I was so eager to see how Leopard preformed on my aging PowerBook. It installed, and the computer restarted. I went through the normal setup, and everything seemed nice and polished. So when I got to the Desktop, I wanted to see for myself how the non-transparent Dock looked like at the bottom of the screen. I went into Terminal and entered the following code:

Then after the Dock restarted, and the new Dock was flat and dark, but I realized that something else was different. My eyes floated to the top of the screen to see a non-transparent Menu Bar. Yes! Disabling the 3D Dock made the Menu Bar "normal."

See and Belive!

did you get a decent performance increase disabling the 3d dock? I would expect you would making this a reasonable way to improve performance on aging machines...

No it doesn't. The reason you have a non-transparent menu bar is because you're running Leopard on an older PowerBook. Only machines capable of Quartz Extreme and Core Image display the transparent menubar.

Click to view attachment

Also. The 2D Dock is transparent it just has a dark(er) opacity.

Want me to try on my MacBook Pro?

That's better. I actually like the 3D dock, it's a cool idea. But in reality it takes up a quarter of my screen. Why sacrifice larger icons for a dock on an angle? Beats me.

And the finder bar looks kinda ODD with dark or really brightly-patterned backgrounds... glad that there's a simple hack out there. Thanks!

I have a 2D Dock and a transparent menubar.

For a nice little FPS boost I used Quartz Debug to Enable Q2DE (Force Quit) it to make permanent, also used SwitchRes X to set the Display to 70Hz rather than 60.

Not Need on my machine but every little helps. window scaling, movement and genie effect and Dock magnification seem smoother now as well.

Well, how do you explain this:

And how's overall performance on your powerbook? I have almost the same config, i'm wondering if i should install Leo or stick to the well-working Tiger install?

Yes...

But, are you sure the Menu Bar was transparent before you invoked that Terminal command? Also, after invoking that code, does it kill all transparency? Are drop-down menus from the Menu Bar and Quick Look still transparent, or opaque?

It does not kill all transparency only turns the dock from a glass one to a 2d one..

It does kill all transparency. What's weird, is that the PowerBook, on older builds it had Transparency.

Man, he has a 1.5Ghz PowerBook. It's not considered "older PowerBook" yet, and it does have both QE and CI!

Either way, this does _not_ turn off menubar translucency for all users, apparently. At least it doesn't on my MacBook. We need a separate defaults-write trick for the menubar. ASAP.

I like the menu bar the way it is actually.

What's this Q2DE trick?

I don't get what you are saying, that menubar is still transparent. (You can see the background pattern through it)

I have an iBook G4 1.42ghz and I've done this yesterday. It DOES NOT make the menu bar transparency go away. The only time the menu bar is "normal" is when the wallpaper is black or dark.

OK, this is strange, why would a PowerBook with a better graphics card get it disabled when an iBook doesn't. That Screenshot says that when I disable the Dock, the Transparency comes back.

I don't know..but this is as close as I can get.. i haven't rebooted to try:

defaults write com.apple.MenuBarClock Transparency -float 0.0

or it could be:

defaults write com.apple.MenuBarClock Transparency -float 1.0

can someone try and report? the default is 0.8 ..

also this: http://www.manytricks.com/blog/?id=10

looks like it's about the clock, not the menubar itself.

The two pictures you posted are different, try using the same image for both 3D dock on and off.

On my system the menubar stayed transparent when the 3D dock was disabled.
As a test I switched back to the default "star field" background and turned off the 3D dock. I then went into Display preferences and played with the gamma settings (profiles) and much to my surprise the menubar appeared to be non-transparent. (Although it still was ever so slightly)

So maybe this could be affected by different monitors, gamma settings, wallpapers, etc.

i don't get this whole thing at all.what's the point of this ?
2d dock and non-transparent menubar you have in tiger ...
new feature of Leopard is new desktop right ?










~R

*a* new feature. it's not _the_ new feature. and most people, it seems, want to get rid of the translucent menubar as soon as possible. (rightly so imnsho.)

A-men to that.

OK, Here are the screenshots you have all been waiting for.

Those screenshots don't prove anything.

My Powerbook 1.67Ghz with ATI 9700 shows the transparent menu bar when using both the 2D and 3D docks. Just like my macbook pro does.

yea, that trick doesn't do anything to my menubar on the macbook core duo. its still transparent and then i have a 2D dock.

My iBook G4 has no transparent menu bar with a fresh install.
???

How do we know that you didn't just put a block of white on the top of your wallpaper?

Because I didn't. Look at those images. The Apple's are different. That computer is using a legit backround. The one that Apple provided.

I highly doubt Numberzz would go through all this trouble of writing a news story, etc, without some truth behind what's going on with his transparency issues. Besides - what would be the point of doing so?

truth yes, but it seems to be restricted to _his_ computer! it simply isn't a tip for general use. OBVIOUSLY it doesn't work for other people. it's nothing against numberzz as a person or computer user or dev or hacker or whatever, it simply doesn't help other people out there to solve the problem of the translucent menubar.

Theres a new little application for do that

OpaqueMenuBar

See! Problem Solved.

Okay, I just tried this out. Dock is now 2D, but my menu bar is still transparent ?? Do I need to reboot?

For people who feel queasy in Terminal:
Dockscrew

Oh, yes, we all know that anyway. My post was talking about Numberzz's transparency issue alone, as no one else can seem to replicate it.

However, I think it'd be good to understand what's going on with Numberzz's PowerBook. Obviously when he set his Dock to 2D, it changed a setting or something. We just need to figure out what it was... =/

It's not the graphics card...I think. All builds, 466 to 559, that I have used on it, have had a see-through menu bar. Do you think Apple changed the System Reqs?

When I first rebooted after installing Leopard on my Mac Mini, it was opaque. Next reboot it was transparent, and it's stayed that way since. I'm guessing a bug, but the fact that there is some sort of programming path that gives an opaque menu bar opens up all kinds of possibilities.

If only I could get my hierarchical menus back on Dock items. I hadn't even noticed they were gone in the seeds... Makes the dock kind of useless to me.

Is there a way to set the level of transparency on the taskbar?

Sorry to burst your bubble here Numberzz

Click to view attachment

As you can see from the screenshot, 1.5ghz Powerbook with the retail build of Leopard

Taskbar? This isn't windows and there are no tasks in that bar lol. However to answer your question, if you had read the posts:



This is not confirmed as far as I can see but I would presume it works on most Macs.

the installer one isnt transparent on my imac, will update once installed

Update: interesting!
Click to view attachment

What the hell? I have the exact same PowerBook as you. Hmm...

I'm sure Apple will be coming out with something like this very soon. Personally I don't mind the way the dock looks, but a way to adjust it should have been provided.

Apparently if you don't have hardware accelerated Core Image you dont get blur or a transparent menu bar.

So Apple is punishing us because we're able to run CI?

At least your dock is usable

my dock is now 2d. but my menu bar is still the leopard standard.

Now what about rounded menu bar top corners?