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WinSCP dark theme

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beerwin
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WinSCP dark theme

Hi Martin,

Can you please add a dark theme to WinSCP alongside the System Default, WinXP and Office2003 themes? It would be very nice.

I downloaded the source code and I see, that you are using the TBX package to have themes. That package has some built-in themes (although most of them are ugly – I understand why did you choose the only two – more can be created)

Can we see something in this regard in a future release?

Kind regards,
Ervin Nagy

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martin◆
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Re: WinSCP dark theme

We are actually considering phasing out the themes and using a single one only (the default Office XP).
We needed to customize the themes. And we cannot afford to maintain more of them.

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Pyre909
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Creating a Dark Theme

Hey Martin,

I was wondering if you can point me in the right direction of editing the themes. I have downloaded the source code. I want to try my luck at creating a dark theme.

If things go well would you be against adding it? Also do you guys know of a relevant place that I could look up that would be helpful in learning how to edit/create themes. I don't want to do anything complicated and don't want to add "bulk" to WinSCP that would compromise speed. I will look to optimize the theme as well. This will be based on the Default or XP theme just a dark version of it.

If you are thinking of going to a single theme it would not be out of the question to have a light and dark theme. I would be happy to add any notes necessary for this to facilitate this.

Thanks!
Steve

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martin◆
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Re: Creating a Dark Theme

Pyre909 wrote:

If things go well would you be against adding it?
You know, in the end, it will be us who will need to maintain it. So probably not. Unless enough people asks for it.
Also I'm generally against using custom colors. I believe that a productivity application, like WinSCP, needs to follow Windows theme.
Thanks anyway.

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Code
Guest

Re: Creating a Dark Theme

@martin: This is terrible for visually handicapped users such as myself (I have high light sensitivity causing my eyes to water). The Windows default High Contrast themes majorly suck without some registry hacks that I don't want to perform. I have converted almost all my apps to use dark themes instead, even going out of my way to use a custom trusted file explorer for this. Win10 added a Dark theme, but it only applies to Windows Universal Applications. Please reconsider having custom colors, at least a locked down Dark option under Environment settings.

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uplink
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really bad living without dark theme

Guys, seriously

The dark theme is a must. I'm not using WinSCP as my default client at home, but at work it's a must. Thus I strongly appeal to You to add dark theme for WinSCP.

If You want, hit me on my email [registration adress], I'm a designer, creating Dark Ui for Win SCP won't pose a problem for me, if You need to be offloaded.

Thank You for Your consideration

With kind regards

uplink

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Re: really bad living without dark theme

@martin: Weekend is up ahead, I'll create something on Saturday or Sunday and post it here.

Pokojný víkend Ti prajem :)

Kind regards

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OnlyPost
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Re: Creating a Dark Theme

A Dark Theme would greatly be appreciated by many silently who don't interact with the forums. I Created an account for this only post. I use WinSCP pretty often in the dark it would be great for this program to match every other dark themed program I use.

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uplink
Donor

My bad, still didn't have time to create it, even though sketch is only for about 2–3 hours tops. Shouldn't have promised something I couldn't keep on time, although, I will create, if someone won't do it before me.

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mkuchar
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+1 for dark theme

For some of us is after 30 years of programming text on white background very bad visible. Many of us have cataracta or another visually impaired :( The white background is for us like looking into the sun.

Many developers know this and this is why we now have almost all IDE/editors available in dark theme (Atom, Brackets, Visual Studio etc.), including Midnight commander, Firefox/Chrome plugins, OS X Mojave and many more.

We do not want to stress you, Martin, about adding some useless code just for fun, but just because working with white background is almost not possible for many of us and we do not want to change our workflow, because WinSCP is just the best.

Thank You a pozdrav od dalšího Pražáka :)
Martin Kuchař

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Pyre909
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Sample UI's

Hi All,

Would something "similar" to the style that Visual Studio has not suite everyone's needs with a few tweaks. At least the dark color I am fond of. I have attached the Windows 10 Dark and Light themes including the dark ui for Visual Studio for convenience.

Regards!

Description: Win 10 Light Theme

light_theme_win10.png

Description: Win 10 Dark Theme

dark_theme_win10.png

Description: Visual Studio

sampleui_scheme.png

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martin◆
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Re: WinSCP dark theme

Dark theme has been implemented now.
I'm sending you an email with a development version of WinSCP to the address you have used to register on this forum.

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tfrancois
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OMG right in the nick of time!! Please can you send me the pre-release version with the DARK theme. My poor eyes can't take it anymore! Thank you so much for working on this for us!

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NJITman
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Dark Theme - Almost Perfect

I switched over to the dark theme in the latest beta. Very nice - complements the other tools I am using. It needs a few refinements though.

1. Title bar is still white background.
2. Session tabs are still white background.
3. Source/Destination column heads are still white background.
4. Source/Destination path bars are colored based on windows theme.

I was already using Windows 10 1809 dark theme. When WinSCP updated to this beta, it was already in dark theme without me selecting it in Preferences. I suspect that is why some of the elements are not dark as expected.

Thanks!

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martin◆
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Re: Dark Theme - Almost Perfect

NJITman wrote:

1. Title bar is still white background.
2. Session tabs are still white background.
3. Source/Destination column heads are still white background.
I do not think these can be changed. I assume that Microsoft will eventually update Windows API to allow turning these to dark theme.
Even for coloring of scrollbars WinSCP is using an undocumented API:
Win10 dark theme - how to use in WINAPI?

Though the title bar is controlled by Windows. You can set Windows color to some dark color in Windows settings and enable "Show accent color on the following surfaces > Title bars and window borders".

4. Source/Destination path bars are colored based on windows theme.
I'll look into these.

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ryanjmartin
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Dark Mode Needs Improvement

due to the way the fonts look, black on gray, and the various horizontal bar colors being blue/white, I think it is too difficult to use the dark mode.

I hope there is a way to improve the UI to better support a dark mode or a way for the colors to be adjusted in a user config to set your own "theme"

thanks for the amazing work on this!!!

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martin◆
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Re: Dark Mode Needs Improvement

@ryanjmartin: Windows API for dark theme is not complete imo. Maybe once they (Microsoft) finish it, we can make WinSCP dark mode better. We do not plan to support custom themes.

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NJITman
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Windows 10 Limitation

I agree that the current Win 10 dark theme is not complete, even in their own pop-up alerts the default color selected in personalization comes through. So, there are elements of the Win UI that are not fully adopting the dark theme.

Supposedly, in Win 10 1903 (April 2019 update), dark theme is supposed to be improved. Of course, installing a Win 10 feature update like 1903 is always tricky, as early bugs are often reported. I wait a solid month before updating.

Even though there are still elements that are not dark, the new theme in WinSCP is much appreciated and will certainly work for now.

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kerembeyazit
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Dark Mode

Thank you for the dark mode but I think it's need a lot a work. I want to make a concept design @Martin, you can use you if you want. I'll post design at next days.

Thanks.

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Rosmano
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I just wanted to truly thank you for actually adding support for a dark theme. I was a Filezilla user but the dev there has been quite rude to people asking for dark theme support.
I must say your support is much better and I became a fan of Winscp thanks to this. :)

The only thing I'm missing is the support for ssh-agent from Microsoft OpenSSH since I cannot automate with Pageant the automatic signing using rsa keys that are passphrase protected without having to write the passphrase. I can do that with ssh-agent. :)

Well, that's unrelated.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE DARK THEME!!!

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martin◆
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Rosmano wrote:

The only thing I'm missing is the support for ssh-agent from Microsoft OpenSSH since I cannot automate with Pageant the automatic signing using rsa keys that are passphrase protected without having to write the passphrase. I can do that with ssh-agent. :)
This request is being tracked here:
Issue 1682 – Support OpenSSH ssh-agent
Check the winssh-pageant link there.

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