The menus/menubar definitely clash now, imo. I do like the transparency... I hope to see the more translucent menus back soon.
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10.5.2 Drop down menu transparency
- Thread starter t0ny
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You're definitely not alone in liking the transparent menu bar. But I found it distracting from the start. My desktop images always conflicted with it, and made it difficult to read. Many images I use are cropped on the sides to fit, so there would often be a sharp line through the "F" of File and then through the clock. It looked bad and made the menu hard to read. I'm very glad Apple added an option to disable it. It would be great if they did the same for menus: you could have your translucent menus by default, and I could turn them off to suit my style.
The magnification feature of the dock is bad UI and violates historic Apple UI concepts by moving targets dynamically as you target them. Contrast the flowing dock with the stable and consistent menu bar. Great demo. Lousy work-a-day solution. And fortunately, Apple eventually added a disabling feature.
People get bent out of shape over the notion of Apple adding user customizability. This is odd, considering you can customize every single keyboard shortcut for every single application, including deleting existing ones and adding shortcuts where there were none. After that, what's a few more options to tweak translucency?
I'm glad Apple gave the option to disable the translucent menu bar, too, for all of those who didn't want it. That's all I want. The option to turn translucent menus back on. You can keep them off. And we're all happy
I don't see why it's so hard for some people to comprehend this idea of "can't we all just get along?"
So I guess my liking the dock (and my reasons have nothing to do with it "looking cool") is wrong? It's not bad UI; it's just a different way of working that isn't right for some people, and those people can turn it off. I clicked your link, and I never have any of those issues. I have magnification turned on just subtly enough so that I never have a problem "missing" anything; in fact, it makes hitting the icons easier for me, since when magnified, the icons become bigger and therefore gives me more screen leeway to click it. And I don't really get the "all icons look the same" thing. That's only a problem if you have lots of things minimized of the same file type, which I never do. Why would I when OS X offers me much better ways to manage my windows like Expose, Spaces, Hide, Cmd + Tab, and Cmd + ~? I never minimize windows. The only folders I have down there are "Documents," "Public," and "Downloads," which, by default, have their own unique icons, so there's no problem there either. Not only that, but you can give a folder a custom icon if you know how pretty easily. Basically, there are plenty of reasons it's good UI, too, and for those who disagree, they can turn it off.
I don't understand this either. I mean, TOO many options like in Windows or especially Linux could be confusing and disrupt productivity, which is the general reason for not having them. Whenever people suggest a slider to change transparency, I disagree, because I think that's a little too much, and it'd be hard to get it as perfect as Apple did. I just want an "on" or "off" option.
Time Machine won't let you restore 10.5.1, it just can't be done. It only restores files on your system, it doesn't actually overwrite anything per se.
Forgive a argument from the extreme: A mousing scheme where mousing left moved the cursor right and vice versa would be bad UI. Some people might actually like and prefer such a backwards system. But that would not mean it's not a poor UI design and most people would benefit from different approach (the obvious and normal mouse right moves cursor right).
So it is with the Dock. You're not "wrong" -- or somehow a deficient person -- for liking the Dock as it is. But that doesn't mean that the Dock has several features that are quite simply lesser UI design. And most people's computing experience on the Mac would be made easier and better if the Dock were improved fixed.
Other subtle, but substantial UI weaknesses include the grossly deficient Leopard folder icon set and weaknesses with the Finder.
Not true. Boot from the Leopard Install DVD and choose "Restore Time Machine Backup"... You can restore any previous backup from whatever day or week you have. So if you go and backup your entire drive from when you had 10.5.1, it definitely IS possible. What makes you say it's not possible?
I think the magnification of the Dock is there for the people who have too many icons in the Dock so they can see what they're clicking on.
have you tried that? let me now if it works!
Last night I was messing with the CoreUI folder and I think I messed something up because after that, my Mac Pro wouldn't even start up. So, I booted from the DVD and restored my 10.5.2 system back. It doesn't just replace files... it completely erases the hard drive that you're restoring onto and restores EVERYTHING you had from a specified backup. All you do is tell it what to restore and it restores it. Well, I chose a 10.5.2 session that I had and it worked... all of my settings were back and all of my files... it just worked. The only thing it did not restore were my Desktop, Downloads and Aperture library but, only because I chose not to back those items up in Preferences.
Precisely! You're last two words were the magic words, "TO ME". Yeah, to YOU the menu is very distracting, not to everyone. I agree with people saying the option should have been added to adjust transparency or have an on/off switch otherwise only the complaining people are getting what THEY want, it's not really fair.
On a side note someone mentioned this earlier but I'll add to it, not all of the menus were made more opaque in fact it was only the menu bar drop downs and the right-click contextuals. The print dialog and other menus were unchanged and I welcome that and hope Apple left them there on purpose.
Translucency adds a fresh look to the UI, now only they got rid of those dreaded aqua scrollbars.
I wholly agree that transparent menus look cool. But personally I find them harder to use than opaque menus. And I"ll assert that broadly speaking, this is lesser UI design -- it makes it harder to focus on important information.Precisely! You're last two words were the magic words, "TO ME". Yeah, to YOU the menu is very distracting, not to everyone.
...
Translucency adds a fresh look to the UI, now only they got rid of those dreaded aqua scrollbars.
To the contrary, I've not seen an explanation of the converse: how transparent menus improve usability.
Simple--they distract me less by being consistent with the translucent menu bar. Maybe that's "my problem" but it's caused by a bad GUI decision IMO. I think what most of us are saying, though, is that it doesn't detract from usability at all for many of us, so there's no reason to take it away for everyone. And no one's yet explained how giving the option to choose one or the other impedes usability when one can simply choose whichever is preferable.
I agree that choice here would be good. I'd like to see more choice in general for OS X customization.
There Is Transparency!!!!
Yes, yes, I know, but i have evidence. I am on 10.5.2. In .1, there was transparency, but in 10.5.2, Apple did not completely diminish transparency, there is still VERY little transparency, almost unoticeable, But I have seen the address bar through the history menu, not much, but more importantly, I can see my wallpaper through the Apple menu, and its surprisingly easy, here is a screenshot:
See it? I included some of the wallpaper in it.
Also, stand up and look down at the screen, your displays viewing angle will mess up the colors, making it easier to see through!!!
Yes, yes, I know, but i have evidence. I am on 10.5.2. In .1, there was transparency, but in 10.5.2, Apple did not completely diminish transparency, there is still VERY little transparency, almost unoticeable, But I have seen the address bar through the history menu, not much, but more importantly, I can see my wallpaper through the Apple menu, and its surprisingly easy, here is a screenshot:
See it? I included some of the wallpaper in it.
Also, stand up and look down at the screen, your displays viewing angle will mess up the colors, making it easier to see through!!!
I know it's still somewhat transparent. I've tried that. But it doesn't really serve a purpose when I can't tell.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
I think the bottomline is that a lot of us dislike the mishmash Apple had come to in Tiger in terms of clashing UIs, and they made some attempts at unification in Leopard, but it was not completely unified and obviously half-hearted if they're still tweaking basic UI elements.
Apple needs to get some great designer to think about the whole complete UI and come up with something beautiful again. When I was in high school and showed pre-release pictures of Mac OS X to some of my Windows friends, they said, "Wow! That's beautiful!"
We need a UI that is beautiful, consistent, and logical.
Like I happen to think the most beautiful part of Leopard is the menu bar--the black text on the whitish somewhat transparent bar is simple and beautiful. But then the Safari window underneath it is like battleship gray. It's kind of back to the platinum look in OS 8 and 9.
Apple needs to get some great designer to think about the whole complete UI and come up with something beautiful again. When I was in high school and showed pre-release pictures of Mac OS X to some of my Windows friends, they said, "Wow! That's beautiful!"
We need a UI that is beautiful, consistent, and logical.
Like I happen to think the most beautiful part of Leopard is the menu bar--the black text on the whitish somewhat transparent bar is simple and beautiful. But then the Safari window underneath it is like battleship gray. It's kind of back to the platinum look in OS 8 and 9.
I'm confused by the description of the current transparency as "very little." I find it easy (too easy) to see what's behind the menus, as shown in that screen shot. And so I still consider it quite transparent, even though it's muting and blurring the underlying image. But do others find it difficult to discern what's behind the menus? How is that seen as "very little"?
Are you using a desktop Mac or a different screen? I'm on a MacBook. The only thing I can imagine is that perhaps the translucency shows up differently on different screens, but I can't see any of your background behind the menu in that in that picture. I can see the translucency quite clearly if I adjust my screen back as far as it goes so the colors and contrast start to look weird, but when looking at the screen normally, I can hardly tell they're transparent, and it sounds like most people here can't. Do you have a laptop that you normally keep the screen as far back as it goes?
There's an screenshot I just took of my own menus. Again, the only hint of transparency to my eyes is that the menu looks very slightly darker where it's in line with the tabs bar. Otherwise, without moving my screen to an extreme angle, the effect is hardly there at all. If I look very closely, I can just about tell it's transparent, but I want to be able to actually SEE what's behind it.
So has anyone found a Terminal command or the proper .plist for this yet?
Interesting side note... in 10.5 and 10.5.1 the amount of transparency varied quite a bit between my MacBook Pro, my iMac, and my fiancee's Macbook. I'm assuming it was just a matter of the contrast and display quality, but the difference was notable. It seemed the most transparent on my MBP.
Interesting. That must be why some people seem to find it nearly opaque and there are even a few people that *still* find it too transparent (sigh). How was the translucency on her MacBook? Because I just opened GIMP and messed around with a few images, comparing them to my menus, and the level of translucency that I'm seeing is equal to about 97-98% opacity in GIMP. For me, it's quite maddening.
As far as I know, you can't actually pull it down, but if you start typing an address in the URL bar, then it'll bring down a menu of completion options. This one actually appears translucent to me.