Transparent Menu & Panel

[cottfcfan]

Using up to date 19.1 Cinnamon with Mint Y dark theme.
Does anyone know how to add Transparency to the Menu & Panel without having to change themes?

[smurphos]

You can install the transparent panel extension https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/e ... ns/view/42 via the Extensions settings module for the panel.

For the menu you are looking at a bit of theme editting if you are up for it. It's fairly sttaighforward. Not at my machine right now to confirm instructions but will check tomorrow and post back.

[smurphos]

Not at my machine right now to confirm instructions but will check tomorrow and post back.

So if you are editing the theme you may as-well do panel and menu via the edit rather than use the extension for the panel only.

1) Copy /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark to ~/.themes. If the latter isn't present create the folder.

2) Open ~/.themes/Mint-Y-Dark/cinnamon/cinnamon.css in a text editor

3) To edit the menu transparency navigate to lines 208-213. You will see

Code: Select all

.menu {
  color: #f0f0f0;
  border: 1px solid #202020;
  border-radius: 3px;
  background-color: rgba(47, 47, 47, 0.99); }

Edit the background-color line - 0.99 is the level of opacity.

e.g for 80% opacity

Code: Select all

.menu {
  color: #f0f0f0;
  border: 1px solid #202020;
  border-radius: 3px;
  background-color: rgba(47, 47, 47, 0.8); }

Note this will affect the transparency of all applet popup menus as-well.

4) For the panel navigate to lines 423 to 428

Code: Select all

.panel-top, .panel-bottom, .panel-left, .panel-right {
  color: #ffffff;
  border: none;
  background-color: rgba(47, 47, 47, 0.99);
  font-size: 1em;
  padding: 0px; }

Again edit the background-color line.

e.g for 33% panel opacity.

Code: Select all

.panel-top, .panel-bottom, .panel-left, .panel-right {
  color: #ffffff;
  border: none;
  background-color: rgba(47, 47, 47, 0.33);
  font-size: 1em;
  padding: 0px; }

5) Save your edits and hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Cinnamon / reload the theme.

Hint - anything less than about 80% opacity on the menu will make usability an issue. The panel you can go much lower.

[cottfcfan]

Thank You Smurphos. Your a star.
I actually edited the theme directly in /usr/share/themes, & set the menu to 0.80 & the panel to 0.50, following your instructions. IMO it now looks way better than the solid colour.
Thanks again.

[AjaxXx]

This has been very helpful.

Anybody know how to do a blur transparency?

[absque fenestris]

Playing around a bit --- as soon as windows are open, it looks strange ...

[rarsa]

Thanks!,

Sometimes just searching the answer to a simple question (Transparent menu) ends up teaching you much more.

Today I just learned how to modify the themes

[mfreeman]

This won't affect the menu, but for the panel there's a Cinnamon extension called "Transparent Panels". If you install that, it will give any theme an easily customizable transparent panel. You can make it semi-transparent, fully transparent, or with a drop shadow background. You can also assign which panels have the transparency and which ones don't. It'd be easier than trying to hand-code the css, unless learning to do that is your goal.

[plshelp847383]

This won't affect the menu, but for the panel there's a Cinnamon extension called "Transparent Panels". If you install that, it will give any theme an easily customizable transparent panel. You can make it semi-transparent, fully transparent, or with a drop shadow background. You can also assign which panels have the transparency and which ones don't. It'd be easier than trying to hand-code the css, unless learning to do that is your goal.

i've tried googled it but in the cinnamon spies it says the extension don't exist. i don't know if this allowed or not, but does anybody has the file?

[AndyMH]

Mint menu > preferences > extensions.

you may have to download it first.

I have found in the past that it doesn't work with some themes.

[lmnk]

Mint menu > preferences > extensions.
Screenshot from 2021-07-09 10-32-09.png

This works on only the primary display, notebook screen.
How can it be done on the external monitor ?
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Edited:
After I restarted Linux Mint, the panel on the external monitor became transparent .

[surfer57]

Thanks for the information as I have now added the extension and it is working great!