[rem]

Does anyone know how to restore menu transparency to the pre-10.5.2 level? Not the menu bar, menus. Please advise.

[rem]

This section of the forum seems to be 1/2 dead. It cannot be rocket science to adjust the transparency of menus, can it?? With Linux I can infinitely fine tune every aspect of look and feel.

BTW, I was looking for instructions in other forums and came across some people writing back and forth about it and someone who seemed to consider himself a User Experience God was coping an attitude with people who just want an option to make the menus transparent again like 10.5.0/1. They didn't care if its a hidden command line or old file that needs to be put back. Is it so difficult for Apple to tuck away a command for people who don't want their transparency changed?? I don't get it. It seems like one would have to be a real control freak to dictate such a thing.

[adamfishercox]

Mac OS X != Linux. There is no easy way to do it, AFAIK. It probably relies on a PDF somewhere so you'd have to replace that.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by rem 

It seems like one would have to be a real control freak to dictate such a thing.

What do you think Steve Jobs is?

[rem]

Originally Posted by adamfishercox 

Mac OS X != Linux.

Yep. I like Linux but love OS X / Apple. Despite the above gripe, nothing comes close for me to OS X as my primary desktop machine.

I really can't understand, though, how the folks who made such a great system can make decisions like this! At least leave us a little back door command line way to change it back

I found a survey on another OS X forum about this issue. Currently most people who voted (127 votes or 46.86%) voted "I preferred the translucent menus back in 10.5.1 and would like the option back."

The next highest ranking category (51 votes or 18.82%) = "I prefer the near-opaque menus we have in 10.5.2 but wouldn't mind the option of both."

8.12% voted: "Opaque menus are best for EVERYONE! They're the most usable!"

I could have told Apple this before the aforementioned survey, maybe they should pay me consulting fees

[rem]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

What do you think Steve Jobs is?

When I think about CEOs, I often think way overpaid, fat &@$! but Steve is truly an exception, what a visionary! Oh and yeah: control freak

[adamfishercox]

No doubt there IS a command line way to change it. It just hasn't been figured out. As I said before, it also probably relies on a PDF somewhere. Find it, change it, and voila. But easier said then done.

[rem]

My guess is its something like (example only, don't try this at home):

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'alpha' 0.6

...where alpha is one of 100's of possibilities in /System/Library/Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework/QuartzCore [I sifted through them hoping to find something like "menu_translucency" (no such luck) so I have no idea which one controls menu translucency] & 0.6 is a guesstimate.

[rem]

I downgraded to 10.5.1 (10.5.2 > 10.5.0 > 10.5.1) which took up an entire morning getting everything the way I like it again. I won't trust Apple again for future software updates without researching in detail what they changed and seeing UI changes first if they make any more. I hope there will be a solution soon to get the latest release + the ability to have the very cool menus.

It looks way cool again!! And OS X Mail seems more stable (it was crashing with 10.5.2).