Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Make Dark Mode Darker in macOS Big Sur With New Toggle to Disable Wallpaper Tint

jensche said:
Would be great to have like a solid menubar back. Especially for Pro users.
Click to expand...

Theres a dirty work-around. Open your wallpaper in an image editor and add a line to the top. 22 pixels down is how much space the menubar takes.

For example:

test.png


The end result is:

Screen Shot 2020-08-06 at 4.26.20 AM.png


The top menubar with this image has a white background. Its not full white because it looks better with some gray. But if you want a full white menubar, knock yourself out.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jensche
Malbrute said:
Yes but can I finally have graphite selected and background tinting on?
Click to expand...

Sorry but thats not possible. Perhaps when ThemeEngine gets updated to work with Big Sur that may be possible. The trick is to find a color you dont use in SystemAppearance.car (such as pink) and make it a graphite color.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Malbrute
djbuddha said:
Tell me there’s a terminal command we can use on Mojave / Catalina to accomplish this.
Click to expand...

There is. sudo softwareupdate -i -a --restart

(edit)

In case it's not clear, that's a snarky, non-serious response — it'll upgrade your Mac to Big Sur (once that's out).
 
Last edited:
Has anyone looked the xml files to see if the previous version of macOS had this feature but had to be manually toggled via the terminal
 
zorinlynx said:
When light mode is enabled, the menu bar on the top is still in dark mode.

Is this an intentional change or a bug? I already reported it, but haven't heard back and it's still unchanged in the latest beta.

I'm one of those rare unicorns known as a "Light mode user" and hate that the menu bar doesn't respect the setting anymore in Big Sur. :(
Click to expand...
Pretty sure that’s a bug. All the Apple advertising material shows a light mode with a light menu bar.
 
Thank goodness. I wish they would add an option for the menubar to be solid and also allow for the tightening of the grouping of icons on it. This spread out look look junky.
 
b13o0r12e3 said:
Big Sur peeps, what's the difference between this and enabling 'Reduce Transparency'?
Click to expand...

This feature changes the coloring of the window. Transparency gives an opaqueness to the window which allowed the background to bleed through without changing the entire window color.
 
Blu-ray1972 said:
This feature changes the coloring of the window. Transparency gives an opaqueness to the window which allowed the background to bleed through without changing the entire window color.
Click to expand...

Reduce Transparency always looks ugly as hell with rendering errors, both on MacOS and iOS. I'm not even sure why it's there if they're not going to implement it properly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Blu-ray1972
djbuddha said:
You’re not funny. Somebody will actually take you seriously
Click to expand...

Right, I've amended my post.

But my point stands — adding features is literally the point of a software update. If you're not happy with the current version of Dark Mode, and a newer version makes it better, then that's pretty good.
 
Both the original solution and the way it's been addressed are wrong.

1. Communication
Wallpaper tinting should be applied to wallpaper only, as the name implies. If the setting affects more of the UI, it should be communicated to the user, preferably through a more accurate name.

2. Choice
2.1 Status
The update to this experience still robs the user of a valid option - they can't have a tinted wallpaper without it affecting other UI elements.

A. Can someone familiar w/ the mechanics of it prove there's a valid reason for the current solution?

2.2 Hypothesis
Based on what I read it seems choosing wallpaper tinting triggers some action that affects everything that's displayed. The effect persists when the content being displayed changes.
Thus, I hypothesize there's some piece of software (daemon? process?) running that constantly adjusts the output by shifting its colors to the new look.

2.3. Implications
Now, this leads to unwarranted and clearly - based on feedback - undesired change to any content other than wallpaper.
Additionally, if the hypothesis is correct, the setting utilizes some resources and can crash or clash with other running activities.

2.4 Solution proposal
On selecting the option for dimming the wallpaper, the OS should automatically create a (temp) copy of the original image, with the tint applied.
This way, it both gives users what's advertised, avoids interfering with other content and avoids creating another running item.

Creating such images seems to me to be easy enough. Read color values for each pixel in an image and shift them a set value? (For gradient - apply the shift not in a linear manner, but in an exponential manner. )

B. Can someone adept in the field assess the feasibility of such a solution?
 
  • Like
Reactions: AppleWar
This is good, but what would be great if all websites would use true Black backgrounds instead of charcoal or grey. Would help with iPhone/iPad battery life and not suck as much.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Blu-ray1972
chucker23n1 said:
Right, I've amended my post.

But my point stands — adding features is literally the point of a software update. If you're not happy with the current version of Dark Mode, and a newer version makes it better, then that's pretty good.
Click to expand...

I get what you’re saying, but in the nicest way I can say this, think you missed the point entirely.

A lot of us are professionals who won’t update because Apple has this wonderful way of breaking simple things in updates.

Something that’s perceived as fairly simple by everybody looking on (like disabling transparency) shouldn’t mean I need to upgrade my software to add it while risking the inability to complete my day job- because an app breaks entirely, or some external hardware I purchased 5 years ago doesn’t work suddenly, because of Apple’s politics with that specific company.

There are plenty of terminal commands that do things like disable system integrity protections or re-enable the chime. Not to mention Craig Federighi himself stated that he supports enthusiasts with terminal who disable things, like system integrity protection so they can be power users.

Enthusiasts want to fix things Apple refuses to- rather, Apple says they will fix it, it’s marketed as a feature. And then we’re forced to update for a “fix” which just introduces new issues. Apple, this isn’t innovative or courageous 🤣 ... it’s desperate and pathetic.

The best analogy I can think of for Apple is Jenga. They constantly make holes to plug new holes in their software... CONSTANTLY.
 
djbuddha said:
I get what you’re saying, but in the nicest way I can say this, think you missed the point entirely.

A lot of us are professionals who won’t update because Apple has this wonderful way of breaking simple things in updates.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get that. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up on Apple adding this option to Mojave or Catalina at this point. The engineering complexity of options is always high (you have to test both states), and that of options for software that behaves differently than what you’ve been working on in recent years is almost prohibitive. Thus, Apple tends to only bother for critical security fixes.

Besides that, notwithstanding the poor quality reception of Catalina, Apple isn’t going to improve if they don’t get that feedback directly. “I’m not upgrading, but I would like something that the upgrade would offer” isn’t very actionable information for them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: djbuddha
chucker23n1 said:
Yeah, I get that. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up on Apple adding this option to Mojave or Catalina at this point. The engineering complexity of options is always high (you have to test both states), and that of options for software that behaves differently than what you’ve been working on in recent years is almost prohibitive. Thus, Apple tends to only bother for critical security fixes.

Besides that, notwithstanding the poor quality reception of Catalina, Apple isn’t going to improve if they don’t get that feedback directly. “I’m not upgrading, but I would like something that the upgrade would offer” isn’t very actionable information for them.
Click to expand...

There has to be something that could be written- even a small app that does it. After all, OSX is a basically a UNIX front end lol

I’d never expect Apple to add it to an old OS. They’re done adding features to anything that isn’t Big Sur (or as we’ll soon call it- BUG Sur). But the OS must have something we can do for now.
 
So, having changed "reduce transparency", I see the dock is also changed, can we not have a solid menu bar, but a clear dock?

Thanks
 
q64ceo said:
Sorry but thats not possible. Perhaps when ThemeEngine gets updated to work with Big Sur that may be possible. The trick is to find a color you dont use in SystemAppearance.car (such as pink) and make it a graphite color.
Click to expand...

In the latest Beta (the previous one as well actually) you can enable graphite and have tinting on, which only makes sense honestly since its a separate option.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back