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Lighter Interface?


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The darker UI has been designed to be unobtrusive and allow designers to concentrate on the project itself. However there have been many passionate threads requesting a lighter UI particularly this one
 
Currently we don't have a light UI option but you can adjust the UI Gamma to make it a bit lighter. The option in preferences is really only there to correct for poor monitor black levels but it does work to a certain extent. You can tweak it going to Affinity Designer -> Preferences -> User Interface panel and adjusting the UI Gamma and the Background Gray Level sliders. 
 
The existing icons are designed to look good on a dark background. They all need reviewing and most need reworking for an alternate light interface. However the replacement of icons is not the majority of the work involved. Much time is taken reviewing and reprogramming all the bespoke UI for controls like sliders spin controls tabs indicators etc etc. It is all non-standard bespoke, not off the shelf from a third party. There is months of work unpicking each bit of our UI to redesign every one to look as good as it can.
 
Unfortunately the work to achieve this part of the process is completely independent on each operating system, so any control designed for Mac has an independent equivalent version on Windows. This also means that a lighter solution will most likely beta on one OS before the other.
 
We understand that it doesn't seem hard to make a light UI, but it is far from trivial or we would have done it already. Our stance is not stubbornness it's pragmatic about how long it takes to rework. We have not announced any date for this change. However, we are listening and working towards an optional lighter UI for our users. 

Edited by Patrick Connor
Font size MacOS stuff removed

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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Patrick Connor. I'm afraid that in Affinity Photo, "Preferences", "User Interface", there's no such thing as "Font UI size". At least not in the version I just downloaded... So the UI is not scalable. Sad.

 

Windows has it's own Font Scaling option which we adhere to. The same with Display Zoom.

Patrick is referring to the Preferences in the macOS version which does have that option, as the OS doesn't support it.

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Edited, thanks and sorry for the confusion.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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As a suggestion for when you start working on a lighter interface, take a look at Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects. They have a brightness slider in Edit > Preferences > Appearance that lets you adjust the brightness of the background and when it reaches a certain level it inverts the icons and text on the fly. It's pretty nice.

 

I mean, if you are going to go to all the trouble of redesigning all your icons for light and dark, might as well give everyone a first class experience.

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I really cant understand where is the problem with light gray interface. In Affinty Photo and Designer.  :D  :P  :D 

Please, make it happen!

 

 

At least the artboards can be lightened. Your screencap helped me find the monochrome icons preference. Much better than the circus color default.

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If I can add my voice, I must say that I find the dark UI very fatiguing. There is a big contrast with the content (in my type of work, usually with a white background). Then, reading white text on a dark background, when looking for commands, causes the old effect of the dark background eating the lighter text's borders.

 

My work is technical, very traditional, so I don't use many colors in my drawings. Maybe things are different with colourful illustration works.

 

Also, being on a Mac, the very dark user interface of Affiny apps make a strong contrast with the (normally) lighter user interface of the operating system.

 

Maybe you can add some degrees towards the light side to the Gamma control.

 

Paolo

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