For the next two weeks or so, Deep Thought will be celebrating the launch of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard by featuring daily (or near-daily) articles on Leopard. We’re calling it Days of Leopard. To kick things off, I decided to write something fun: pimping out your Tiger install in the Leopard style. It’s partially just for fun, and partially to help you grow accustomed to some of the cosmetic changes present in Leopard. Some of this information is already available on the Internets, but I hope that I bring something new to the table that hasn’t already been mentioned elsewhere. Anyway, let’s jump into it…

Mimic the semi-transparent menubar

Leopard’s menubar is probably the second most controversial change to Leopard, with people wondering whether or not the change was practical or to the detriment of usability. If you want to mimic this effect in Tiger, download and install MenuShade by Nullriver. Technically, MenuShade fakes the transparency effect, but does a good job at getting you used to the Leopard look. MenuShade has a couple of advantages over Leopard; you can manually set the transparency settings and you can also have the menubar go opaque when you mouse over it. This is a good option if you want your Mac to resemble Leopard but don’t want to resort to haxies or skinning.

Deepen that front window shadow

Unsanity’s WindowShadeX is a haxie whose primary function is returning the WindowShade feature to Mac OS X. It also sports a number of other related features, however, such as the ability to tweak the window dropshadow. Increase the shadow spread and density to ape (no pun intended) the look of Leopard. Note, however, that the current version of WindowShadeX will only give you a subtly more pronounced drop shadow, as opposed to the drastically more pronounced drop shadow in Leopard.

Unify that system theme

While there is no theme that exactly fit Leopard’s new look, one option is UNO, a well-known unified theme for Mac OS X. UNO includes a light unified theme like Tiger’s unified toolbar look, as well a dark unified theme that is similar to Leopard’s smooth metal look. Another fine theme that is designed to resemble Leopard is Liger. Liger does a better job at looking Leopard-esque than UNO but requires Unsanity’s ShapeShifter. However, Liger does feature the transparent menubar with the assistance of a helper application, and has a more complete Leopard look. Check them both out.

Also, it might be worth it to look through MacThemes and Interfacelift’s Mac themes section.

Deck out your desktop

The release build of Leopard sports a space-themed desktop versus the blades of grass used in earlier builds. Personally I prefer the space picture to the grass. I’m not going to tell you where you can find it since the legality is somewhat iffy (copyright?), but the Leopard desktop background is readily available if you know where to look (like just about anything else, it seems). Also, sites like Interfacelift have collections of other suitable desktop photos.

Deal with your downloads

This is fairly simple to do. Simply create a new folder in your user home, name it “Downloads,” and stick it in your Dock. To set this folder as the default location for downloads, check the Preferences for your browser of choice. For Safari, this setting is located under “General.”

The Dock


I can’t think of any way to give the Dock the Leopard treatment, but if you so choose, you can give it no treatment at all! That is, you can remove the background entirely with another Unsanity haxie called ClearDock. ClearDock allows you to eliminate the Dock background entirely or set it to a different color and transparency level. (And before anybody asks, I am not employed by Unsanity.) One possibility: use a clear Dock background. Next, set the running application indicator triangle to a light blue color, mimicking the Leopard look. Alternately, give the Dock a dark gray semi-transparent look, similar to Quick Look in Leopard and the heads-up displays used in some applications. Neither of these possibilities are exact, but will at least give you the feel of Leopard.

Other stuff

There are a number of resources around for decking your Mac out to look like Leopard. Some places to look include sites like Interfacelift, as well as various online forums. Look around and see what you come up with.

Have fun!