Pimp Your Desktop ‘Leopard’ Style

Leopard Desktop ScreenshotDuring WWDC ’07, when the feature complete version of Leopard was debuted to the masses, many people had mixed feelings about the new desktop. Everything from “it looks like Vista” to “simply beautiful.” The transparent menu bar and the seemingly 3D dock certainly add eye candy to the interface, but by no means does it detract from OS X’s functionality.

If you are a fan of the new desktop, the good news is that you won’t have to wait until October to get your desktop to look like that. You also do not need to have Leopard. I have rounded up a few different ways that you can achieve the “Leopard look today, in Tiger.

Probably the easiest way to get your entire system to have a Leopard-like looks is to use a ShapeShifter theme. There are probably many more themes than what I have listed here which were inspired by Leopard, but these are the two I have come across:

1.) Illuminous by Levi – This theme was inspired by Leopard and features skins for the Finder, Mail, Safari, and coming soon, iTunes. The theme is currently a ‘lite’ version, lacking certain variants and further improvements.

2.) Liger by spiderlama – This theme was created to mimic the Leopard previews that were shown at WWDC ’07. The dock is still the same, but the author claims that a mod for the dock will come soon. Other known issues include the menu bar isn’t exactly like Leopards, Exposé doesn’t like it, and the Safari v3 beta doesn’t like themes.

Note: all information about themes is taken directly from InterfaceLIFT. I have not tested either of these themes, so I do not know what to expect if you try them out.

If you do not own ShapeShifter, or are not a big fan, there are other ways to mod your desktop to look like Leopard. This 9 page thread on the MacRumors
Forums
pretty much has covered a large chunk of the different applications that could be used to pimp your desktop. One helpful poster has even combined all of the solutions discussed in the thread in one post for easy reference.

Using a combination of the wallpapers and applications found on the MacRumors forums, I was able to create a desktop that works for me (pictured below). It isn’t perfect, nor is it exactly like Leopard, but it looks nice nonetheless.

If you know of other resources people can use to pimp their desktop ‘Leopard’ style, tell us about them in the comments. What works for you?

Comments

11 Responses to “Pimp Your Desktop ‘Leopard’ Style”

  1. Arjun Muralidharan on July 9th, 2007 1:02 pm

    I did a post on my GTD setup that looks like Leopard here:

    http://www.cupofchai.net/chaigtd-focus-on-leopard/

  2. Will on July 9th, 2007 3:45 pm

    Here’s what I’ve done with Leopard, it’s sort of blending in the new icons with the old tiger theme.
    http://wphj.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/blending-leopard-in/

  3. Brian Sorli on July 9th, 2007 6:11 pm

    Very interesting…

    I’m not using too many addons mentioned in the article, but the Leopard background images found on the reference links are easy on the eyes and the program called Camouflage is FANTASTIC!

    For those not familiar with Camouflage, this program will allow you to have a cluttered desktop (like mine) with icons everywhere that are hidden till you want them to appear using an assigned function key. How Cool!

  4. links for 2007-07-10 | pristina.org | everything design on July 10th, 2007 5:24 am

    [...] Pimp Your Desktop ËœLeopard' Style | MacApper Visual do leopard hoje (tags: Desktop leopard howto mac) [...]

  5. links for 2007-07-10 | blog.ftofani.com on July 10th, 2007 4:21 pm

    [...] Pimp Your Desktop ËœLeopard' Style | MacApper Visual do leopard hoje (tags: Desktop leopard howto mac) [...]

  6. Leopard Owner who thinks you guys are PATHETIC on November 17th, 2007 11:30 pm

    You guys are pathetic! I own leopard… You guys aren’t very good at making your tiger look like it. just go buy it!

  7. Greg Healy on November 18th, 2007 1:20 am

    This post was published 3 months before Leopard was available for purchase. At the time, this was actually a viable way to get your desktop to look “Leopard-y.” I’m sorry that you feel that it is pathetic.

  8. snio on November 2nd, 2009 11:47 pm

    I think your blog is so nice.So I impressed your beautiful expression.I just bookmarked you¦keep up the good work!!!!
    laptop keyboard
    computer keyboard
    Computer Accessories

  9. Christen Losito on August 29th, 2011 3:58 am

    I went over this site and I conceive you have a lot of fantastic information, saved to fav (:.

  10. aa meetings on October 5th, 2011 2:57 pm

    find alcoholics anonymous meetings online http://alcoholicsanonymoushotline.com

  11. Download Music for Free for iPod on October 29th, 2011 11:18 am

    Related…

    [...]just beneath, are numerous totally not related sites to ours, however, they are surely worth going over[...]…

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!