Get Rid of the Translucent Menu Bar in Leopard
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One of the Chief complaints in the latest version of Apple’s famed Operating System, Leopard has been the 3D Dock and the Translucent Menu Bar . There have been hacks flying left and right and this is the latest one that gives you a Menu Bar similar to the one we saw in Tiger. Follow the instructions carefully or you could end up messing your Leopard install. Backup before you proceed..
Edit the following file:
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist
Add an entry like this:
<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
<dict>
<key>CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE</key>
<string>0.62</string>
</dict>
Save the file and restart your Mac and you should now be seeing the kind of Menu Bar that you have grown used to. The original tip from Steve Miner suggests a setting of “1”; this results in an old-school pure white menu bar, incase you set it as “0″ you get a dark gray Menu Bar. All values in between “0″ and “1″ give you varying shades of gray.
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| Unaltered Menubar | Miner’s Menu Bar | Miner + Menu Bar Tint |
Hope this hack works for you. If you any alternative ways to disable transperancy then drop in a comment. Please note that this hack involves meddling with your System files. Please backup before you proceed.
Via Steve Miner




2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Ali B.
Steve,
Nice one mate!
I was wondering, is there any listing of those env variables and/or their values/flags? or is it just the good old way (debugging memory)?
Jan 19th, 2008
Ali B.
did I say Steve?? Heh, I meant Karthik.. Sorry bout that
Jan 19th, 2008
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