Q re: Customizing OS X Login Screen Window

[TreeTop60]

Have searched forums and found no direct answer for my Q which is ...

How do I change the background fill on the login screen window from solid to transparent or translucent?

Reason is cosmetic ... solid window is screen centered and blocks too much of HD wallpaper.

Scenario is this

Have replaced DefaultDesktop pic in CoreServices with a new vector graphic.
Looks great but Mac OS X login window blocks too much of graphic (at least for my taste).
Is there a (not too complicated or risky) way to do any one of the following ...
reduce size of login window?
reposition login window away from dead center?
format window background fill to be transparent or translucent?

Grateful for any help.

Tom

 

[Doctor Q]

I've looked around for this. I see many tutorials on changing the background image but none on changing the foreground window.

Sorry!

 

[miles01110]

Yep, never seen anything like this. If you wanted to you could dig around the System files, but that'd take a long time and wouldn't be worth the risk.

 

[btbrossard]

There is a way to change the white graphic that makes up the log in window. I don't remember the details right now (I have it in a book I think that was called the OSX missing manual), but it involved creating a root user (different than an administrator) and editing a .PDF that made up the log in window.

I did it once in 10.4 because I was bored at work one day. I took an image that I had made of a skyline and put it in place of the regular log in window.

Was kind of a waste of time since it was kind of a runaround in order to get to and edit the PDF.

I don't think you can change it's position or the transparency of the window, as it's a PDF.

How to enable the root user:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1528

I'll look to see if I can find the location of the PDF that makes up the log in window.

I believe the actual file is here:

/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgentPlugIns

Then open the LoginWindow Package and the files should be in there.

I think you have to be logged in as the root user to replace the files in that package.

Good luck