popup menus?

I've filed a bug on this on my end and am grabbing the most current build of PF to check things out.

Good to hear smeger! Hopefully the mods will answer your questions here.

For me it depends on the theme I use...most of the themes the text is not correct. Also depending on the theme there are usually one or two windows that don't get themed...

I have also tried with the "voodoo" and with out the "voodoo" and there is no change in results...


Thanks Again!

[awestaa]

It would be awesome to get this straightened out. I have gone so far as to spend an entire saturday trying to tweak dark themes to get the text on those menus to play nice...I love both these apps too much to give up on either one...

[Curare]

I would also love to see this fixed. The only app preventing me from switching to a dark-color ss theme is PF.

[grotsasha]

After some back and forth with Unsanity, this issue was potentially fixed in the lab. It was not tested yet, but should work. So it should appear in the next update of PF if everything goes well.

[Slash]

After some back and forth with Unsanity, this issue was potentially fixed in the lab. It was not tested yet, but should work. So it should appear in the next update of PF if everything goes well.

Great to hear that.

[luxorpheus]

I suspect the whole shebang could be avoided by allowing one to edit text color in Path Finder menus; both contextual and drop-down.

That can't be (gulp) too difficult, no?

[pathzen]

I would like to edit the color of the contextual menu text. I have shapeshifter installed and need to alter to text within the contextual menus (right clicks menus) for best contrast.
It seems that whatever method PF uses to draw the text does not get altered by the mechanisms employed in shapeshifter.

I assume I can change the color within interface builder some where but I cannot figure out where.

Thanks

[pathzen]

I wanted to see if the ETA for this update is known?
Or if it is possible to apply a patch in the short-term?

I too am having the dark menu / dar text problem. I have unfortunately had to resort to excluding PF from ShapeShifter.

Thanks

[pathzen]

I just read a sticky message and found exactly what I was asking for. Unfortunately the solution isnt available only realization of the problem.

So if anyone has any hints they would still be welcome.

[grotsasha]

It is impossible to alter the color of the menu on the user side. Contextual menues in Path Finder are built in code, not in Interface Builder. But as I mentionned earlier, the fix is coming. Sorry for the inconvinience.

[kipmarlowe]

It's not just the TEXT, but the toolbar BUTTONS "Views", "Back", and "Action" that remain black, unlike the Finder which adopts the white or light color the dark theme requires; i.e. a black back arrow symbol on the Back toolbar button basically blanks it out.

(For lack of a better word, I'll be referring to toolbar button "symbols" = each of the 3 browser Views symbols, Back/forward, Action pulldown symbol, etc.)

PF's toolbar button symbols obviously don't point to Finder.rsrc or Extras.rsrc because it becomes obvious that they're, in fact, totally bypassed by Shapeshifter. The symbols not only REMAIN BLACK, but ALSO the SAME large Aqua SIZE — even when the theme comes with much narrower toolbar buttons surrounding said symbols. So even a theme that's not dark, yet has sleeker toolbar buttons looks crappy in PF because the theme's accompanying, downsized symbols don't get applied to Path Finder. Soooo, Path Finder's stubbornly unchanged interior symbols end up cramped in the sleek & shiny new replacement buttons (that I really want to look at, you know, like when Path Finder fixes this vexing problem). In a theme like Amora the symbols actually spill over the button borders (I really really like Amora) . . .

So I hope this is what you mean by fixing the text because this is even more bothersome, to me, than the inconvenience of having squint or scroll to read contextual menu text, against dark backdrops. At least I can always read that text, however inconvenient. But there ain't no way to get past the eyesore I described above. Believe me, I tried until thankfully I read a previous entry explaining that these elements are built into the code. Or is that JUST the TEXT?

[grotsasha]

I don't know about toolbar buttons, but I would suggest that you wait for the fixed version to be released, test it and if you're still having issues, please, report them back here. Meanwhile it would be helpful that you post a screenshot of broken toolbar icons. Thanks.

[GauchoMatero]

Hello
I like the Pathfinder very mutch! :D
But now I've changed de view theme of OS X (i like the new view...).
But now I've a problem: when i make a right-Klick for the kontextmenu, then the Color doesen't look like normal....
Also the buttons on the left top...

Look the picture...

Where i can change this things like color, transparency, background of these menus?
:confused:
Thanks a lot

PF Version: 4.6.1
MAC OSX-Version: 10.4. 9

PS: Sorry about my bad english... :(

[grotsasha]

It looks like you themed your OS X with an application like Shapeshifter? What is this app that you used?

[GauchoMatero]

Yes, i used Shapeshifter.
And the theme is Smooth Black "standards"

Its this important?
->Looks like, hm?

Because the only problem is in Pathfinder...
->now i see....

Thanks a lot!