The changing life and times of Leopard

By Cory Bohon

By now, most of you have had a chance to install the new Mac OS X 10.5.2 update for Leopard. Apple has added some minor tweaks to the OS, as well as some new features. If you haven't seen some of the features, you might want to take a look — we've looked high and low in the update and have a list of the new features below.

Time Machine status
By default, after installing the update, Leopard sticks a Time Machine backup status button in the menu bar. This drop-down menu will give you the time of the last backup and a "Back Up Now" option. You can also enter the Time Machine interface right from the menu bar, meaning that you can now remove that semi-pesky icon from your dock.

Continue reading for more Leopard changes.

Translucent Menu Bar

People were unhappy to learn that Leopard would only have a Translucent Menu Bar; meaning that you would be able to see your desktop through it. Well, Apple has made things better in the 10.5.2 update — you can now turn this off. Just visit the "Desktop and Screen Saver" System Preference pane and un-check the "Translucent Menu Bar" check-box in the "Desktop" tab.

With "Translucent Menu Bar" on

With "Translucent Menu Bar" off

StacksOne of the touted features of Leopard, stacks, also received an update. You can now see your stacks with a "list" or hierarchical view (just like folders looked like in Tiger). All you have to do is right-click on a stack in your dock and select "List" from the "View content as" options. When this is turned on, you can left-click on your stack to see a menu appear with the folders contents (just as it did in Tiger). You can even take this a bit further and select "Folder" from the "Display as" options to get rid of the file icons and show just a standard folder.
That's most of what we have noticed in the new update. It is nice to see that Apple is listening to it's customers. If you've noticed anything new in the Leopard upgrade, be sure to sound off in the comments.

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