Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

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HanVroon
Posts: 232
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:30 am

Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by HanVroon »

Hello,

After I figured out how to activate a personal theme in XnViewMP (Old Dark) as mentioned in topic 21219 a year ago, I started investigating that file style_sheet.qss in folder C:\Program Files\XnViewMP\UI\.

I wasn't very happy with the Dark theme, too little contrast, and the Black theme I found, well, too black :-)
So I went through the whole file, changing mainly color properties to see where the entries were used.

What I fixed (I think):
Tabs below panels (tab shape="1") had improper settings.
Text of the panel titles were not vertically centered.
White horizontal line next to tabs below panels (tab shape="1").
Blue line above tabs in Settings windows like Formats, Read.
There were no settings for QTableView, used in Settings, File list and Custom filter.
QListView, item, hover, changed the color, in Settings the left subjects list was hardly readable.
QComboBox, item with hover focus turned blue.
Made screens with tabs in Settings (like Formats, Read) lighter, checkboxes were hardly visible.
Changed the progress bar, it was colored, the percentage lacking left padding, made the progress bar thinner.
Checkboxes in titles of groupboxes were Windows blue (like in Settings, Catalog.
The bars in Category sets panel and Batch convert, Actions tab were light blue.

The whole journey should result in a theme that was more my taste, with "10 shades of gray", not too dark and making every detail of the GUI clearly visible.
This whole journey resulted in a file that has grown from 29 KB to 45 KB because of comments.
So I now have a file were every setting is documented as good as I could do that without the source code.

I could publish this file here, but I need to know if there is enough interest, because I made all my comments in Dutch, so I would need to translate it in English, which is OK but takes time.

Regards, Han

(right-click downlaod the images for better compare)

Old
5Theme-OldDark.jpg
New
6Theme-OldDark-Modified.jpg
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Last edited by HanVroon on Thu Mar 19, 2026 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jkm
Posts: 412
Joined: Sat May 11, 2024 12:43 am

Re: Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by jkm »

Hi HanVroon,

I do think there would be some interest in your theme. Some people have expressed a desire for a "medium" theme in between the light and dark themes. Yours is darker than I think they meant (I think they were interested in more of a 192/192/192 medium grey) but it looks nice and at least is a step in that direction.

Thanks for posting...

About this part though:
HanVroon wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 9:55 am Pierre, maybe the name "Old Dark" in menu View > Theme needs attention. Perhaps "Custom theme" would be better, to show that this is the only theme that can be changed by an end user.
Are you using a current version of XnViewMP? Unless there is something wrong with my eyes, there's no "View->Theme" menu (and hasn't been for quite some time) and no mention of "Old Dark" I can see in the app now. Theme selection is now in Settings:General and there is a "Custom" theme listed.
HanVroon
Posts: 232
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:30 am

Re: Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by HanVroon »

Right....
I'm still on a version one month before you joined the forum :-)
I will remove the text from my topic.
jkm
Posts: 412
Joined: Sat May 11, 2024 12:43 am

Re: Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by jkm »

Ah, well there have been some significant upgrades recently. Hopefully you’ll like them if you try the current version. Cheers…
HanVroon
Posts: 232
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:30 am

Re: Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by HanVroon »

Nevertheless,

It takes a bit more than one reply from a new XnThusiast to make me translate all the comments, so I wait and see....
jkm
Posts: 412
Joined: Sat May 11, 2024 12:43 am

Re: Improved and fully documented Old Dark theme

Post by jkm »

Huh? Right, well I never said otherwise. You solicited feedback, and that’s how it comes: one person at a time. Feel free to dismiss it. Bye bye.