Filed under: Hacks, TUAW Tips, Leopard
TUAW Tip: Get rid of the Leopard Dock shelf

We already noted the controversy over the side-positioned Dock in Leopard and Apple's apparent response. This leaves untouched, however, the fact that many folks just don't like the new Dock glass shelf effect even when the Dock is at the bottom of the screen. And that brings us to the first TUAW Tip of the Leopard era; you can turn off the shelf with a simple terminal command as revealed above (full size picture -- the site that first revealed this trick has since gone down).
Not having Leopard yet myself, I can't confirm this, but this does appear to be a legitimate way of getting rid of the shelf. Now if somebody can discover a similar preference to make the menubar fully opaque everything will be set back to rights!
[via Daring Fireball]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ryan said 4:33PM on 10-25-2007
I'm fairly certain the menubar is already fully opaque.
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da4 said 4:50PM on 10-25-2007
this command works as advertised, confirmed on 9A581.
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Matthias Gansrigler said 4:44PM on 10-25-2007
I've created a little utility called 2DOrNot2D which will let you switch between the 3D and 2D appearance of the Dock in Leopard with the click of a button.
www.eternalstorms.at/utilities/2dornot2d
Take care,
Matthias
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ErneX said 4:46PM on 10-25-2007
I did this yesterday, it certainly works and I prefer my dock on the bottom with this style more than the default.
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Lex said 5:31PM on 10-25-2007
Hopefully the Onyx team add this to a new Leopard release of their product!
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Klink258 said 4:51PM on 10-25-2007
I'm fairly certain the menubar is not fully opaque.
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Meatleg said 5:01PM on 10-25-2007
Im glad to see this, but look at that ICAL ICON! it doesnt say JUL 17th! and it doesnt look like it is running. does that mean that ical will finally display the current date as its icon?!? a minor little thing, but a cool one...
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nxiv said 4:58PM on 10-25-2007
I actually want to make the dock transparent, e.g. unsanity cleardock.
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Richard said 4:59PM on 10-25-2007
I'm finding it really hard to see the lights under running application icons on the new dock. I'll definitely be running this command when I get home tonight.
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ryan said 5:00PM on 10-25-2007
Klink258,
Gizmodo says that the menubar transparency is gone (and they actually have Leopard)
"Jason [Chen]: The new OS X theme seems nice. The transparency for the menubar is gone, but still reflects a little of what wallpaper you choose."
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Yvo said 5:04PM on 10-25-2007
Now only if they can fix the shared computers in Finder. I truly hate that new feature. I have an iBook running 10.4.10 and a Linux box running netatalk (afpd) yet the Shared "feature" under Finder uses Samba over AFP. So when I manually mount it as a AFP it no longer shows up in Finder but rather only on the desktop....
Oh and logging on to afp enabled machines takes 5-6x longer then it did under Tiger. I know, I know... it truly is a .0 product.
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noza said 5:09PM on 10-25-2007
@Yvo - "yet the Shared "feature" under Finder uses Samba over AFP. "
That just doesn't make any sense. Samba over AFP? Those aren't layerable. That's like saying "HTTP over FTP".
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uros said 5:13PM on 10-25-2007
Now that every Leopard user (who cares about their eye health) switched to the 2D Leopard dock, what's the point of drop shadows for icons, when the dock is darker than the shadow?
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kory said 5:27PM on 10-25-2007
@ Meatleg
Yes, the iCal icon FINALLY displays the current date! Hooray!
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Brandon said 5:29PM on 10-25-2007
What is the Terminal command for making the Dock 3-d again? Is it "defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO"?
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Johnny said 6:04PM on 10-25-2007
Just to see what it looked like (having never seen a developer release or pictures), I wonder if you can turn the 3D on the side. IMHO, I think the 3D looks cool (on the bottom), but I'll have to see tomorrow.
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Josh Helfferich said 6:09PM on 10-25-2007
That new glass dock is absolutely stunning, in my opinion!
It's good that there's a way to switch it, though, for those that don't feel the same way. Great post, TUAW!
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john russell said 6:09PM on 10-25-2007
Too bad the corners are rounded and there is still that crosswalk. Maybe it's only me and my OCD, but I really liked that crisp, pixel-perfect edge.
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Quine said 6:15PM on 10-25-2007
THANK YOU!!!
This tip alone will keep me reading TUAW for at least another 6 months.
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Yvo said 7:49PM on 10-25-2007
@noza
How so... they are both protocols used to exchange files between computer A and computer B. I prefer to see AFP used over SMB. Instead of SMB being used before AFP.
In Leopard it even lumps them under the same category in System Preferences under Sharing called "File Sharing".
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