Work on programming and graphics is now far enough along that it's safe to say that CrystalClear Interface 2.6 will be ready for release soon. How soon? Don't ask, because my answer is always wrong.

CCI 2.6 will be a major upgrade, with some features customers have wanted for quite awhile now. The upgrade will be free for current CrystalClear Interface license-holders, but after release the software's price will increase to $18. The price increase reflects the major amount of work required to push CCI's functionality to the new level, and a lot of that work has to do with making it work — and look right — on Lion (Mac OS X 10.7).

Briefly, the main new features in CCI 2.6 will be:

• Incorporates the Crystal Black button theme for users on both Snow Leopard and Lion.
• Adds eight menubar themes users can mix and match with their chosen button theme.
• Seamlessly swaps custom application graphics for a given theme with the chosen new one.
• Fleshes out the custom system graphics for Lion, so that both the Gradient and the new Black Gloss button themes are almost in parity with Snow Leopard.
• Adds two new window frame styles — "Black Gloss" and "Black Gradient."
• Incorporates two new preset themes — "Black Gloss" and "Smooth Black" — to take advantage the new window styles.
• Adds numerous new Crystal Docs icons, and improves the icons tab to show previews of the various icons.
• Automates the installation of third-party Crystal Docs icons, so the user isn't interrupted and prompted to install for each app as they open it.
• Provides a new set of Crystal Desktop pictures, mainly for users who want a dark desktop. This set of "Deco Bubbles" desktops has six dark variations and four light ones.
• Adds code to enable readable statusbar text for the clock and username "menu extras." (Note: This feature currently doesn't work consistently on Lion.)

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A few weeks ago, I launched a new website — Mars Themes — as a central repository for all the various themes, app skins, applications, widgets, and so on that I've developed over the years.

These items — all available as free downloads, except for two — were previously in a section of the Mars website linked to the "Downloads" item in the navigation bar. That link now takes you to Mars Themes. (Oh yeah, the two not-free items are the software apps CrystalClear Interface and Crystal Black. They have their own websites, but are also linked to Mars Themes.)

The new site has all the content previously available here, plus a few more things. . .

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