Eliminate Menu Bar Transparency

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.

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?

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?

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.

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!

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?

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)

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.

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.

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* 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.