Perfectly readable unless you want to check the state of some checkboxes in a background window, anyway. 
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Background windows in general have been getting more difficult to use and work with, in the past few updates. But Iāve even seen this condition on foreground windows in the beta, like the Finder view settings palette.
Itās like Apple forgot about Cmd-clicking to pass-thru clicks without raising or changing focus, and how background windows are supposed to still be useful.
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Huh. I had no idea this existed!
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Theyāre so focused on phone-ifying everything that theyāve forgotten multitasking is useful?
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Good to know it will be usable for this elderly 4 eyed old codger with cataracts, one cornea transplant and another to comeā¦
ewww! and some random text.
Well this āfour-eyed old codgerā had cataracts removed on both eyes in the second half of 2024, and now heās two-eyed most of the time!
I now have terrific distance vision, but need to wear specs for working, reading etc., whereas for 60 years I had worn them for distance and not needed them for computing and reading. So, even though itās 7 months since the second eye was done, I still find myself walking around with reading or computing specs on because it just feels so natural to be wearing them that I forget Iāve got them on! Iām also much more sensitive to daylight and find I have to wear sunspecs all the time Iām outside in this English summer (of sorts!).
As for Tahoe, I watched the Keynote today. Iām happy to wait and see.
Mark
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Looks like they listened: macOS Tahoe Beta 2 Lets You Add a Menu Bar Background - MacRumors 
Can we have the option to change the look back to the current opaque style? (As much as apple lets at least)
Not to speak on whatever the scope will be of Scrivenerās modifications (it probably wonāt be as much as you fear), but a desire like that is likely not going to be constrained to one program, so you might as well use the system setting for it, in Accessibility: Display, Reduced transparency.
Note that if you are using the beta OS, this setting is currently broken (at least it was in the first release, I havenāt updated yet) in such a complete fashion that I can only presume they havenāt started working on it yet.
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Current release Reduced Transparency works on Apple menus, dock etc, but no change to the way apps, including Appleās display menu bars etc.
Just a very quick check and didnāt go beyond opening apps and toggling the setting.
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I might need to manually update, I tried running the check and itās still at the initial release. At least it sounds as though they are working on it. In the initial build, with it on, each menu would be a different colour with some backgroundsāand not in a subtle way! I hope that by launch it is restored to how it has always worked, to completely remove all tinting and translucency everywhere. It makes taking screenshots much easier. If it is your preference, then without it working like it did, you would have to live with a solid black desktop background just to get a decent contrast and consistency.
We may need a compact mode in macOS 26. Merge titlebar with main toolbar, less margin in binder.
Reduce transparency works now in most places. Just a few side bars on apple apps like system settings are a little wonky. It also reduces the amount of gpu used to draw the screen by almost 2/3. Now about those curved cornersā¦
Yeah, thatās why I wonāt be updating for a while. I suspect in a yearās time things will look a little more sane. I can hope. Atm, Iām planning on skipping Tahoe completely.
Also transparency, as a design choice, baffles me. It can only make things harder to read. Itās more like an anti-design pattern. Perhaps thatās the point. Shakes fist at cloud.
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Iāve been testing various web things in iOS 26 & macOS 26 (mostly in the beta of Safari, but also Chrome) over the last week and it still feels very much like a mess. Itās better than the initial betas, but as an UI software engineer who spends a lot of time working on UX and accessibility concerns, I remain concerned.
It all looks very pretty though.
Sigh.
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