Designer Pro Plus Black GUI

[Merlinski]

New version, new GUI, but I'm struggling with the speed of my using it because there's no colour cues in the icons that help speed up operation for me, they are all black and white, takes a moment to know where I am lol

I also find the darkness a bit dark to be honest, too black.

I appreciate it's also 'newness' but wondered how others felt and if it can be changed in an option or anything.

I am aware of the old CTRL+ALT+SHFT+S switcher and it still works, but that takes you way back to an old and very bright interface, not what I'm looking for.

This might, and I know it sounds dramatic, be a deal breaker for me it's took me quite by surprise.

Cheers

Chris

[handrawn]

the old CTRL+ALT+SHFT+S switcher and it still works

yes and no; I find the page and layer gallery unusable with this option....

as far as I know it's a henry ford situation [you can have any colour you like as long as it's black]

I have other programs that have monochrome UI, not for me an issue; the orange highlighting is a nice touch

that said I don't use the program myself anymore, I reverted back

[Acorn]

Merlinski, I initially did not like the new UI monochrome but it grows over time.
Using any legacy one shows how muddy the dark grey is.

Skinning would be a nice improvement.

Those more knowledgeable might have a play with C:\Program Files\Xara\Xara Designer Pro+\xaradark_theme.xml.
In Pro+ there are rather more named colours than previous. It probably will not plug into a Legacy version as the actual named colours are part of the build so no real way to change much.
You might manage to tweak some. The values are hex but in ABGR order, the opposite of JavaScript's rgba() function.

Always safely copy the original.

Acorn

[Merlinski]

I've been flicking back and forth, and also trying to spend time in the new GUI but it's just not as good in my opinion, I'm gutted. I'm going to stick with v19 unfortunately because the other is just too harsh for me personally. It's actually more obtrusive because of it's stark black rather than inoffensive grey which is, well it's grey, it's neither too dark or too light is it really, that's where grey lives lol in the middle. Ontop of that the lack of colour in the icons takes away that instant recogniisability that the brain does with certain cues, as it stands, they are just too similar and worse on a smaller screen too (laptop). Pleeeeeeeease give us options on the GUI or rethink slightly maybe to lessen the impact of the balck maybe?

[JEDweb23]

My previous version of Photo & Graphic Designer was 10 years old. I lost that when my 10 year old PC crashed 10 days ago. I bought a new PC and v20 version, and appreciate that long forgotten GUI switch of "the old CTRL+ALT+SHFT+S" shortcut.

[Acorn]

My previous version of Photo & Graphic Designer was 10 years old. I lost that when my 10 year old PC crashed 10 days ago. I bought a new PC and v20 version, and appreciate that long forgotten GUI switch of "the old CTRL+ALT+SHFT+S" shortcut.

Jed, you are still licensed to use v10. You can install and run both v10 & v20 on the same machine and use at the same time.

To get a download, log into https://www.magix.com/gb/support/my-service-center/ with your registered email.
If you have your licence number, use https://www.magix.com/gb/support/my-...uct-downloads/.

Acorn

[DD]

This might, and I know it sounds dramatic, be a deal breaker for me it's took me quite by surprise.

Chris

Chris, you are not alone, it really is a deal breaker for me too.

Why can't I choose ? It should be so simple to implement.

[handrawn]

I reverted back

and now I have re-reverted back to the new designer pro [perpetual] v20

Why can't I choose ? It should be so simple to implement

then as you will know, the dark theme is controlled by the XML file xaradark_theme in the program folder; I guess if it is that easy you could always try tweaking it [at your own risk and possibly against the EULA, although registry tweaks are allowed, so...]

if you remove that file enirely the program reverts to light screen as with shift+ctrl+alt+s - but the page and layer gallery is then broken with respect to highlighting the selected object[s] - so I am inclined to think it is not that simple

[Acorn]

This is my wild guess and may be well off track:

Xara uses Qt 5 for its UI design of its products.The latest version is Qt 6.6 and skinning is a capability. https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qt-intro.html.

Xara has decided not to expose this for modification as it could impact on the products' presentation and make support all the harder.

The Xara UI has thousands of bits 'n' bobs so colour naming each and every one would be a large task, probably impact on performance and be taken up by only a few. It is probably something like qtquickcontrols2.conf that would be changed and that is not accessible.

Skinning is an art.

Acorn

[handrawn]

Skinning is an art

rather what I was getting at in my own small way...