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10.5.2 Drop down menu transparency
- Thread starter t0ny
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Why doesn't apple just give us damn options? Why not put in a slider into the settings so every person can do it as they wish.
Didn't apple praise individuals a while ago ("Think different"?), so why all same settings for everyone?
Every person is different with different needs. Why not give us options as in linux/ beryl/ compiz/ kde-whatever.
Didn't apple praise individuals a while ago ("Think different"?), so why all same settings for everyone?
Every person is different with different needs. Why not give us options as in linux/ beryl/ compiz/ kde-whatever.
Many of us didn't have a problem with legibility. In fact, for me it's not even an "ohhh purty" thing. I found the transparency much more muted and subtle the way it was. The opacity makes the menus too bright and glaring. I found the transparency easier to look at.
In some cases the menus were almost impossible to read. I ran across a few myself. They put it back to "less glaring and bright" than every operating system since 1993.
Sorry, but your "preference" for a certain look is a lower priority over the fact that some situations it was unreadable. They made the right call.
why you whiners want everything to be an option? they've made the right move. legibility comes first. what's the use of a "pretty thing" (subjective) if it could not be used? all you people do is complaining about UI design options and i'm pretty sure most people in this forums have never designed an interface so don't even know what's involved.ok you are users, but aren't we all!? i'm pretty happy that apple fixed this issue, taking some steps back shows that they're humble to recognize that it was a bad idea. they have my support!
exactly!
They could put it right next to the option for more kernel panics.
It doesn't make sense to have an option to create a usability issue.
In your opinion.
This is NOT an usability issue for many people. Hence the word 'option'.
Yes, it is a usability issue for everyone. With the right screen behind the menu it's unreadable by anyone.
To have an option to not be able to read the screen is rather silly. Then again, the option to make the top menu bar unreadable is pretty silly too, so I can't argue the inconsistency of their decision.
do you know what usability is? when you've stated "for many people" you're assuming that some have had probs, right? and just for my curiosity, do you have readability or legibility probs now? i'm pretty sure many people have less. if so, apple did a great job.
Since I'm kind of procrastinating and this provided something to do, I tried to recreate illegible menu items, and came to the conclusion that for me, menus in 10.5.1 were pretty much impossible to be illegible.
I tried to create the background with the most distracting noise by using a black-and-white checkered background, and then on top of the background placed a rectangle with the same colour as the menus in Leopard before finally placing text on it. Below are the results:
![]()
At 75 percent opacity, the menu is pretty much completely legible for me.
![]()
Only at around 60 percent is usability starting to be affected noticeably.
Menus in 10.5.1 are at least 80 to 90 percent opaque in my opinion, and they blurred background images significantly, which is not present in the images above. So my verdict is: transparency works for me.
wctaiwan
P.S. I'm kind of against the "add it as a menu option" notion. If we have an option for every disagreement people have about OS X, System Preferences would be loaded with lots of minor junk. It's shown that some people do indeed like the new menus better, meh, each to their own I guess.
P.P.S. The translucent menu bar works well for some desktop backgrounds, nothing wrong with an option for that imo.
and this provided something to do, I tried to recreate illegible menu items, and came to the conclusion that for me, menus in 10.5.1 were pretty much impossible to be illegible.I tried to create the background with the most distracting noise by using a black-and-white checkered background, and then on top of the background placed a rectangle with the same colour as the menus in Leopard before finally placing text on it. Below are the results:
At 75 percent opacity, the menu is pretty much completely legible for me.
Only at around 60 percent is usability starting to be affected noticeably.
Menus in 10.5.1 are at least 80 to 90 percent opaque in my opinion, and they blurred background images significantly, which is not present in the images above. So my verdict is: transparency works for me.
wctaiwan
P.S. I'm kind of against the "add it as a menu option" notion. If we have an option for every disagreement people have about OS X, System Preferences would be loaded with lots of minor junk. It's shown that some people do indeed like the new menus better, meh, each to their own I guess.
P.P.S. The translucent menu bar works well for some desktop backgrounds, nothing wrong with an option for that imo.
I'm still missing the translucent menus
But I think there must have been a good reason for their decision
Perhaps it is the new 'list' option in stacks.
For subfolders sometimes up to 4 menu boxes can appear layered on top of each other.
I imagine this could have looked pretty messy with the previous transparency.
But I think there must have been a good reason for their decision
Perhaps it is the new 'list' option in stacks.
For subfolders sometimes up to 4 menu boxes can appear layered on top of each other.
I imagine this could have looked pretty messy with the previous transparency.
Well your wrong. I had at least two occasions I can remember that I had extreme difficulty viewing the menu options. Did it bother me that much? No, not really. But I'm not a 60 year old grandmother either. A large group of people would find both of your examples extremely irritating to have to deal with. And what is the exchange for this annoyance? Fanciness. No enhanced usage whatsoever.
Try your test again only put text in the background in roughly the same font and size. It is actually very easy to make the menu completely unreadable.
Try your test again only put text in the background in roughly the same font and size. It is actually very easy to make the menu completely unreadable.
Since I'm kind of procrastinating
I tried to create the background with the most distracting noise by using a black-and-white checkered background, and then on top of the background placed a rectangle with the same colour as the menus in Leopard before finally placing text on it. Below are the results:
At 75 percent opacity, the menu is pretty much completely legible for me.
Only at around 60 percent is usability starting to be affected noticeably.
Menus in 10.5.1 are at least 80 to 90 percent opaque in my opinion, and they blurred background images significantly, which is not present in the images above. So my verdict is: transparency works for me.
wctaiwan
P.S. I'm kind of against the "add it as a menu option" notion. If we have an option for every disagreement people have about OS X, System Preferences would be loaded with lots of minor junk. It's shown that some people do indeed like the new menus better, meh, each to their own I guess.
P.P.S. The translucent menu bar works well for some desktop backgrounds, nothing wrong with an option for that imo.
Personally, I too found the 10.5.1 menus more readable than the 10.5.2. The new menus seem like retrogression even from Tiger.
I honestly liked the older style menus in 10.5.1. The subtle blur and just the right opacity in my opinion was a lot better. I've tried finding a way to get them back by restoring stuff from 10.5.1 into 10.5.2 but, that didn't work. Does anyone know the file that is creating the menus?
Um, I think you're confused about something. No one ever thought that the .2 menus are less readable than .1, some people just think the .1 menus are prettier. There's absolutely no conceivable way that less transparency on the background can make things less readable, the only thing it could possibly do is make text more readable or have no change in readability.
It's true, if Apple put in an option for everything, OS X wouldn't be nearly as simple and intuitive as it is.
But, I think people care a lot more about the menus than the menu bar (I do anyway), and if they add an option for that, why not the menus? I would have been perfectly happy if the one option controlled both.
Both of these statements are irrelevant and incorrect.
It is the individual who decides what is legible to them and what is not. The transparency has NEVER been a problem for me in OS X Tiger or Leopard. There have been NO usability problems at all.
If both of you prefer it now, that is great, but the fact remains that this is only your individual opinion and you should refrain from forcing it on others as fact.
In light of this, an option to turn a particular degree of transparency on or off would not be silly at all.
David
What David said.
What about those of us who never had an issue with readability and who never set busy images as our backgrounds anyway? What about those of us who thought the older menus were just easier to look at because seemed more subtle than the new ones, because they "fit" the style of the rest of the screen better and didn't call too much attention to themselves they way they do now that they're bright, jarring, and opaque again.
We weren't the ones whining originally. There were lots of purists whining over the translucency in the menus and the menu bars, and Apple listened to them and gave them the option of a translucent menu bar or not. But what about those of us that liked them and thought the original decision was the best? We don't get the choice to turn the translucency in the drop-down menus back on. Why is it a problem when we whine, but not when the people who wanted the opacity back whined? Why is it a problem when we want the option to turn the translucency back on, but not when the purists want the option to turn it off?
There are those of us for whom aesthetics make a big impact on legibility. I have my menu bar set on translucency because I like the way it looks, but every time I see the new menus, it distracts me because the opacity clashes with the menu bar. And I like my menu bar translucent; I don't want to change it back.
If all the whiners in 10.5.1 got their option to turn the translucent menu bar on or off, why are the whiners in 10.5.2 wrong for wanting the option to turn the translucency in the menus back on? It's definitely not a usability problem for everyone. Lots of us got along with the translucency just fine. Don't say it's a problem for everyone when, for the vast majority of us, it actually wasn't.
What about those of us who never had an issue with readability and who never set busy images as our backgrounds anyway? What about those of us who thought the older menus were just easier to look at because seemed more subtle than the new ones, because they "fit" the style of the rest of the screen better and didn't call too much attention to themselves they way they do now that they're bright, jarring, and opaque again.
We weren't the ones whining originally. There were lots of purists whining over the translucency in the menus and the menu bars, and Apple listened to them and gave them the option of a translucent menu bar or not. But what about those of us that liked them and thought the original decision was the best? We don't get the choice to turn the translucency in the drop-down menus back on. Why is it a problem when we whine, but not when the people who wanted the opacity back whined? Why is it a problem when we want the option to turn the translucency back on, but not when the purists want the option to turn it off?
There are those of us for whom aesthetics make a big impact on legibility. I have my menu bar set on translucency because I like the way it looks, but every time I see the new menus, it distracts me because the opacity clashes with the menu bar. And I like my menu bar translucent; I don't want to change it back.
If all the whiners in 10.5.1 got their option to turn the translucent menu bar on or off, why are the whiners in 10.5.2 wrong for wanting the option to turn the translucency in the menus back on? It's definitely not a usability problem for everyone. Lots of us got along with the translucency just fine. Don't say it's a problem for everyone when, for the vast majority of us, it actually wasn't.
Blending the background into the foreground never, ever improves readability. Ever. Ever. Ever.
You may like the way it looks, you may prefer the way it looks, you may not like the way it looks without as much translucency, but it is less readable. That is not arguable.
Of all the things in all the world to worry about it amazes me that semi-see-through menu dropdowns is anywhere near the top of anyones list.
You may like the way it looks, you may prefer the way it looks, you may not like the way it looks without as much translucency, but it is less readable. That is not arguable.
Of all the things in all the world to worry about it amazes me that semi-see-through menu dropdowns is anywhere near the top of anyones list.
It doesn't amaze me half as much as your inability to understand this is down to user opinion.
David