I need a quick fix and I was hoping someone might be able to help.
In windows, you were able to change the color of your background and I can’t figure out how to do that in a Mac.
For example, a very white background in “Mail” with black fonts is a bit bright on the eyes a the end of the day. I want to change the background so that it is a softer gray in Mail and for that matter, universally so it will show up in Pages for example as well.
Anyone know how to do this?
Is there a program that I can download that will make it happen?
Mac OS Preferences / System / first row from below (or second if you have added some preference panes to the standard ones), far left icon showing a white figure in a blue circle (I couldn’t tell you the exact name of it because my OS is set to German; in English it might be called something like “operating help”).
There you could set the whole system to white on black display. It doesn’t give you as many display options Windows does but maybe it is enough as first aid.
Beside from that … use Scrivener in full page mode as much as possible because it is fully customizable.
And if you have serious problems with your eyes and if you are mostly writing on your computer you might give the AlphaSmart Neo a shot. If it fits in you work flow you might use it for writing and use the Mac only for editing, printing, mailing, research, etc. This way you could reduce the time spent watching onto a backlit screen.
Under 10.5 one of the features listed for the new mail is Rich formatting which includes custom background colors. I don’t have mail setup on this computer yet so I can’t tell you exactly how to go about it. Let me get an account setup and I will post back.
It might also help to fill in the background with some dark or neutral color, so that the only thing visible is the active screen of the program you’re working on. I use Isolator <http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/> but there are several small, easy programs which let you do this.