[flowney]

Translucent Menu Bar. To date, I have updated two MacPro (Intel) desktop units. Neither one of them provides this option.
On the other hand, I have also updated two laptops, one a MacBook Pro (Intel) and the other a 15" MacBook (PPC). Both of these computers provide this option.
What gives?
How could this be a laptop only option?

[RichardHallas]

flowney said:

How could this be a laptop only option?

It isn't. I've updated a MacBook Pro and a PowerMac G5 with OS X 10.5.2 and they both showed the new option. (Which was good, because I've turned translucency off on both machines and like it much better.)

Did you previously fiddle with some menu bar hack under 10.5.0 or 10.5.1 to adjust the appearance of the menu bar in some way? Going by what I've read elsewhere, that could account for it.

[flowney]

No hacks or haxies whatsoever. In fact, one of the two MacPro desktop units was a clean install of 10.5 updated to 10.5.1 and then 10.5.2.

[trip1ex]

You know what I want in Stacks?

I want QuickLook. Ok I already mentioned that, but man I get photos emailed to me and I just to check them out quick after downloading them or quickly show someone else the picture or look at them again quickly a week or two later. QuickLook is awesome for that and it doesn't open Preview and keep it open. (Maybe I just need to get used to keeping Preview open.) QL though is also quicker.

Or I have a soccer schedule for my son. IT's awesome to just hit the space bar in finder to quickly glance at the time of today's game instead of waiting for Excel to open. (Ok it's under Rosetta which makes it all the worse.) Not only that, but you don't have to close down Excel when you're done either which saves the tediousness of having to close the program back down after you're done. IT would be even more awesome if this ability was available to me in Stacks.

(Come to think of it, it wouldn't be too bad if I could display the soccer schedule on the dashboard either. Can you do that? I now you can clip a website, but the schedule ain't on a website. Can you clip a document? I don't want to rewrite on a sticky note. Anyway I digress.)

I have a few other ideas for Stacks.

I also want the ability to have say 2 pages of 24 icons each instead of 1 page of 49 icons. I find 24 icons on a 17" monitor readable and enjoyable to look at. 49 icons (7x7) (and more!d) gets pretty crowded.

And also the ability to 1-click through folders right in stacks. I think lists are actually kind of ugly now on the Dock. I like the big icons. Much more enjoyable to navigate. And I like that it all quickly goes away when you click back on the Stack.

[jddmacworld]

I have PPC and an Intel and the Translucent Box is only available on the Intel. Then I noticed that the PPC is not Translucent and probably never was, I just didn't notice.

[tallscot]

jddmacworld said:

I have PPC and an Intel and the Translucent Box is only available on the Intel. Then I noticed that the PPC is not Translucent and probably never was, I just didn't notice.

I have a G5 and I have transparency with the menu bar and a switch to turn it off now after 10.5.2. It's at the bottom of Desktop & Screen Savers.

I have an nVidia 6800 Ultra video card, that came from Apple (where else would it come from?) :)

Oh yeah, Apple is using the wrong term. It's not a translucent menu bar. It's transparent. The difference is with translucent, you see the outline of an object as light shines on the translucent object. Transparent means you can see detail on the object's surface.

If you put up a white sheet outdoors, in the sunlight, you can see translucency. You can't see through the sheet because it's not transparent. You couldn't see what is written on someone's shirt with translucency.

[jddmacworld]

I suspect that it is a Graphics Chip Set issue with the PPC - I have a GeForce4 on my G4 - it may not be robust enough for the Transparency feature.

[lexsky_77]

My Adobe products are working just fine after my upgrade to !0.5.2. Btw am using a ppc mac mini.

[DisabledTrucker]

Quote

{quote:title=Dan Frakes wrote:}Now, about that midrange Mac minitower{quote}

Heck if they'd even put a slightly updated "Mini" in a "Drobo" that alone would suffice!

Powermax's Drobo page

[edmetric]

DisabledTrucker wrote: Heck if they'd even put a slightly updated "Mini" in a "Drobo" that alone would suffice!

Upgrade the mini to current Macbook specs (2.2Ghz, X3100 and do this...

http://www.amug.org/.../addonics/mini/

Admittedly, I would like an e-SATA port also for my second external drive but I would like a mini with current MB specs to play with.

[DisabledTrucker]

I was thinking more in lines of a "mini tower" that can hold 4 full size hard drives in and do raid while maintaining the "smallness" factor that Apple seems to be wanting to stick with. I too am looking for something with eSata ports on the backside, but not at the expense of USB and especially Firewire 400/800. Add in a slot for being able to use express cards and it would have perfect compliment of ports. The reason I suggested an upgraded Mini was due to the size of the Mini's motherboard and the upgrade it needs is to have eSata and a better graphics chip soldered in, such as the X3100 or better still on-board nVidia 8800GT graphics, even if they have to use the new "Air" processor to accomplish this. A single slot for the superdrive is just fine for optical needs, if necessary at all anymore, and it would maintain that "smallness factor" that Apple's striving for these days. (Someone at Apple's taking "Micro"computer too literally there these days!) Oh, let's not forget an upgrade to the Airport card inside it too, it definitely needs to be brought up to "n" as well, they can't tell me it costs too much to put one in there, since in the 7" aTV there's one in there for nearly 1/2 the cost of the Mini!

This would accomplish two goals, one for Apple to maintain some of it's "proprietary" and "minimalist" status' while giving people the option of expandability in a more reasonable cost range. $500 for the drive bay and another $700 for mini, that's only what $1200, (with the "extras" I'm talking more closer to $1400-1500,) for a tower? Not a bad price for a "Mini Pro" that can do the work of a mid grade workstation, stay nearly quiet, and still provide people with the most important of upgrade options. Okay so you'll be limited to a mobile processor and soldered in graphics still at least your getting better graphics and those mobile processors aren't that bad these days. Sure it wont be a "game killer" but it will do what most people are needing one for, all-in-one storage options, that is small and powerful enough to sit under their wall mounted plasma TV's and still be able to not look like a computer but more of an appliance that can also be used to access the net and provide enough space to hold all their media yet also provide a way to add more space to it as needed.

Something like I'm proposing could also be used in small businesses, that don't necessarily need something like the Pro but need something other than an iMac that would compliment their Mini's. Take a Restaurant for example could put one of these in the office and use the Mini's at the counters where they can be more easily hidden and "locked away", with only their touch screens showing to do their inputting on. These are just a couple of examples but there are many more ways that something like this could be more useful, especially with Leopards "Time Machine", you could put any drive in there and use it to house your backups and when it filled up, just pop it out and put in another one or add another one to hold it.

[avigdorsusana]

Well.. This release came out together with a graphics update (at least for iMac) - Everything works much smoother now. One example for the improvement in graphics: the Expose works 10000 times better (before - it was freezing while running with multiple "heavy" windows) - something that never bothered Tiger.
===BUT===
The only bad change I have noticed after installing both updates above was in the RSS visualization screensaver. Now - its not as smooth as it used to be.. not such a big deal - but - still - needed to be mentioned..

[photojohnster]

I too have no checkbox option for turning off menu bar translucency. After the update to 10.5.2 though, my menu bar is now a light shade of gray (not translucent anymore). I'm running a three year old G5 dual processor tower.

I'm also having intermittent trouble with selecting different desktop pictures. None of the standard Apple desktop picture thumbmails show up when I click on them. The only ones that show up are the pictures inside my pictures folder. Does anyone know why this really strange behavior is happening?

[SimpleBeep]

Wow. I never thought Apple would fix stacks. I NEVER thought they would fix stacks. I never thought it would happen. I'm still kind of in a daze.
I want to thank you, Macworld, for pointing these newfangled features out to us all.
Stacks were the one-and-only feature of Leopard I didn't like (I despised stacks). Now I'm 100% satisfied!