uHuman-soft Metacity theme

This is my first Linux project. I like default Ubuntu theme called Human, but always thought it would be even nicer if I were able to choose my own colours. So after learning about creating metacity and GTK themes I started to play with the theme called "ish" by bvc (http://www.guistyles.com/gnome-styles/). Then I compared my results with the default Ubuntu theme and found that the latest takes three times less to be rendered. So I abandoned it and began modifications of Human. The main differences are:
1. customizable colours
2. minimize, maximize and close icons
3. another way of painting window titles
Here is the screenshot:



The default colour is soft green, but you can change it to anything you like by selecting the "Selected Item" colour in the Themes Customization menu (System - Preferences - Theme - Customize - Colors)
Credits: bvc - close, minimize, maximize and unmaximize icons;
Daniel Borgmann, Billy Cantrell, Richard Stellingwerff - original Human theme files.

Download from here.

How to install a Desktop theme.

Clock

Here is another program I'd like to share. It seems to be much more useful for Windows users comparing with the screen magnifier.

As you can see on the screen shot it is the clock utility called Ranui Clock. Actually "ranui" means midday in Maori, but I would prefer to separate the word and use it as Ra Nui - The Big Sun, it has the same meaning in most Polynesian languages. Ranui is also the suburb where I am currently living.

Main Features:

• Ranui Clock displays time as an analogue clock with highly customizable appearance. You can select any picture (of the reasonable size) to be used as the clock scale.
• You can adjust almost every parameter of the image - see the options window screen shot.
• Precision - it synchronizes itself over the Internet using Time Servers and may also act as a time server for other computers in the same local network with no direct internet access.
• It can play sounds every second, every half an hour and every hour, as well as when its remainder is showing a message.
• It can work as the remainder or alarm clock. You can save as many as you wish single or regular events.
  

Ranui Clock comes with the set of scale images with predefined options for every image for your convenience. You can change any of these options and use any BMP or PNG (recommended) picture as a scale image. It saves your settings for every used image so you don't have to re-adjust them when calling the image back.

The program was tested with Windows 98 (limited visual features), 2000, XP, and pre-releases of Vista with and without Aero theme.

Ranui Clock is distributed as a self-installing executable file (about 1.5 MB).

Download Ranui Clock

Screen Magnifier

Let start with the simplest applet - a magnifier for your desktop. I use it mainly when I have to adjust the positions of visual components.

Screen Magnifier shows the area around the mouse cursor enlarged by 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 times. Actually it does nothing more.

Features:
1. magnification rates 2x, 3x, 4x, 6x, 8x
2. semi-transparent mode, so you can see the screen content behind its window
3. can display cross-hair rulers
4. remembers its options when closed, and restores them next start
5. all options are set up via a popup-up menu, which appears when you right-click on the header
6. when the mouse cursor moves inside the program window it becomes completely transparent except for its boundaries and the header. This allows you to work with the applications behind the magnifier's window.

The program was tested with Windows 2000, XP, and pre-releases of Vista with and without Aero theme.

Screen Magnifier is distributed as a self-installing executable file (about 480 kB).

Download Screen Magnifier