Designer Pro Plus Black GUI

[Acorn]

When I first used the Dark Theme, I too was dismayed.
I tried the Grey Theme on older versions and found it all looked mushy and less professional.
I persevered and because I use Shortcuts equally with mouse actions I found the new colour scheme less intrusive.

The top toolbar does not have a hover effect compared with the sidebar, which definitely is poor UI design. Pop-ups are not the same and intrusive.
We should have a Context toolbar and not just rely on right-clicks.

In the Pro versions being able to customise shortcuts and make your own toolbars does help.

Get these right and colour becomes less important.

Acorn

[handrawn]

I disliked dark way back - but I am used to it in other programs...

one thing sticks out though - light grey text eg: object names in the page and layer gallery on a locked layer, is fine on a white background [light interface], but difficult on a background that is itself grey as in the dark interface; I do not have difficulty with this in other programs, I do not think xara have got the balance right

[Evnl]

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

I did some digging, you can edit the xaradark.cjstyles with a resource editor like resource tuner and modify the colors. I copied the values from an older xara version and now it looks pretty much the same as before(IE not the super dark colors but the lighter grey). Still trying to figure out how to get the old icons back.

Update: Both the mono and multi color icons are in XaraXEng.dll, theoretically it's possible to export all the icons, replace the mono ones with the multi color ones and we should be good to go. I tested this with 2 icons but it seems to be a manual job so it's not done in a few minutes.

[Acorn]

I did some digging, you can edit the xaradark.cjstyles with a resource editor like resource tuner and modify the colors. I copied the values from an older xara version and now it looks pretty much the same as before(IE not the super dark colors but the lighter grey). Still trying to figure out how to get the old icons back.

Thank you for the pointer. I have tried with 'Resource Hacker' but backed off when I spotted the Copyright notices (some files are still copyrighted to Magix).
In passing, the Bitmaps in cjstyles mostly appear to be sprites and none refer to the Xara function icons. I imagine these are well embedded into the compiled executables or DLLs. The problem then arises where if you alter say XaraX.DLL, it probably has a CRC somewhere and you've mucked up your copy. Fine for Plus versions while subscribed but a raw deal for legacy (Magix) products where a reload reverts back to the bought version.

Definitely not something to attempt unless you are bullet-proof and are not infringing copyright. It is also safer that you do not share your changes as this is one of the simpler routes into hacking others' machines.

better if all concerned TGers engage with Xara and ask for customisable skins or more than just the Model 'T' approach.

Acorn

[Evnl]

Thank you for the pointer. I have tried with 'Resource Hacker' but backed off when I spotted the Copyright notices (some files are still copyrighted to Magix).
In passing, the Bitmaps in cjstyles mostly appear to be sprites and none refer to the Xara function icons. I imagine these are well embedded into the compiled executables or DLLs. The problem then arises where if you alter say XaraX.DLL, it probably has a CRC somewhere and you've mucked up your copy. Fine for Plus versions while subscribed but a raw deal for legacy (Magix) products where a reload reverts back to the bought version.

Definitely not something to attempt unless you are bullet-proof and are not infringing copyright. It is also safer that you do not share your changes as this is one of the simpler routes into hacking others' machines.

better if all concerned TGers engage with Xara and ask for customisable skins or more than just the Model 'T' approach.

Acorn

Agreed, customization from within the GUI would be a much better solution. The one thing I still can't understand is that the weird resize/crop thing can not be changed from within the gui. Luckily it's still possible to change within the registry. The new resize/crop method seems to be user friendly at first but is actually utterly useless(change back to the old method by changing ShowXCBoundsBlobs in the registry to 0)

[Acorn]

The one thing I still can't understand is that the weird resize/crop thing can not be changed from within the gui. Luckily it's still possible to change within the registry. The new resize/crop method seems to be user friendly at first but is actually utterly useless(change back to the old method by changing ShowXCBoundsBlobs in the registry to 0)

Evnl, you'll have to explain with some examples, why.

It would help if you answered into the correct Thread: https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...191#post658191

Acorn

[handrawn]

and it might be useful to point out that the registry edit in question does more than just tweak the resize/crop....

[Michael]

Very interesting thread. Kudo's to Evnl. I'm willing to delve into it deeper this Christmas to suit the UI to my likings. I've tried to change the interface but, indeed, it's a hell of a job and I still revert to ctrl+alt+shft+S. (for it's the UI I've used since Xara Studio ...)

If it is possible to tweak the UI I'd be inclined to buy a copy for myself. Right now we're stuck at v19 (work) but I would like to upgrade and I'm willing to splash out 180 euro's. But ... will the copy I have bought work after one year? I won't need the fancy Internet/0nline catalogues/templates/snazzy stuff for all I use Xara for is designing (landscaping) slight DTP and a website once in a while.

So, the big question is: will Xara Designer Pro + work after one year subscription? Will it still be possible to save .xar files and export to pdf/jpeg/... Or do I need a connection whenever I start the program and save my designs??

[Acorn]

Very interesting thread. Kudo's to Evnl. I'm willing to delve into it deeper this Christmas to suit the UI to my likings. I've tried to change the interface but, indeed, it's a hell of a job and I still revert to ctrl+alt+shft+S. (for it's the UI I've used since Xara Studio ...)

If it is possible to tweak the UI I'd be inclined to buy a copy for myself. Right now we're stuck at v19 (work) but I would like to upgrade and I'm willing to splash out 180 euro's. But ... will the copy I have bought work after one year? I won't need the fancy Internet/0nline catalogues/templates/snazzy stuff for all I use Xara for is designing (landscaping) slight DTP and a website once in a while.

So, the big question is: will Xara Designer Pro + work after one year subscription? Will it still be possible to save .xar files and export to pdf/jpeg/... Or do I need a connection whenever I start the program and save my designs??

Micheal, you really need to read back in the Threads around Plus (subscription) & v20 (Perpetual).
-- "Xara Designer Pro +" will NOT "work after one year subscription"
-- v20 Perpetual is good enough for your expressed needs.
-- @Evnl is not the first to suggest hacking into Xara's proprietary code. What you do, successfully or otherwise, is ultimately down to you but TG can not promote, condone or endorse it.

Acorn

[Acorn]

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

marharaj, welcome to TalkGraphics. Just wondering which package you have as your profile indicates 'NONE'.
Postscript: maharaj12f's Replay was to repeat the above, adding spammy links. He left.
The following is still valid:

None of the Xara colours for the GUI is pure Black.
The outer is #1A1E22 when it is not the selected program. On selection this changes to #24282C.
Unselected buttons are #CED2D6. A hover over a button changes its colour to White.
A selected button has an Orange background (#FFB43C).

Rather than damn the Dark Theme out of hand, instead try to come up with a selection of colours for each button, covering (Shown, Hover, Selected). I make it 174 times 3:
You've then got all the galleries to wade through.

Postscript:
For those never read back, take the time with https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...194#post658194
-- Tweak what you like but do not publish unless you are 100% confident you are not breaching copyright.
Diligenter calcare.

Acorn