Kaleidoscope is (was) a
Macintosh Operating System GUI customization
extension, which alters the
elements and settings the pre
X (10.0)
MacOS uses to draw the GUI.
The process of
'scheme' creation involves a fairly time consuming process of mucking about with
ResEdit and a special set of
templates that allow for the editing of the special
definition resources the extension uses. These settings define certain relevant areas of multiple image
resources, usually
abnormal cicns created most frequently by use of a
hex hack to the ResEdit code to allow it to
manipulate nonstandard cicn sizes. These defined areas are then
patched according to and along with the other settings to running MacOS.
Amazingly enough this caused relatively few crashes, normally only taking down the system once every 150 patchings or so, an issue only to the very indecisive, or those already
masochistic enough to go through the process of 'scheme' creation.
The
patched drawing protocols usually had
no noticeable effect on
performance, unless they were
excessively heavy, complex,
or just plain badly made, in which case they could prove very slow (and since
inefficient ones were normally fairly
bulky were really not practical to work with on a daily basis any way).
Given the completely different system post
MacOS X uses for drawing the GUI, Kaleidoscope is completely unportable. Also
Apple's present attitude makes it seam
very unlikely that any similar product will exist for MacOS X at any time in the
near future. One such project was started and the creators of the tool were heavily threatened with legal action over reverse engineering proprietary Apple technologies. An action which has been laughed at, scorned, and supported by those who have had
one to many doses of the Jobs
Reality Distortion Field.