Black and White impenetrable icons

[DD]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg +1!

The changes I made to my toolbars were fairly modest.

It took me half an hour of wasted time to peck though B&W impenetrable icons to get them in the right place.

A personal layout is really important even if I am quite happy to and be able to memorise keypresses.

Acorn

Spawned from https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...-Toolbar-Reset

I like the description B&W "impenetrable" icons.

The monochrome icons are real barrier to my change from Magix to Xara.

Yes, I can work out which icons are highlighted and which are greyed out BUT IT TAKES TIME which is poor design.

The old coloured icons were so much easier to view, colour == highlighted == clickable.

I would like to see an option that added a colour, lets say red, to all useable icons to make them instantly, easily, obviously stand out from that which is greyed out.

[gwpriester]

The old coloured icons were so much easier to view, colour == highlighted == clickable.

+1

[handrawn]

if you want an example of such that works very well: corel painter:




+1

[Daniel]

I have another example of a program that has a really easy to use set of toolbar icons - they work well, are easy to understand, and they show clearly which tool is selected

[Acorn]

I have another example of a program that has a really easy to use set of toolbar icons - they work well, are easy to understand, and they show clearly which tool is selected

Gosh, yes. I wonder, can you let me know where i could buy one of these?

Acorn

[handrawn]

I am not advocating one set as better than the other, quite happy either way... most of the time i am looking at the workspace....

but the chances of xara reverting from bw icons is likely nil; it's not the way 'professional' apps do things these days

[xtom]

I still like the colour buttons, they made interacting with the software a bit more pleasant. From the screenshots it looks like Affinity has some colour to their UI buttons and it looks good too.

[Daniel]

the chances of xara reverting from bw icons is likely nil; it's not the way 'professional' apps do things these days

I found Office 2010 the easiest version to use because it had the most colourful toolbar buttons. Office 2013 was pretty flat and difficult to distinguish buttons because it was either monochrome or very nearly monochrome, but to their credit, the current version of Office 365 (Microsoft 365? If there's one thing that Xara and Microsoft have in common, it's that they can pick confusing product names and version numbers) has re-introduced colour and it is much better for it.

Affinity has some colour to their UI buttons and it looks good too.

It has, and it does. I can't use it for toffee though, every time I try, I give up because I can do things in Xara quicker - even with ropey toolbars.

[handrawn]

..office 365.....has re-introduced colour...

up to a point it has, but again, the colouration is now done for empasis rather than having everything coloured for the sake of it

and it is much better for it

a new suit of clothes is still just a suit of clothes

[ss-kalm]

New isn't necessarily better though.

IMHO - The new "fad" of monochrome minimalistic toolbars, just makes life so much more awkward. It's so much less obvious which icon is which, and effectively slows everything down. Every "new" iteration of most of my regularly used programs has a new look toolbar. What was wrong with the old ones ...