The Architect icon, a blueprint in a metal frame with a plastic protractor laying on top of it.

Architect & Façade

Architect and Façade were two apps working in tandem to bring back customization to the Mac.

A new hope

After years of playing cat and mouse with Apple, Shapeshifter had mostly given up trying to bring themes to OS X.

But there was a new development in the way the Mac’s operating system handled assets. It was back to using raster images instead of drawing the interface procedurally and vectorially.

This is why, with Slightly Pretentious Software we went on the mission to bring back theming to OS X.

Architect

Architect was the theme building app. Theme designers could edit, fork, experiment with themes and get live preview.

The Architect icon, a blueprint in a metal frame with a plastic protractor laying on top of it. On the side, the application window, with a widget selection list and a preview panel showing customization.

The developement was led by Matt Patenaude, with whom I also founded {13bold}.

Façade

Façade was the user’s theme library, the community showcase, and of course, the way to apply themes.

The Façade icon, a desktop wallpaper in a metal frame, with a zip in the middle. On the right, a store-like app showing a theme with a preview.

The development ended in 2009, mostly due to new changes in OS X which made the project not viable anymore.

Ultimately, this is probably for the best. Theming can make testing very difficult for developers, and restrict what developers can do when custom interface elements are not an option.

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