Filed under: Hacks, Mods, Leopard
Opaque Leopard menubar solved
The famed annoyance of the translucent Leopard menubar has finally been solved. Steve Miner has posted a tip that involves changing an environment variable by editing a plist to make Leopard think it's running on an older Mac that doesn't support the translucency. Once done, it will make your menubar solid white. The guys at Many Tricks (of Butler fame) take this to the next level with Menu Bar Tint, which places a pleasing tint gradient over your now blindingly white menubar, and thus returning your Leopard desktop to harmony. So there you go, if you just what an opaque menubar, run Miner's trick; if then want it to look better, have a look at Menu Bar Tint.
Update: Gruber points out that commenters on Mac OSX Hints have discovered that Miner's original tip includes a kind of scaling factor. Apparently a setting of 0.63 gives you a greyish menubar "like the opaque menu bar Leopard shows on systems with older video cards." Doing it this way does not require you to have Menu Bar Tint running all the time, and yet apparently still gives a gradient (see below).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
dal20402 said 8:13AM on 11-16-2007
I don't understand the hate for the translucent menubar. I like it because it helps keep the focus on the content of the frontmost window, where it belongs. After using Leopard for awhile, the Tiger menu bar looks like a big blinding white distraction. I know where the menus are and don't need to be constantly reminded of their presence.
The translucent menubar also adds a nice element of color coordination to the desktop.
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Leonard Nimrod said 8:16AM on 11-16-2007
Solved is a little strong.
Some remaining issues:
1) You have to keep Menubar Tint in your startup items in order to recreate the effect each time you log in.
2) The menus have yet to be solved; they are still translucent.
Until these two things are resolved it won't be solved.
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Marco F. said 8:25AM on 11-16-2007
I kinda like the transparant menubar as well. Although I admit, it took some getting used to.
And.. if you force the system into thinking it's running on "old" hardware I imagine it will have effect on certain other features as well (e.g. the photo mozaik screensaver... will it still work after screwing with the environment?)?
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DrWho said 8:37AM on 11-16-2007
Add me to the list of people liking the menu bar, though I do always have a solid background on my desktop. It blends in nicely.
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Frank Furter said 8:39AM on 11-16-2007
@3 - "will it still work after screwing with the environment?"
Of course not - that's why we have forums, for people to come and bitch that there system is all screwed up, all the while cursing Apple. This is what happens when you start pulling in Winblows fans. You MUST alter things on your computer, don't you know?
Oh wait, I'm an Apple fanboy who drinks the koolaid.....
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Jean Klare said 8:40AM on 11-16-2007
Or, you could just use an image editor to make a desktop picture with a white band along the top...
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John said 12:49PM on 1-05-2008
I believe that this is exactly what app Opaque Menu Bar does
http://www.eternalstorms.at/utilities/opaquemenubar/
Scott said 8:45AM on 11-16-2007
I really can't understand the menu bar hate. I've been using Leopard for 2 weeks now, and from the moment I started with it, I've never had a problem. Maybe people just have distracting wallpaper that makes it hard to read.
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emil said 8:53AM on 11-16-2007
Ahh, this finally explains why my menubar hasn't been causing me any frustration -- I'm on a 1.33GHz 12" G4. I didn't understand what anyone was talking about..
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Blogmaniac said 9:03AM on 11-16-2007
Yo nimrod,
Good comment. I also do not like the translucent menus since they look ugly and diseased on certain windows - Ideal if Apple gave a display preference to control the translucence from opaque (sensible) to clear (knock yourselves blind).
But credit IS due to SteveMiner for the next step in the evolutionary direction.
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niclet said 9:15AM on 11-16-2007
"... like the opaque menu bar Leopard shows on systems with older video cards."
If I understand, my PowerBook G4 12" last gen. got an old video card?
Why is it so impossible to have translucent menubar on it? I find it cool and love to have have it. All my menus are transparent, all transitions are supported and some older PB G4 are able to support the translucent menubar feature. I mostly think it's a bug that Apple doesn't want to fix at all.
So, now if Menu Bar Tint developers could "reverse" this for us!
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Adrian vG said 9:15AM on 11-16-2007
The translucent menubar looks nice even with the space wallpaper. And the transparency in the menues is cute too.
But how do you get Safari to save the password in this form without filling in the New Users panel?
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Jerald Sheets said 9:17AM on 11-16-2007
Add me to the confused list.
This almost completely pathological hate of the menu bar escapes me entirely.
I have a bit darker background, sure. I can see portions of my background, sure. It is NOT distracting, it does NOT cause trouble. I can see everything I need to see.
This is a weird thing that I think has arisen because a few personalities in the mac community came out saying they didn't like it, so everyone piled on because it was "cool" to dislike the menubar.
While I'm at it.. I like, no I LOVE stacks. Both the Applications folder and the Download folder. I appreciate the time that went into developing that usability. It's convenient and quick, and I don't have to have my own downloads folder on the desktop or in the dock any more. Hurray!
I think people are just looking for things to whine about.
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Marc said 9:17AM on 11-16-2007
what about having a 20px white line on the top of your desktop image?
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BC said 9:20AM on 11-16-2007
On my "older system" the menu bar has a nice grayscale gradient already, so it seems to me something is inaccurate in the update to the article. Either
1) setting the property to something like 0.63 actually creates a grayscale tint gradient
2) the setting just makes the menubar transparent and so it does not resemble the way it looks on older systems
3) older systems (video cards) differ in how they deal with the Leopard menu bar.
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Cycomachead said 9:30AM on 11-16-2007
I just don't like the transparency because it doesn't seem to fit w/ everything else. But I agree the menus are more annoying.
As for #2, you first point can be achieved by setting a gradient of 0.63 or whatever you like/
For the other who think white it to bright set the gradient to 0.5 or better yet 1.
1 should give the effect of a solid black bar - which is quite nice, but the menu names are harder to read.
I like the .63 gradient. It's a bit darker than tiger and that's good, but there is still plenty of contrast between the menu names and the background.
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Joe Maller said 9:58AM on 11-16-2007
Great! Now onto restoring sub-pixel text rendering.
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jasonk said 9:52AM on 11-16-2007
I don't mind the menu bar either. It's actually a bit better for my screen. In my last LCD monitor running 10.2-4, I noticed a bit of "burn in" in the menu bar area. I'd figure making that a bit less of a striking white will keep that from happening as quickly.
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apeguero said 10:01AM on 11-16-2007
I used to use Menufela before Leopard went out and killed all APE apps. It's used to auto-hide the Menu bar ala Windows Start Menu. Is there a program that can do this on Leopard?
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Spyderdude002 said 3:54PM on 2-10-2008
Same, i would Like to hide the top bar similar to the way the dock can hide