Yosemite transparency and horrendous desktop gradients

One of the things that I find really irritating and cannot be solved through the 'Reduce Transparency' Accessibility option is the way in which the desktop looks horrendous when under the translucency of one of Yosemite's overlays. For instance, in the login screen and when you go into Mission Control, Yosemite makes the desktop behind it look like a horrible mess of gradients. This is true on a Retina screen, and its even worse on a 1080p screen. While not 'elegant', the dark grey in Mavericks looked wonderful by comparison. I wish there was a way to alter this in Yosemite.

Even iBooks on MBP Retina !?
I love the iBooks app and use it specifically because of the "Night" appearance option, which turns the page background all black and the font white (similar to inverting the display). Fortunately books' font sizes remain adjustable as big as I want, but - I can no longer see page information (current page number and number of pages left to read) at the bottom of each page. The page information is barely visible (appears like small dark grey foggy font on a black background). This is very likely also the result of the Yosemite font fiasco. Not an issue when reading books in "Night" appearance on the iPad, (they didn't break it yet yet in iOS).
"Digital Books without page numbering information"!
A Huge design fiasco.

Similar Messages

[SOLVED] OpenBox - Transparency and Virtual Desktop Switcher

Hi All
I've just recently, in the last 2 days, switched from Gnome 3.2 to Openbox. I've never really used it before except for a short period on #! as I recall. I've a couple of problems I don't seem to be able to find any answers to and hopefully someone on here already knows how:
1) I'm using Guake dropdown terminal - I don't mind switching to any other terminal if necessary. I can't get transparency to work correctly with it though. I've installed the following to try to resolve the issue:
Cairo Composite Manager
transset-df
If I issue the command:
transset-df -n 'Guake!' &
the Guake terminal sets to transparent which is great. However, as soon as the window retracts and I call it back again the transparency has switched off.
2) I've installed tint2 and it's pretty good. Problem is I can't find a way to get a virtual desktop switcher. Again, this choice isn't cast in stone, I'm quite happy to change to any other application, or set of applications, to achieve the following:
Virtual Desktop Switcher - i like the way pypanel does this actually. I'm happy enough with the mouse wheel switching desktops but I'd like some indication of which desktop I'm on.
Date and Time with a calendar - I've got Orca working quite well on a click on the clock for the calendar.
I would have thought this was pretty simple to resolve really, it's just that i don't know Openbox that well yet and I could use some advice on the best way to resolve the issues.
Thanks in advance
Rich
Last edited by RichAustin (2011-10-23 09:20:13)

I've actually managed to resolve the transparency issue as well.
sudo pacman -S devilspie xcompmgr transset-df
Then in .config/openbox/autostart:
# Start Composite Manager
xcompmgr &
# Start Devilspie to alter windows
devilspie -a &
# Start Main Panel
tint2 &
Finally, create a file in .devilspie called guake.ds with the following content:
(if
(is (window_name) "guake.py" )
(begin
(spawn_sync (str "transset-df -i " (window_xid) " 0.5") )

Before Firefox 16 I was able to have full transparency and see through to my desktop. Now I am unable to do this but want it back, can I still do this and how?

Depending on my theme and style I was able to force Firefox to be transparent and work with Aero to show through to my desktop or other windows behind the browser. I really liked this ability, however, sometime after Firefox 16 this stopped working and I have been looking for a solution ever since. I am currently on the the release version of Firefox.
Does Firefox not allow this anymore or is there a way I can code this feature back using Styles or modifying one of the files in Firefox?

Attached screen shot with Firefox version...Everything you see should be transparent.
You might be seeing I have an old version as I have a few privacy apps running.
I just attempted another reset and copied my old profile data back in.
I've attempted in the past, disabling and removing extensions and apps one by one.
Could my Styles code be incorrect?

When i open a pdf it is transparent and i can see my desktop wallpaper behind it making it hard to read

when i try to open a PDF it is transparent and i can see the wallpaper behind it this makes it very hard to read

Try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.
*Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
*https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/
Try to disable transparency in Windows.
Right click in a free space on your desktop. 
Left click on Personalization. 
There are four options at the bottom of the screen, choose "Window Color and Appearance". 
Select a border color 
Uncheck: "Enable transparency"
* http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7955/how-to-fix-no-aero-transparency-in-windows-7/

VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop Benchmark Comparison

This is a quickie benchmark of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop using Super PI, PC Mark 05, and Passmark.
VMWare Fusion 36932
Parallels Desktop 3094 Beta 2
Notes:
Both virtual machines were allocated with large 10+ GB virtual disks and 640MB of RAM. The VMWare CPU was configured with two processors. The Parallels CPU was configured with 1 (two is not available). VMWare reported the CPU as 1 physical, 2 logical processors running at 2.66 GHz while Parallels reported 1 physical, 1 logical processor running at 9.6 GHz (the combined speed of all four cores on the Mac Pro). The max observed CPU utilization in activity monitor when running under VMWare was 200% and max under Parallels was 173%.
I chose not to compare 1 VMWare CPU vs. 1 Parallels CPU. While Parallels does not support SMP or multithreaded processes on multiple processors the CPU utilization on the Mac went well above 1 core (173%). For this comparison, I wanted to see results of max processing based on what the two vendors have delivered, as opposed to benchmarking the underlying "virtual or hypervisor cpu" on a 1:1 basis. This explains why VMWare was 2x faster than Parallels on some CPU tests.
Both of these products are beta. VMWare is running in debug mode (can not be turned off in this beta).
Caveat emptor on these stats. This was an unscientific exercise to satisfy my curiosity. Some of the extraordinary differences are highlighted with <--.
Platform:
Mac Pro 2.66 GHz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7300GT
Disk 1 - OS X, 73GB Raptor
Disk 2 - dedicated disk where each virtual machine image was created separate from the OS or any OS-related virtual memory files.
VMWare and Parallels guest OS: Windows XP Professional, SP 2
Comparison Benchmrk
VMWare Fusion 36932 and Parallels Desktop 3094 Beta 2
Super PI Parallels VMWare
512K 8s 9s
1M 20s 21s
4M 1m 57s 2m 03s
PC Mark 05 Parallels VMWare
CPU Test Suite N/A N/A
Memory Test Suite N/A N/A
Graphics Test Suite N/A N/A
HDD Test Suite N/A N/A
HDD - XP Startup 5.0 MB/s 19.54 MB/s <--
Physics and 3D Test failed Test failed
Transparent Windows Test failed 69.99 Windows/s
3D - Pixel Shader Test failed Test failed
Web Page Rendering 3.58 Pages/s 2.34 Pages/s
File Decrypt 71.73 MB/s 67.05 MB/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 179.92 FPS 111.73 FPS
HDD - General Usage 4.82 MB/s 42.01 MB/s <--
Multithread Test 1 / Audio Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / Video Encoding Test failed Test failed
Multithread Test 2 / Text Edit 152.85 Pages/s 138.48 Pages/s
Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp 5.91 MPixels/s 35.4 MPixels/s <--
Multithread Test 3 / File Comp 3.22 MB/s 6.03 MB/s
Multithread Test 3 / File Encrypt 19.0 MB/s 33.26 MB/s <--
Multithread Test 3 / HDD - Virus Scan 27.91 MB/s 25.49 MB/s
Multithread Test 3 / Mem Lat - Rnd 16MB 5.34 MAcc/s 6.63 MAcc/s
File Comp N/A N/A
File DeComp N/A N/A
File Encrypt N/A N/A
File Decrypt N/A N/A
Image DeComp N/A N/A
Audio Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / File Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / File Encrypt N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / File DeComp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / File Decrypt N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / Audio DeComp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp N/A N/A
Memory Read - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 4 kB N/A N/A
Transparent Windows N/A N/A
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines N/A N/A
Graphics Memory - 128 Lines N/A N/A
WMV Video Playback N/A N/A
3D - Fill Rate Multi Texturing N/A N/A
3D - Polygon Throughput Multiple Lights N/A N/A
3D - Pixel Shader N/A N/A
3D - Vertex Shader N/A N/A
HDD - XP Startup N/A N/A
HDD - Application Loading N/A N/A
HDD - General Usage N/A N/A
HDD - Virus Scan N/A N/A
HDD - File Write N/A N/A
Processor Intel Core 2 9653 MHz Processor Unknown 2661 MHz
Physical / Logical CPUs "1 Physical, 1 Logical" "1 Physical, 2 Logical"
MultiCore 1 Processor Core Multicore 2 Processor Cores
HyperThreading N/A N/A
Graphics Card Generic VGA Generic VGA
Graphics Driver Parallels Video Driver VMWare SVGA II
Co-operative adapters No No
DirectX Version 9.0c 9.0c
System Memory 640 MB 640MB
Motherboard Manufacturer N/A Intel Corporation
Motherboard Model N/A 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP
Passmark Parallels VMWare
CPU - Integer Math (MOPS) 112.35 230.31 <--
CPU - Floating Point Math (MOPS) 280.46 588.33 <--
CPU - Find Prime Numbers (OPS) 446.37 676.99 <--
CPU - SSE/3DNow! (MMPS) 2118.56 4737.13 <--
CPU - Comp (KB/s) 2994.16 5952.34 <--
CPU - Encrypt (MB/s) 18.09 36.27 <--
CPU - Image Rotation (IRPS) 598.21 1184.41 <--
CPU - String Sorting (TPS) 2118.81 3672.59 <--
Graphics 2D - Lines (TPS) 220.71 25.15 <--
Graphics 2D - Rectangles (TPS) 189.74 61.8 <--
Graphics 2D - Shapes (TPS) 39.54 13.71 <--
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text (OPS) 190.39 75.88 <--
Graphics 2D - GUI (OPS) 439.77 63.72 <--
Memory - Allocate Small Block (MB/s) 2533.83 2526.21
Memory - Read Cached (MB/s) 1960.5 1906.27
Memory - Read Uncached (MB/s) 1871.79 1826.08
Memory - Write (MB/s) 1687.81 1545.43
Memory - Large RAM (OPS) 60.99 46.37
Disk - Sequential Read (MB/s) 102.11 76.45 <--
Disk - Sequential Write (MB/s) 58.33 50.9
Disk - Rnd Seek + RW (MB/s) 51.4 40.4
CPU Mark 711.08 1432.72 <--
2D Graphics Mark 743.31 176.5 <--
Memory Mark 599.94 580.38
Disk Mark 766.11 606.7
PassMark Rating 557.27 637.35 

Thanks for posting these numbers - it's an interesting comparison.
I would expect the final VMWare fusion performance numbers to be quite a bit better than that of Parallels - they have almost a decade's worth of experience more than the Parallels folks in this arena, and a much larger development team to boot.
Once VMWare Fusion is released to the public, I think that you'll see a clearer distinction between the two products. VMWare will continue to appeal to the professional customer, with a more robust feature set and corporate-friendly features (and a correspondingly higher price tag); Parallels will fall more into the consumer/VirtualPC-replacement market. It will be interesting to see how Parallels will be affected when (and if) VMWare player is ported to OS X.
Interesting about the Parallels performance stats on a native partition - looks like almost enough reason to avoid the bootcamp partition approach altogether. Sharing a native windows installation with a VM in parallels is a pretty scary situation in any case, as the two environments have entirely different hardware configurations. Do-able, but there is some black magic involved (if you want to see an example of what I mean, try to move a windows installation from one machine to another w/different hardware sometime - it ain't pretty); I wouldn't try this in a production scheme unless I had REALLY good backups.

I made a bootable disc on an external hard drive, with Yosemite on it. I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac. How can I open the Yosemite disc from the desktop on my iMac? Does the external hard drive need to be connected to my iMac by firewire to

I made a bootable disc on an external hard drive, with Yosemite on it. I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac. How can I open the Yosemite disc from the desktop on my iMac? Does the external hard drive need to be connected to my iMac by firewire to do that?

kahjot wrote:
Snow Leopard's Startup Disk pref can’t see Yosemite volumes. So the only way to switch from Snow Leopard to Yosemite is to do what Niel mentioned. Doesn't matter whether it's connected by USB or Firewire, although performance via FW would be faster.
Are you saying that Yos/10.10, as a volume located in a mounted external drive won't appear as an option in Snow Leopard's Startup Disc, in Sys Prefs? I've never heard this one before. AFAIK any mounted volume, regardless of OS, should appear there. I would think that, if it appears in the Boot Picker/Startup Manager it would also appear and could be booted to from Snow's Startup Disk. I can't test this myself, since I don't have Yos. Is what you are saying documented somewhere?

The upper part of the page is not opaque, and the desktop shows through. Thus, the menu bar is hard to read. How to remedy this?

The area behind the menu bar and the line above it, all the way across to the minimize, maximize and close icons is not opaque and the desktop and desktop icons show through. There is nothing I can find in Firefox Help to change this. Also, it would be nice if the menu bar could be made larger and more visible -- and if I could delete "Yahoo!" from the menu bar, leaving just the important items (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, and Help). Any suggestions?

See:
*[[/questions/804050]]
Right click in a free space on your desktop. 
Left click on Personalization. 
There are four options in Windows 7 at the bottom of the screen, choose "Window Color and Appearance". 
Select a border color 
Uncheck: "Enable transparency"

How do I get transparency in my mesh gradient?

I'm trying to create a simple mesh gradient that fades from white in the middle to transparent on the outside. But as soon as I touch any node of my transparent (just unfilled, not 0% opacity) shape with the mesh tool, the entire shape fills with 100% opaque color and won't allow transparency. How do I make the outer nodes transparent/unfilled again? Clicking the "no" slash in the color palette doesn't do anything, and the transparency palette only applies transparency to the entire shape, not individual nodes. Do I have to make a black-and-white mesh gradient as an opacity mask?

You did not mention which version your using or OS.
So I am not sure if this is different in earlier versions.
Select the point on the mesh and instead of selecting a color fron the color swatches, at the top of the screen you should see opacity and a percentage. just drag it to 0 for 100% transparency.

Yosemite - Unable to access desktop when Remote Desktop app is connected to an RDP session

Since updating to Yosemite, after connecting full screen to any server you cannot get back to desktop as it seems the RDP session takes over the primary desktop and scrolling further left on the trackpad takes you to the Yosemite dashboard and you cannot
get to the desktop.
This happens since the beta and is still an issue using the released version. When will this be fixed??

Hi,
Thank you for posting in Windows Server Forum.
Initially please update MRD MAC to v8.0.9. From description it seems that issue related to MAC side compatibility issue, so suggest you to contact apple customer care and clarify for further research.
Thanks for your understanding and Support!
Regards.
Dharmesh Solanki
TechNet Community Support

Will UE-V work across Physical and virtual desktops

We are currently evaluating few product, and are looking for a product that can work across our VMWare VDI infrastructure as well as physical hardware to provide transparent and seamless UEM. Profile management is a key for us, the goal is to achieve as
identical as possible experience between out Windows 7 and 8 machines.

UE-V is designed to synchronize data between any desired environments. This includes physical systems, virtual desktops, RemoteApp applications, and App-V applications.
See the Comparing UE-V to other Microsoft products section here.
The ability to synchronize common settings between Windows 7 and Windows 8 was
added in UE-V Beta 2.
Brandon
MDOP on the Springboard Series on TechNet

Hi, If I have 1 license for creative cloud, will it possible to install in 2 computers (1 laptop and 1 desktop)? When I am in the office I can use desktop and at home I can use laptop? At the same time I will be using only one devise. Will that be possi

Hi, If I have 1 license for creative cloud, will it possible to install in 2 computers (1 laptop and 1 desktop)? When I am in the office I can use desktop and at home I can use laptop? At the same time I will be using only one devise. Will that be possible? Thanks

Yes. Yes. Yes.
Mylenium

Hp laserjet pro m1217nfw and remote desktop printing

hp laserjet pro m1217nfw and remote desktop printing, is there any issues with said function?

whats the problerm you are having??

I tried to install yosemite yesterday and my computer goes through the whole installation process and then to a blank white screen. I've rebooted, I've reinstalled several times and get the same result. Two days wasted!

I tried to install yosemite yesterday and my computer goes through the whole installation process and then to a blank white screen. I've rebooted, I've reinstalled several times and get the same result. Two days wasted and I can't use my computer!!

I don't know if you've already resolved your problem, but I had the same thing, it took me 6 hours to fix it. I had the exact same as you, installed the update and then it went to a white screen. After trying start up holding down cmmd r or holding down the alt key to try to install it again, nothing worked, same result every time. Then an angel came to me here somewhere but I can't find it now to thank him. Start in safe mode, press shift once you hear the start up chime and hold it down until you hear it again. Installation completion box came up and it was working. turn off computer and start up again normally and all is well. Except my final cut pro x doesn't work with it, have to update that now too. same as when I updated to mavericks.
Hope this helps.

Problem with adjusting both transparency and color of an object

I am writing a program where when an object is picked, both it's transparency and color will be altered (the object will become opaque, and its color will turn to a predefined "selected" color), while the previously selected object will return to its original transparency and color. I am able to get this to work, except that objects that were picked two or more picks ago will remain in the selected color, albeit in their original transparency. This problem only seems to occur when transparency is factored in. The picking/color & transparency altering code is as follows.
public class PickingListener extends MouseAdapter {
     private PickCanvas pickCanvas;
     private TextDisplay overlay;
     private Primitive p;
     private Primitive lastP;
     private ColoringAttributes origColor;
     private TransparencyAttributes origTransparency;
     public PickingListener(PickCanvas pickCanvasArg, TextDisplay overlayArg) {
          pickCanvas = pickCanvasArg;
          overlay = overlayArg;
     public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
          pickCanvas.setShapeLocation(e);
          PickResult result = pickCanvas.pickClosest();
          if (result == null) {
               System.out.println("Nothing picked");
          } else {
               p = (Primitive) result.getNode(PickResult.PRIMITIVE);
               if (p != null) {
                    setSelectedColor();
                    overlay.setPickedBarInfo((BarInformation) p.getUserData());
               else
                    System.out.println("null");
     private void setSelectedColor() {
          ColoringAttributes barCA = new ColoringAttributes();
          TransparencyAttributes barTransp = new TransparencyAttributes(TransparencyAttributes.NICEST, 0.0f);
          barCA.setColor(ColorConstants.SELECTED);
          if (lastP != null) {
               lastP.getAppearance().setColoringAttributes(origColor);
               lastP.getAppearance().setTransparencyAttributes(origTransparency);
          origColor = p.getAppearance().getColoringAttributes();
          origTransparency = p.getAppearance().getTransparencyAttributes();
          p.getAppearance().setColoringAttributes(barCA);
          p.getAppearance().setTransparencyAttributes(barTransp);
          lastP = p;
}Capabilities to alter the primitive's color and transparency are all set.
     barAppearance.setCapability(Appearance.ALLOW_COLORING_ATTRIBUTES_READ);
          barAppearance.setCapability(Appearance.ALLOW_COLORING_ATTRIBUTES_WRITE);
          barAppearance.setCapability(Appearance.ALLOW_TRANSPARENCY_ATTRIBUTES_WRITE);          barAppearance.setCapability(Appearance.ALLOW_TRANSPARENCY_ATTRIBUTES_READ);
ColoringAttributes barCA = new ColoringAttributes();
barCA.setCapability(ColoringAttributes.ALLOW_COLOR_WRITE);
barCA.setCapability(ColoringAttributes.ALLOW_COLOR_READ);)
Any insight as to why this would occur would be greatly appreciated.
-Adrian Benton

A Behavior is the preferred way to make changes in a scenegraph. Here is an example from a previous post that changes the appearance of a shape when it collides with another shape.
The javadoc for javax.media.j3d.Behavior appears to refer to the issue you have.
Transparencies are confusing, different display adapters deal with them differently. Suggest you search the forum at
http://forums.java.net/jive/forum.jspa?forumID=70
for more detailed information.
regards
class CollisionDetector extends Behavior {
private static final Color3f highlightColor = new Color3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
private static final ColoringAttributes highlight = new ColoringAttributes(
      highlightColor, ColoringAttributes.SHADE_GOURAUD);
private boolean inCollision = false;
private Shape3D shape;
private ColoringAttributes shapeColoring;
private Appearance shapeAppearance;
private WakeupOnCollisionEntry wEnter;
private WakeupOnCollisionExit wExit;
public CollisionDetector(Shape3D s) {
    shape = s;
    shapeAppearance = shape.getAppearance();
    shapeColoring = shapeAppearance.getColoringAttributes();
    inCollision = false;
public void initialize() {
    wEnter = new WakeupOnCollisionEntry(shape);
    wExit = new WakeupOnCollisionExit(shape);
    wakeupOn(wEnter);
public void processStimulus(Enumeration criteria) {
    inCollision = !inCollision;
    if (inCollision) {
      shapeAppearance.setColoringAttributes(highlight);
      wakeupOn(wExit);
    } else {
      shapeAppearance.setColoringAttributes(shapeColoring);
      wakeupOn(wEnter);
}

After upgrade to Yosemite, drag and drop for files does not work, destination folder crashes.

After upgrading to Yosemite, dragging and dropping files from one location to the destination folder, causes the destination folder crash. However, copying the file and then moving it works fine.
I'm not sure where to report bugs, but I figured this would be the best option

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ Feedback
https://bugreport.apple.com/ BugReporter

Yosemite transparency and horrendous desktop gradients

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for