Opaque menubar solution

[espoir]

Here's a small free app allowing you to make your MenuBar opaque if you don't like the way it is in leopard:
http://www.eternalstorms.at/utilities/opaquemenubar/index.html

install/uninstall instructions are inside of a download package (<500kb)

And the second option:
Another app which can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/mdsw/ may allow you to choose the color of your menu bar - it edits your wallpaper automatically to add the strip of desired color

[NATO]

I just tried this app and it works great. The only issue I have (and I don't think it's the fault of the app, rather how Apple renders the menu bar) is that the text on the menu bar when totally opaque looks rather jagged and aliased.

I really wish Apple hadn't mucked about with the Leopard Menu Bar... or at least give us the option to have it semi-transparent or not.

[Dillinger]

That solution is all well and good for people with rotating backgrounds, but if you use the same background image for a prolonged amount of time (I'm sure I'm not the only one..) it's just as effective to edit the original image (assuming it's already the exact dimensions of your screen) with a custom bar 21 pixels high at the very top. That way you can make it whatever colour, add whatever texture and really impress the ladies.

Just remember that the effect from the menubar blurs and brightens the ***** out of whatever is underneath it, so use darker colours so they don't look all over-exposed.

[Wayfarer]

What about those who WANT the translucent menu bar, but can't have it?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=374851

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=89234&d=1193617585

Yeah, I'm still waiting for a solution to that.

[Dillinger]

You always want what you can't have.

Personally I agree with the seemingly enormous amount of people who are against the fancy-for-the-sake-of-being-fancy route that Apple took with some of their design elements in Leopard, I just wanted to show an alternative to sitting in the corner and sobbing like a little girl.

[Wayfarer]

You always want what you can't have.

Throw that cheese and wine my way please, because I will certainly lose my mind if I can't have my translucent menu bar anytime soon. ;)

[MacMan123]

I like my menu bar

[espoir]

first post is updated

[Dillinger]

By the way NATO, try playing around with the 'Font smoothing style' setting under the 'Appearance' section of the System Preferences. The monitor type recommendations have never been spot on for me, currently got it set to the CRT setting for my flat panels and it looks perfecto.

[slowpoke]

All this does is stick a row of white pixels underneath the menu bar - It's still transparent, but when it's got white space underneath, that hardly matters.

Well, it matters to me, because the new properties of the transparent dock are really irritating me. I'm waiting for a real fix rather than a cosmetic one.

[boz0]

I can't open the Opaque Menu Bar dmg, always getting an error that basically says Classic is unsupported.

I realize this problem is not tied to the app itself, of course, but still, it's weird, as I can open just about any other dmg.

Any ideas?

EDIT : duh, turns out I had copied an old classic app (an hex editor) as part of a package, and, for some reason, it associated itself with .dmg files. The offender has been terminated with extreme prejudice. :)