Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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: defaults write com.apple.Dock no-glass -boolean YES killall Dock 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kernalzero Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Also. The 2D Dock is transparent it just has a dark(er) opacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Want me to try on my MacBook Pro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLiDE FTW!!1 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 I have a 2D Dock and a transparent menubar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macprodan Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Well, how do you explain this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
labria Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatMusak Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Want me to try on my MacBook Pro? 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macprodan Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 It does not kill all transparency only turns the dock from a glass one to a 2d one.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 It does kill all transparency. What's weird, is that the PowerBook, on older builds it had Transparency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
labria Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Man, he has a 1.5Ghz PowerBook. It's not considered "older PowerBook" yet, and it does have both QE and CI! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryke Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John the Geek Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 I like the menu bar the way it is actually. What's this Q2DE trick? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Well, how do you explain this: I don't get what you are saying, that menubar is still transparent. (You can see the background pattern through it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonerdj Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonerdj Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryke Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 looks like it's about the clock, not the menubar itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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. 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R2k. Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryke Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 *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.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scj312 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 *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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 OK, Here are the screenshots you have all been waiting for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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