Assets not visible in dark mode

[lgoodwin]

I prefer to work in dark mode. But when I do, my assets are not visible. They are established using a black font and, in dark mode, the assets are simply not visible because the asset panel itself is dark. When I switch to light mode, I can see the assets. The workaround so far is to switch top light mode when I need to add assets to a document but that seems like it should be an unnecessary step. Is there some way to set the color of the asset thumbnail so that it will be visible in dark mode?

I've attached two screen shots of the same section of the screen, one in light mode and one in dark mode, to illustrate the problem.

[walt.farrell]

That's a long-standing problem. There are Assets that are not visible in Dark mode, but there are also others that are not visible in Light mode. So it doesn't really matter which you choose, you may still have some you won't be able to see.

I don't think Serif have figured out a solution yet. It may take something like automatically figuring out a contrasting background color to use for each asset when displaying the panel, so the asset can be seen no matter its color.

[voom]

Wouldn't an option for a checkerboard background for assets be an easy fix, like in the layers panel? 

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, voom said:

Wouldn't an option for a checkerboard background for assets be an easy fix, like in the layers panel? 

That might work for some, but I'm not sure a checkerboard background  would work well for, e.g., the Snow assets. And there are others where it might not work well.

 

 

[lgoodwin]

You've given me an idea. I created a dummy asset with text in Red. The asset is visible in both light and dark mode. I would have to change the color of the text when I deploy the asset, but that seems preferable to having to switch from one mode to another, possibly several times during preparation of a document. Now I just have to figure out how to edit my existing assets and change the color of the text, as well as trying to figure out which color is most visible in either dark or light mode.

[voom]

Or one could provide a way to set the background for each collection/folder of assets individually to adapt to content that is not visible manually... 

[voom]

There are many colors that work against in both backgrounds, it is rather a matter of contrast not of the color itself. Maybe this helps to find sth that contrasts well: https://coolors.co/contrast-checker/112a46-acc8e5

In grayscale e.g. #7B7B7B

[wstewl]

I posted about this several years ago, but no solution was offered.

Seems to me they could easily give you the option to switch that window's background from dark to white. Many of my "Assets" are black-lined vector drawings. For me, the way it is still, it is USELESS!

[walt.farrell]

On 10/4/2023 at 8:00 PM, wstewl said:

Many of my "Assets" are black-lined vector drawings. For me, the way it is still, it is USELESS!

Yes, this should be improved. It's an issue with largely black assets when using the Dark UI, and with largely white assets when using the Light UI.

In the meantime, a couple of potential workarounds, in case they help you:

1. Configure the Assets panel to use Show as List, which will let you see the assets' names, too. With appropriate naming, this can help.
2. You could add a white shape as a lower layer to the drawing that you're turning into an asset. Then, Group that layer and the rest of the drawing, and create the Asset. Then it will be easier to see, though when you use the Asset you'll need to delete the shape, and ungroup. Here's an example, where one asset has the white shape as a background and the other doesn't.
   

[lgoodwin]

Show as list seems to solve the problem. I can read the titles in both dark and light mode, making it possible to identify the asset I am looking for.

Thanks.

[Ash]

Hi All,

We have now added options in the asset panel to change the background colour to be light, dark or checkerboard. This is in the 2.3 beta which has just been made available today...