Justifying The Location Of The Translucent Menubar Checkbox

Those that have taken the recent 10.5.2 update have had one interface question on their minds. That is why in the world did Apple decide to place the “Translucent Menu Bar” checkbox in the “Desktop” tab of the “Desktop & Screen Saver” System Preferences pane instead of in the “Appearance” System Preferences pane. Here is my justification of this disputable interface decision on Apple’s part.

First, the “Appearance” System Preferences pane is packed. There’s no more room for another line of text, much less a checkbox.

Second, with the exception of those who absolutely hate the translucent menubar (which is certainly not me), we may change it on the basis of what desktop image we’re using. For example, the default desktop and the image of the Earth at center work quite well with the translucent menubar, but almost all other possible desktop images (aside from the solid colors) don’t.

So there are my two justifications for what most Mac OS X 10.5.2+ users think was a poor interface decision on the part of the Apple engineers. Enjoy, Alex.