The MacDeskBlog

Mac OS X 10.5 aka Leopard is just around the corner. As a couple of people have pointed out to me, Leopard sports a translucent menu bar. This means that you will be able see not only your desktop picture behind your menus, but also the credit tags which appear at the top of every picture from MacDesktops.

I have not yet seen Leopard in action as I fell out of the ADC program a few years ago and haven’t pestered my connected friends for a copy. With that caveat, I will say that I am taking it on faith that Apple has implemented this feature in a way which will not render this entire archive useless. Looking at the screenshots on Apple’s site does not lead me to any conclusion. It could be a close call.

I think that one of three scenarios is likely. The first scenario is that the translucency will be mild enough, i.e. will obscure the background image well enough, that the text tag behind the text menus will not be overly distracting. The second scenario is that we will be able to adjust the translucency via the Terminal using ‘Defaults Write <yadda yadda yadda>’. The third scenario is that we will be able to adjust the translucency in System Preferences, either on a sliding scale or simply on/off.

While I am hoping for option three, I am more inclined to expect option one at launch with someone quickly figuring out that Apple actually gave us option two. If using the Terminal with Defaults Write does indeed provide necessary, I will post instructions here in the blog as well is in the FAQ/Instructions.

If one of you who happens to be running 10.5 in beta (and I know you are out there) right now would care to share a bit of enlightenment on this topic, I’d be thrilled to share it.

One thing which I have been asked is if I will change the way I tag pictures in response to this new functionality. Not at this time. Currently, I am anticipating that no change will be necessary. If I prove to be incorrect on this, then I will probably adjust the tagging only to the extent of reducing its contrast against the backgrounds rather than moving or eliminating it.

So far, I’ve sidestepped giving any opinion on this new interface change. My first pass at this post a couple of months ago was entirely flame. I didn’t limit my flame to the translucent menu bar. My kerosene splashed heavily on the Stacks and streamed down onto the 3-D Dock. Obviously, I never actually posted that one, and in a brazen fit of lucidity, I finally deleted it outright, never to be seen by the world. Instead, I’ll share this little parable.

One day many years ago, a young man discovered that through the magic of the Terminal he could make his Terminal windows utterly transparent. And he did so. And life was good. Except that he soon discovered that he could not read what was in his Terminal windows because parts of what lay behind his Terminal windows were black. And so he employed the magic of the Terminal again and made his Terminal windows less Transparent. And life was good. Alas, he soon discovered that those his friends were wowed by his partially transparent Terminal windows, he still could not read them effectively. And back to the Terminal he went again. And this time, he set his transparency such that he could just make out vaguely what lay behind his windows, such that he could tell where his other windows lay yet was not distracted by them. And life was good. A few years later, this transparency adjustment found itself directly within the Preferences of Terminal. And life was grand.

I could also convey The Tale of Super-Slo-Mo-Genie Effect at this point, but suffice it to say that the Genie’s escapes from the bottle all occurred within a few mere months and numbered less than a score.