Ultra simple: Paste code below into browser address bar here, press enter. The short version:
- Login to Twitter and go here: http://twitter.com/settings/design
- Paste the code (copy it from below) into the address bar on your browser
- Check the code to see if your browser accepted it all. You may need to type some in by hand. (HT @amanda36c)
- Press enter on your keyboard, then refresh the page using Ctrl+F5
A transparent sidebar is a bad idea if you have a background that is a similar color to your text—it may make your sidebar text seen almost invisible. Also, if your background image is very busy, it may just look bad with the text of your sidebar sitting on top of it. And if you are using “New Twitter” you may like: How To Add new media types to “New Twitter”But if you want to try it, it’s very easy to do! It’s also easy to change it back if you don’t like it. Just follow these simple steps:
Works for new and old Twitter!
You must be logged into Twitter.com for this to work! And it seems to work best from old Twitter—you can switch back to New Twitter afterwards. Try a different browser if you get an error. Test show Twitter hasn’t changed this—it’s still working! You will likely have to reset your browser cache to see the results (see http://bit.ly/FixBrowser for tips).
STEP 1: Click here to access your profile design settings: http://twitter.com/settings/design and then copy the code between the lines below (don’t copy the lines!):
javascript:document.getElementById("user_profile_sidebar_fill_color").value = '';void(0);
STEP 2: Delete the URL (website address) in the address bar at the top of your browser (Where is my address bar? See also: Address bars in different browsers).
STEP 3: Paste the code in where the website address was and press enter on your keyboard—the code replaces the website URL/address. Check the code to see if your browser accepted it all. You may need to type some in by hand.
STEP 4: Find and click the “save changes” button just above the bottom of your screen. It should look like this:
You may not notice anything different, but you did it! (When you first enter the script and press enter, the example sidebar will not become transparent.) The sidebar on your Twitter page (go there to check) should now be transparent.
Didn’t work? Having a problem?
If it did not work for some reason, do all the steps over again very carefully.
In some cases you may need to do a “hard” refresh of your web page. Do this by going to your Twitter page, and then holding down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard (Command key on a Mac) while pressing the F5 (function) key at the same time. This should do a full refresh of your page.
It is also possible that at some future date Twitter will prevent this from working. If you have a problem, leave a comment below!
To change your sidebar back to a color
- Make sure you are logged into Twitter.com
- Return to your design settings page: http://twitter.com/settings/design
- Click the words “Change design colors” near the bottom of the page and you’ll see several colored boxes.
- Click in the colored box under “sidebar”
- Choose a color by clicking and moving your mouse around in the box of colors that pops up. It should look something like this:
