How to make menus transparent/translucent in 10.5.2

One of the annoying upgrades you got in 10.5.2 is the removal of translucent menus, many people complained about the transparency of the menus and menu bar, thank god the menu bar transparency can be enabled disabled (look in post for how to), but apple forgot about the menus,

actually if you look closely the menus are translucent but barley something like 5% transparency.

so in order to get them back this is what you do:

1. download the attached files or goto this address and get the 3 files.

a. HIToolbox

b. CoreUI

c. SArtFile.bin

2. save the files into a folder on the desktop named: "DownloadedFiles"

3. enable root user and login in this way:

a. go to Applications->Utilities->Directory Utility

b. if the lock icon is locked then click it, enter your password 

    when requested and press OK

c. from edit menu select "Enable Root User"

d. if you don't know the root user password change it from the 

    Edit menu->"Change Root Password..."

e. log out from your user

f. use the new "other..." option appears in the login window in order to 

    login as root and the password you set

4. another way to turn root user login on is to do this:

a. open terminal and write these lines:

b. sudo -s

c. enter your password and press enter

d. passwd root

e. enter a password

f. re enter the password

g. logout and use the new "Other..." option from the 

    login window and login as root with the password you entered

5. once logged in as root execute these lines from the terminal:

sudu -s

[enter your password and press enter]

mkdir ~/Desktop/Backup

chmod -R 777 ~/Desktop/Backup

mv /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox ~/Desktop/Backup

cp ~/Desktop/DonwloadedFiles/HIToolbox /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A

chmod 755 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox

chown 0:0 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox

mv /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/CoreUI ~/Desktop/Backup

cp ~/Desktop/DownloadedFiles/CoreUI /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A

chmod 755 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/CoreUI

chown 0:0 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/CoreUI

mv /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SArtFile.bin ~/Desktop/Backup

cp ~/Desktop/DownloadedFiles/SArtFile.bin /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources

chmod 755 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SArtFile.bin

chown 0:0 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SArtFile.bin

6. logout from root and login back into your user your Done!

in order to reverse the procedure copy the backed up files into the original location and execute the chmod and chown lines for every one of them, logout and get back into your account.

Note that if you do not execute these lines using root account you may see all the icons of Finder, Safari and other apps messed up like this:

some people reported that the menu bar translucent enable disable feature disappeared, some complained that FTP and SSH stopped working, so keep your backed up files until you are satisfied that this change suite you.

I first read this post here.

Enjoy