Comments on: Fixing OS X Leopard menu bar transparency

By: Stephan B

Stephan B — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:52:03 +0000

Okay – I think I know what’s going on – It seemingly doesn’t have anything to do with the OS or with an update from Apple. I have a PowerBook G4 (1.67Ghz low-res) and I also have a iBook G4 1.33Ghz and the iBook doesn’t have that checkmark box in Preferences>Desktop, yet the PowerBook 15″ does. Same 10.5.8 – and I noticed a post that said that their G5 won’t even do it. So it’s clearly a graphics card threshold that Apple has decided meets or doesn’t their expectations. I also just checked My PowerBook G4 (Aluminum 1.0Ghz DVI) and it doesn’t have that option either.

I could fathom a guess that some of the PowerPC G5′s that are out there that DON’T have the transparent menu bar option are running third party graphics cards in them, so they’re likely not certified to be ‘certified transparent bar ready’ by Apple. Having that graphics card requirement Feels a little too “Vista Aero”-ish to me. And it’s only a damn menu bar.

But the funny thing is that I did notice was that the only people that were truly upset about the transparency bar were the people that didn’t know how to turn it OFF, not from the people that couldn’t turn it ON. So if you do have the transparent menu bar, the option to turn it off is right there in your Desktop Preferences.

If this blog is in alignment with the general public, I’m willing to bet we won’t see that transparency bar in 10.6 – well, all of us that are still on the PowerPC chips won’t even be seeing 10.6 anyway (until someone figures out a hack) so looks like we won’t have to worry about transparency and menu bars after we turn ours off.

So it’s easy to turn off if you have it. No hacks, no white menu bars you have to crop into your desktop wallpapers. Just turn the thing off. I couldn’t stand it when I saw it and that was once of the first things I hunted for in Preferences.

So. It’s easy.

Preferences>Desktop & Screen Saver>uncheck Translucent Menu Bar = goodbye lameness.

By: Davao Mac User » What’s up, Dock? Ey, men…u.

Davao Mac User » What’s up, Dock? Ey, men…u. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:39:17 +0000

[...] those who are not into hacking the menu bar, they may choose to use Peter Krantz’s method of just putting a 12 pixel high strip of white or black on top of each [...]

By: Rosina

Rosina — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:31:26 +0000

The site\’\'s very professional! Keep up the good work! Oh yes, one extra comment – maybe you could add more pictures too! So, good luck to your team!

By: L. Robin Nilsson

L. Robin Nilsson — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:51:51 +0000

I wish I had that checkbox, because I really would like the bar to be translucent. But apparently they must have judged the G5 not to be fast enough to handle such things as transparancy, as the bar is as gray as ever, and no setting to be found. And I can’t really say I disagree with them. I am having enough prestanda problems as it is. But yeah, transparancy would be nice.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:34:05 +0000

Hi, don’t know if anyone here has realised but there is an option in the System Preferences > Desktop that says “Translucent Menu Bar”. You can switch it on and off quite easily, at least on my MBP there is. Maybe it is an update, hope this helps.

By: Peter Krantz

Peter Krantz — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:09:46 +0000

@Anonymous Coward: Well, if you look at the date of this post you will find that there wasn’t a checkbox in System preferences for that.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:14:36 +0000

System preferences pane -> Desktop -> Bottom checkbox “Translucent Menu bar” — problem solved.

Idiots.

By: SR

SR — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:20:48 +0000

Oh, sorry for the previous comment. I just realised that you (and everyone else) is talking about the transparent menu *bar*, not the (semi-)transparent menus.

Why is no one talking about the latter? Is there a simple way of turning them off that I haven’t been able to discover?

By: SR

SR — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:15:43 +0000

This works only when you have your desktop visible underneath the menu… more often it is an actual application (sometimes even the same application). The transparency doesn’t annoy me at all when the default desktop image is in the background; it’s most annoying when there is actual text behind the menus :P

By: styledfoam.com » Leopard’s new GUI annoyances and fixes

styledfoam.com » Leopard’s new GUI annoyances and fixes — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:53:47 +0000

[...] to edit you wallpaper of choice an and a 21px high white strip at the top … read about it or (B) to choose a solid color as background, preferably the darkgray one [...]

By: Pakk99

Pakk99 — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:24:42 +0000

Whatever. I was a transparency-hater too, until I used it for a few days. And now, I can’t stand the look of Tiger’s horrifically intrusive, glaring menu bar. Switch off transparency if you must, but, personally, I’m sick of hearing from the whiner’s. Would you also prefer that Apple return to 8-bit icons? Get over it.

By: // wyctim.blog » Blog Archive » Régi stílusú menüsor

// wyctim.blog » Blog Archive » Régi stílusú menüsor — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:20:40 +0000

[...] Forrás: http://www.peterkrantz.com/2007/leopard-menu-transparency-fix [...]

By: 6apxat

6apxat — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:22:31 +0000

there is an option in system prefs that turns transparency on/off )

By: hello

hello — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:01:09 +0000

me too. I did the archive and install and had the menu bar gray from the start without any tinkering. It was great. How it happened I don’t know. I just wish it was the same on my ibook which came out transparent.

By: Explora

Explora — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:03:44 +0000

How can I make it completely transparent (except for the characters)?

By: Steiner

Steiner — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:20:03 +0000

I installed leopard on my G5 iMac and had the gray non translucent menu bar form the start. I did a complete clean install and no tinkering I have no idea why that is. But I like it.

By: Johan Lind

Johan Lind — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:12:50 +0000

Other ways to turn off the menu bar transparency:

Edit the following file:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist

Add an entry like this:

DQpFbnZpcm9ubWVudFZhcmlhYmxlcw0KICAgQ0lfTk9fQkFDS0dST1VORF9JTUFHRQ0KICAgICAgICAxDQo=

Source: http://miner49r.blogspot.com/2007/11/turn-off-translucent-menu-bar-in.html

Which is the same as:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 1

Source: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071115135215262

By: HornCologne

HornCologne — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:06:34 +0000

There is a lot more (stupid) transparency in Leopard than just the menu bar! How about opening a photo in Preview and opening the “adjust color” controls – OMFG! If I have *anything* open in my workspace – and God forbid it is high contrast images – I can barely make anything out at all in the controls.

Note: It is not that I am given to editing photos in Preview (I use real tools), but this is an example of how poorly thought out the transparency “feature set” in Leopard is – any why can’t we turn it off?!?!

By: Sucker

Sucker — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:09:58 +0000

Just don’t believe the desktop is so crappy. Why didn’t they allow you to choose “Tiger Style” one at least ?

By: http://mkb-technologie.livejournal.com/

http://mkb-technologie.livejournal.com/ — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:38:09 +0000

This is a simple, practical fix. Thanks Peter. The whiners can go feck themselves.

Except it’s not practical when you have more than 30 wallpapers that you cycle through automatically.