There seems to be no way to adjust the Dock background in Mavericks so that it is transparent or black as it was on Mountain Lion.
I saw this discussed on MacRumors about the developers' version of Mavericks--no solutions there.
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)
No, there are probably third party apps (or will be) but third party apps that change the gui are always risky.
No, there are probably third party apps (or will be) but third party apps that change the gui are always risky.
Yes please!!! i googled for two hours and looks like there's no fix for that.
This thing is bugging me so much that I'm thinking of downgrading.
I can't focus on what I'm doing because I think how idiot and incompetent is the new design team.
Looks as though there is no solution at this point. And it bugs me, too--it makes it a lot more difficult to see the icons on the Dock, especially a side Dock with a lot of small icons.
Why did they have to go fix something that wasn't broken?! I would downgrade, too, except that i think there are a lot of improvements in speed and so on that are worth keeping. It's still an option, though. I hope they get enough complaints about this that they will give us an option, at least, to change back to the original Dock style.
You can file feedback here.
The more who send feedback the more likely it will get done.
Thanks. Good idea. I just submitted a very strong negative feedback to Apple about the Dock changes. For anyone who is visually impaired this is a real problem, and I told them so.
I just submitted feedback too. I hope they will fix the dock soon.
I found this terminal command online that at least lessens th starkness of the dock's background when put to one of the sides. I would prefer full transparancy, but that doesn't (yet) to be an option. Try:
defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool true;killall DockAnd see if it makes it easier to view this way.
Interesting--thanks very much.
It didn't seem to make much of a difference, but---
I then went to my Library in Finder, deleted all the Dock plist files, some of which seemed to be left over from years ago (I've upraded from Lion to ML to Mavericks over that period of time), logged out, and when I logged back in I had a "clean" dock on the bottom (it had been on the side).
The new Dock has only the default Apple icons in it, which is fine because I can add icons in later, and also doesn't get cluttered up with all the open Safari windows which I never used. I don't know if it will stay that way.
Anyway, the side dock does seem to be more transparent and readable than before.
I spoke too soon.
The dock does end up with all the icons of hidden Safari icons, and I think it's about as gray as ever--maybe a little better--with the terminal command.
I agree it's not great after the command,but depending on your screen wallpaper, you can see that it's somewhat translucent at least. Not quite as stark grey as before. Not the best solution, true, but I think it's better than it was. 🙂
Now if we can get someone (Apple?) to let us make it transparent again. I appreciate someone doing the coding since I'm really crappy at code, but always having to default to someone else's idea of what things should look like rather than giving me the option to apply my own preferences seems to be less user-friendly than things were before.
I dislike the new incredibly distracting Dock background color that for now, I have selected "automatically hide and show Dock" in the Dock preferences until a third party or Apple fixes this.
KenV54: If you turn on "Minimize windows into application icon" in System Prefs > Dock, that'll clean up a lot of clutter in your dock. Then click and hold, or right-click on a dock icon to choose and unminimize a window.
Thanks. I've tried it and am not sure what it really does (it does seem to unclutter it some), but it doesn't make the background black or more transparent as it used to be in Mountain Lion.
Somehow i think they've just changed the Dock so that it can't be adjusted in this way.
There is actually a way to get the 2D Mountain Lion dock back in Mavericks (for the bottom only).
Using SIMBL and BlackDock
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=18514056&postcount=34
You can also make the dock transparent using dockmod (which should soon support both bottom and side dock). Dockmod does cost $8 but here's some information on that
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=18490458&postcount=23
😎
Dockmod and other apps are no solution.
There is no easy way to change the look of the maverick dock like in previous OSX versions. Dockmod and similar apps are system hacks that can cause system errors. They should not be used on productive systems.
It is horrible that apple ignores the complaints about the dock and offer no solution. The new iOS7 look is similar horrible with its low contrast look. I have lost my confidence in the apple designers.
Any way to make the Dock transparent or black again?
