Get The Speed of Panther's Menus Back in Tiger or Leopard!

[TheSpaz]

Okay, I have to explain what this one actually means. In Panther, all
menus had a full speed refresh rate which made the menu selections a
lot smoother when you were navigating through a menu quickly. When
Tiger came out, suddenly a lot of menus in the newer Apps used a
slower refresh rate resulting in jumpy menu selections when rolling
your mouse through a menu.

Here's how to test it.

Open iTunes and click on the Apple menu and then quickly move your
cursor up and down and watch the menu item selections follow your
cursor exactly. Nice and smooth right?
Now switch to the Finder and do the same thing. Notice the selection
jumping around and even skipping completely over items here and there?
It's not nearly as smooth as it is in iTunes. That's because there's a
setting in iTunes' info.plist file. I'll explain that in a second.

To get the faster menus (such as in iTunes) simply find any App that
you want to modify and control-click on the icon and choose "Show
Package Contents". Then open "Contents". Next, while you still have
that window open, find and open Terminal.app in your Utilities folder.
Then type in the following text.

defaults write

Edit: Make sure there's a space after "defaults write "
Now click on the "Contents" folder we left open and drag "Info.plist"
into the Terminal window. It should now show you the path of the
info.plist file. Now, we can't have .plist on the file name so delete
".plist" and hit the space bar again.

Then paste the following text after it:

HIWindowFlushAtFullRefreshRate -boolean Yes

Now you should be able to open the App you modified and the menus will
now be exactly as smooth as iTunes.

I hope all of this made sense. I'm happy now anyways.

 

[Cromulent]

Good tip there. Not sure I could be bothered to it for all my apps but people with slower computers would benefit I am sure.

 

[TheSpaz]

Good tip there. Not sure I could be bothered to it for all my apps but people with slower computers would benefit I am sure.

You have no idea how much better this is. It "feels" better now. It's a lot smoother and makes your computing experience actually "feel" a bit faster now. It's like the difference between having a choppy minimize effect and a smooth minimize effect. Smooth always wins!

 

[Cromulent]

You have no idea how much better this is. It "feels" better now. It's a lot smoother and makes your computing experience actually "feel" a bit faster now. It's like the difference between having a choppy minimize effect and a smooth minimize effect. Smooth always wins!

True but I use keyboard shortcuts as often as possible thus removing the problem entirely.

 

[kolax]

Terminal said it couldn't find the command:

HIWindowFlushAtFullRefreshRate -boolean Yes

 

[TheSpaz]

Is anyone else going to try this? This is a really great discovery by the way. There's no other reports of anyone ever doing this. I googled it.

 

[TheSpaz]

Terminal said it couldn't find the command:

HIWindowFlushAtFullRefreshRate -boolean Yes

Hmmm

Did you put a space after defaults write ?

 

[TheSpaz]

I just did this and it worked:

defaults write /Applications/Adobe\ Illustrator\ CS3/Adobe\ Illustrator.app/Contents/Info HIWindowFlushAtFullRefreshRate -boolean Yes

Edit: I think you need to have BSD Subsystem installed in order to do defaults write commands.

 

[PCMacUser]

Safari feels snappier.

 

[TheSpaz]

Safari feels snappier.

You're probably kidding because everyone says Safari seems snappier but, it really should feel snappier... at least the menus. So really... that does apply in this case.

defaults write /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info HIWindowFlushAtFullRefreshRate -boolean Yes

 

[KYBOSH]

*Marking to try later*

 

[TheSpaz]

If you guys have Property List Editor, you can edit the info.plist file with that and it does the same thing.

 

[redAPPLE]

now my question is, why is this not a default configuration?

 

[TheSpaz]

now my question is, why is this not a default configuration?

I have no idea... but, don't you like it so much better? I'm loving this!

 

[squeeks]

You're probably kidding because everyone says Safari seems snappier but, it really should feel snappier...

thats just a classic response anytime anything osx realated happens, reguardless if it has anything to do with safari

 

[TheSpaz]

thats just a classic response anytime anything osx realated happens, reguardless if it has anything to do with safari

I know that Squeeks.

Oh yeah, by the way... are you gonna give this a try. It really changes things for the better. It's as if my computer got a speed boost. I wish there was a way to make a droplet to drop an App onto and have the droplet apply this string to the info.plist file within the App's contents. Anyone know how to do that?

 

[PCMacUser]

I know that Squeeks.

Oh yeah, by the way... are you gonna give this a try. It really changes things for the better. It's as if my computer got a speed boost. I wish there was a way to make a droplet to drop an App onto and have the droplet apply this string to the info.plist file within the App's contents. Anyone know how to do that?

Well, if you discover a trick to make the genie effect on the dock not look like it's going at 2 frames per second, I'd be interested to know!

 

[TheSpaz]

Well, if you discover a trick to make the genie effect on the dock not look like it's going at 2 frames per second, I'd be interested to know!

First of all... Leopard's 3D Dock is slow. Minimizing to the 3D Dock looks like crap. Second of all, if you use the 2D Dock in Leopard, you will notice a great speed increase in animations. Here's how to use the 2D Dock:

Open Terminal and paste this in:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

Then hit enter and type:

killall Dock

Also, if an App crashes while it's launching in the Dock, the minimizing will become a lot choppier until you kill the Dock. If you force quit an App while it's launching, it will also make the Dock choppy. I figured this out way back in Panther and the bug is still there. I submitted this bug to Apple and they haven't fixed it yet.

 

[RoboCop001]

I tried comparing the Recent Items menu in iTunes to how it responds in Finder, but there's barely a difference for me. Maybe one or two extra highlighted items appear for a split second though... I dunno, seems too little to go out of my way though.

I do, however, notice a little bit of a slow down when my Application folder stack opens. It's at the limit of grid mode, so it doesn't even list everything, but it is a tiny big choppy at the end of the opening animation.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I tried to compare Safari and the Finder menus and found that even though Safari was quite fast in Leopard the Finder menus came up instantly, faster than I could actually see them when scrolling through. So I suppose I don't need this "fix."

[edit] After looking at it again, it seems that the Safari menus are just as fast but they appeared to be slower at first because they are longer (Bookmarks, History).

Just tried it in iTunes and my menus are just as fast there. I don't know why you guys are having problems. Unless you're still running Tiger. I used to have slower menus in Tiger. In Leopard it's been nothing but speed.

 

[TheSpaz]

I tried to compare Safari and the Finder menus and found that even though Safari was quite fast in Leopard the Finder menus came up instantly, faster than I could actually see them when scrolling through. So I suppose I don't need this "fix."

[edit] After looking at it again, it seems that the Safari menus are just as fast but they appeared to be slower at first because they are longer (Bookmarks, History).

Just tried it in iTunes and my menus are just as fast there. I don't know why you guys are having problems. Unless you're still running Tiger. I used to have slower menus in Tiger. In Leopard it's been nothing but speed.

I don't mean opening Menus. I mean browsing through them. The actual blue highlight (or graphite) follows the cursor with greater accuracy in iTunes than in the Finder or Safari or basically any App that was created with Tiger and later. Open the Apple menu WHILE you're in iTunes and drag the cursor up and down and watch the highlight rapidly follow the cursor really smoothly. Then open the Finder or Safari if you prefer and click the Apple menu and move your mouse up and down again to see that the highlight skips around and isn't as fluid anymore. It's as if it's going at a slower framerate and doesn't refresh as often.

 

[hankolerd]

First of all... Leopard's 3D Dock is slow. Minimizing to the 3D Dock looks like crap.

What's this talk about? My 3D dock has given me no troubles and is not any slower than Tiger's Dock....It looks like your computer should easily compare or outperform my computer, so I am surprised it is slow for you.

 

[Lartymarf]

What's this talk about? My 3D dock has given me no troubles and is not any slower than Tiger's Dock....It looks like your computer should easily compare or outperform my computer, so I am surprised it is slow for you.

Just an additional point.

I'm on a 1.5 G4 and my 3D Dock is FAST and SMOOTH!
None of this choppy stuff... choppy dock owners must
have upgraded rather than erase and install.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I don't mean opening Menus. I mean browsing through them. The actual blue highlight (or graphite) follows the cursor with greater accuracy in iTunes than in the Finder or Safari or basically any App that was created with Tiger and later. Open the Apple menu WHILE you're in iTunes and drag the cursor up and down and watch the highlight rapidly follow the cursor really smoothly. Then open the Finder or Safari if you prefer and click the Apple menu and move your mouse up and down again to see that the highlight skips around and isn't as fluid anymore. It's as if it's going at a slower framerate and doesn't refresh as often.

I did take what you said as moving left to right and vice versa while mousing over the windows which in the past had been my problem.

I just tried what you said and it's just as fast in Finder as it is in iTunes. It follows my mouse perfectly. I don't know it could be any faster other than it reading my mind. Also, I don't know why it doesn't affect me but it does a lot of others. Really strange.

Just an additional point.

I'm on a 1.5 G4 and my 3D Dock is FAST and SMOOTH!
None of this choppy stuff... choppy dock owners must
have upgraded rather than erase and install.

I had the same experience. My Upgrade was buggy and the animations were choppy. I did an Erase & Install and everything is silky smooth now. I have a 12" 1.5GHz PB as well (1.25GB RAM).

 

[TheSpaz]

Just an additional point.

I'm on a 1.5 G4 and my 3D Dock is FAST and SMOOTH!
None of this choppy stuff... choppy dock owners must
have upgraded rather than erase and install.

It must be a graphics driver issue then. I hope Apple sorts it out soon.

Here's the thread I started at MacNN years ago: http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/254801/everyone-let-apple-know-menu-hilites/

Nobody cared then either. It makes me sad that other people don't understand this. Seems like I'm the only one that cares. Why is it always just me who cares... I mean, people complain about choppy Dock minimizing but, choppy menu item selections... nah... I'm stupid for noticing things such as this.