Transparency in this theme is literally crystal clear, demonstrating feasibility and techniques to enhance usability of a theme with clear interface elements. The theme comes with two variants: Lite, which uses translucent white menus, and Dark, which uses translucent black ones.

Version 1.2 utilizes a technique to enable totally transparent menubars that don't suffer from extra backgrounds superimposed by "menu extras." Be sure to read the instructions on using the included crystal menubar files and background pictures.

Crystal Clear also bundles a custom version of the open source utility SetAlphaValue, which magically "turns on" transparency in Mac OS X Cocoa applications where it otherwise doesn't exist. The download includes detailed information about how to use SetAlphaValue.

The Crystal Clear download includes the following files in the main folder:

• CrystalClear_v12.guiKit (Both variants of Crystal Clear and four desktop pictures, courtesy of the artist known as Xanthic, customized to include the Crystal Clear menubar and each available in four standard resolutions.)
• SetAlphaValue4CC (Installer for SetAlphaValue)

Crystal Clear includes theme elements for Address Book, Automator, Camino, DevonThink Pro, Font Book, iCal, iTunes, Mail, Preview, QuickTime, Safari, System Preferences, ThemePark, and Yummy FTP.

There are five subfolders in the package:

• docs: The ReadMe file for SetAlphaValue and this Welcome document.
• menu extras: Here you'll find folders with menu-extra graphics and installation ReadMe files for Chronosync, DropCopy, FastAndSlow, FastScripts Lite, iKey, MainMenu, Sound Source, Yahoo Widget Engine, and YouControl Tunes.
• other extras: This is where you'll find the iCan theme, the Growl style, and a folder for the extra SafariStand toolbar graphics.
• pics: Contains full-screen previews for both the Lite and Dark variants of Crystal Clear. (Note: These screenshots do not show the latest changes in the Crystal Clear theme... they are the ones released originally with the Dark and Lite versions.)
• crystal menubar: This is a new folder that contains the Crystal Clear system menubar in Photoshop (PSD) format, ready to be applied to desktop pictures of your choosing. Simply pick the PSD file corresponding to your screen resolution, and add it as a layer at the top of the image.