Un-skinning Lion’s iCal
One of the unpleasant surprises in Lion (for me) was the new look given to iCal and Address Book. What were they thinking?
Luckily, lots of other people feel the same way, and it didn’t long for hacks to appear which return them to their pristine, pre-Lion state.
Two for iCal, in particular, caught my eye.
First, a tweak to remove the torn page 
(how twee!) from the top of iCal.
Following the instructions provided makes for a slightly cleaner-looking interface:
If that’s not minimalist enough for you, a second tweak takes the interface all the way back to familiar aluminium:
Both posts provide the images required, clear instructions for the tweak and for returning things to their original state if you change your mind. Nice.
The new look Address Book is harder to unravel, but one tweak offers at least to replace the leather cover with an aluminum one.
Similar Posts:
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- AddressBookQuickEntry: Faster contact entry
- What to do after deleting Mail.app by mistake
- Active Directory access over LDAP in Mail.app
- Mail/Blackberry/iCal/Address Book/Yojimbo
Tags: hacks, iCal, not apple mail
July 24th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Tim,
Thanks and good to hear from you! I don’t mind iCal’s look but Address Book is very odd.
July 24th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Hey – it’s great to read from you again! – And thanks very much for this. I’m not quite sure if it’s really such a good idea to tweak iCal and Address Book – since every single update will break it and restore Apple’s intended look and feel. It might be better to get used to it (and the same applies to the ‘natural scrolling’, I guess…)
Oh dear.
July 24th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Yes, a tricky one. Remember when the “lozenges” first appeared? Leopard’s mail.app, I think?
I was determined never to give in, and with the help of a number of good “de-lozenger” apps was able to wipe them off every Leopard update. Now, I feel quite nostalgic about the lozenges ;-)
Perhaps it’s just the shock of the new.
Address Book really does jump the shark though.
July 25th, 2011 at 1:05 am
I’m more bugged by the “reminders” area – any idea how to hide it completely?
July 25th, 2011 at 5:42 am
@Thomas You do know that you can disable natural scrolling without any tweaking, just by disabling it settings, right?
July 25th, 2011 at 8:59 am
@Julie — Sure. In ICal’s View menu, select “Hide Reminders” (or use the keyboard shortcut, Option-Command-T)
July 26th, 2011 at 1:59 am
@Julie I had the same question because that menu item doesn’t do anything when pushed. It doesn’t toggle and become show either. It literally just does nothing and the reminders column stays there.
@Tim does yours actually work?
July 26th, 2011 at 2:30 am
Tom, yes it does, both the keyboard shortcut and the menu option.
Puzzling that yours doesn’t. We don’t know whether it works for Julie or not, and I haven’t seen any other reports of this being flaky. I wonder what’s causing it in your case.
July 26th, 2011 at 2:35 am
Doesn’t work for me either :(
July 26th, 2011 at 5:43 am
[...] I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this, so if you’re in the same camp, rest easy. You can in fact undo this with a bit of tinkering under the hood – full details can be found here. [...]
July 30th, 2011 at 2:40 am
Great to see you back, Tim! Nice tip. Apple’s gone crazy with these real-world-emulating interfaces.
August 8th, 2011 at 6:09 am
Welcome back! I look forward to reading Hawkwings again!