The Mac-lecular Desktop

Last week we featured the Molecular Desktop. Lifehacker reader DoctorKoz said: “I can do that on my Mac!” Even though you can’t get the Rainmeter themes used in the Molecular Desktop on a Mac, you can still get the same effect with some GeekTool magic.

Want the same look for your Mac? Here’s what you’ll need:

• The wallpaper from The Paper Wall
• The GeekTool system monitor and configuration utility for OS X for the geeklets, time/date and widgets around the screen
• The MardWatch – No Waste geeklet (although DoctorKoz replaced the dial with something a little more fitting)
• The iTunes Geeklet for the Now Playing widget on the lower left of the screen (again, customised to fit the theme)
• The System Info Circular Graphs geeklets to display the CPU, memory, and disk status in the upper left.
• A completely custom weather geeklet that DoctorKoz wrote for the current weather conditions
• Nocturne to turn the menubar black

You’ll need some experience with GeekTool to make this one happen, and our guide should get you started. For instance, DoctorKoz made the molecules (they’re real molecules, by the way!) as images in Photoshop and then used GeekTool to place the images on his desktop. Then he arranged the geeklets inside. He also used GeekTool’s built-in text display features to drop his ToDo.txt file on the desktop and its date/time features to get that on the desktop as well.

We’re assuming he used the now-free tweaking tool CandyBar to add text icons to the dock and replace the trash can and folder icons with ones he made himself. All in all, it’s more advanced than your average desktop, but it looks great. If you have any questions, head over to DoctorKoz’s Flickr page and ask away.

End of Summer [Flickr]