Here's a recurring problem I've had.
I love using a dark theme for my Windows 7 computer. Unfortunately, the only way to get a really dark theme is by choosing the "High Contrast Black" color style, even though I don't really want high contrast, just darkness.
My theme works great, except that once in a while, there's an app that shows terrible colors because of it. Chrome is one example. I managed to fight that off using the Forced Colors setting, but that setting may be removed in the future, and then I'll be in a big problem.
I'm guessing that each app has some kind of API to ask the operating system about the theme colors. Is there any way to intercept that call and change the data, so specific apps will think that I'm on a non-high contrast theme?
Other ideas and solutions would also be interesting to hear.
Related
I'm trying to make VS Code editor to look exactly like Visual Studio. I made sure the font settings are exactly the same, however text still renders differently in VS Code (it seems "lighter").
Is there any way to fix this issue?
In the image below the top text is copied from Visual Studio while the bottom one is copied from VS code.
I know the difference is subtle but is still pretty noticeable.
Font rendering in VSCode has been a reoccurring issue throughout a good portion of the editors life time. Font rendering, especially in portable GUI's, is affected by several different layers, for example:
Your Graphics Card can affect the way font is rendered (you can try adjusting the graphic cards settings manually).
Your Monitor, obviously, affects rendering. In fact your monitor has a huge impact. (Try playing with your Monitor's Settings)
The color settings that are offered by your OS may have an impact (often times the color settings are the same as the graphic card settings though. Which means you can just use your OS's GUI to adjust your cards settings in some cases (Not on Ubuntu though))_
Somethings are out of your control, like:
VSCode, it is written using Electron v6. Not only does Electron impact font rendering, but when VSCode switched it Version 6 a lot of people reported a decrease in the editors font rendering quality.
VSCode also implements Anti-Aliasing tools, but as far as I can tell, they auto configure, so you have no control over this. These tools are likely to be one of the biggest causes to the difference in rendering you see, between VS IDE & VS CODE. There is a tool however that may give you some control over the Visual Studio side of rendering that I share a link to below. And just as an FYI, the Anti-Aliasing that VSCode uses is called Sub-pixel Rendering, which is something that Visual Studio doesn't implement as far as I can tell.
The Area You Have the Most Control in:
There is ONE tool/thing that you have 100% control over, that also greatly affects font-rendering, and that is the font that you decide to use. When choosing a font, you have the choice of equipping an OTF, or a TTF. In my personal experience, OTF's render better 90% of the time. The difference is in how they are created.
TTF fonts are made using quadratic Beziers.
OTF fonts are made using cubic Beziers.
Links above are the same
Fonts use something called font-hinting
Font hinting. Essentially font-hinting is a list of instructions that dynamically changes the way a font is rendered, by using the rasterized grid background as a parameter. adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. Choosing a quality font equipped with good hinting is critical for non-blurry readable text.
Many people choose font because like the way they look, or the italic version of the font they use is popular. When choosing a font, it is extremely important to choose, not the coolest one, but the one that renders with the highest quality, and is the easiest for you to read.
Well Rendering Fonts:
Not only are their fonts that render well, with ligature support, but the best rendering fonts are always free IMO. Bellow are Fonts that use font hinting and have top notch rendering abilities.
JetBrains Mono (JetBrain's Font & My Personal Favorite)
Cascadia Code (Microsoft's Programming Font from 2019)
Fira Code (Not that old, but not that new either. Is loved by many.)
Fira Mono (No Ligatures, Different Font than Fira Code)
Consolas (A classic)
Menlo (Another Classic)
The top 4 are at the top of the list because they receive updates ever few months. I don't think Menlo & Consolas receive regular updates, but they aren't left forgotten either, the are updated every year or two.
To finish with as solid of an answer as I can provide:
_"Getting VSCode to render like the Visual Studio IDE, is not something that you will probably get, with 100% satisfaction, getting an exact match with all of the different factors is just an extremely and possibly impossible thing to due. You can probably make the way the two pieces of software render, more a like, not in functionality, but in looks. It would probably help a great deal to make sure that everything that affects rendering is up to date, editor, IDE, fonts, tools, ect... From their you can try different versions, and see if maybe an older version of VSCode rendered in a way that is preferable to you. You should also play with your monitors settings. I have found that I can accomplish a great deal just through the buttons under the face of my monitor. Check Visual Studio for any rendering settings it might have, VSCode doesn't have much available, but maybe Visual Studio IDE does (I haven't used the IDE in 5 years so IDK if it does).
On a final note:
Their is one tool that could help you, I haven't used it, because it isn't for VSCode, it's for Visual Studio, but it might give you more control than you have now. The tool is called..."_
Text Sharp (Click Here to see it in the VS Market Place)
I've been struggling with app dialog and toolbar appearances in the social boo theme for some time. I recently discovered that my struggles are less with my code and more with the theme. In the GUI Builder switching the Native Themes from IOS6, IOS7, and Android (Gingerbread I believe) all create very different dialogs ranging from matching to illegible to ok. Also I found this demo:
https://www.codenameone.com/demos-SocialBoo.html
and ran it on my Android (S6) phone. The below image illustrates the problems:
Social Boo visualizations
Note the Dialog's appearances as they change in the first 3 images. Please note in the 3rd Android picture I'm clicking on the Cancel button to show how differently it paints with the pointer pressed. The 4th image is again from my phone, note the toolbar button on the top right with a square image placed oddly over a rectangular button. Ah finally, all the problems I'm seeing in my app happening elsewhere!
Hopefully my title question now makes more sense. Is the social boo theme being updated with CodenameOne releases or is it dead? Should I abandon using it as it'll have quite varied appearances on devices especially iOS? I'd love to have the theme maintain the IOS6 appearance on all devices - how can I achieve that goal? Thank you in advance for your help!
It's a bit out of date. Most developers just cut a PSD design from scratch which works best when based on a native theme.
You can easily fix these things if you want to work with that theme though. When we implement a theme we don't aim to implement every feature that might be needed as those are hard to predict and will increase the theme size. The original theme didn't include design for dialogs so some behaviors leaked out.
You can use theme constants and UIID's like the theme constant dlgButtonCommandUIID to determine the UIID of the buttons within the dialog.
In my Windows Phone 7 app, I want to use the light theme, no matter what theme the user sets in the phone. How to do that ?
Do I need to custom the style or theme ? I just want the default light theme.
Thanks
Jeff Wilcox offers a good way to do this using a theme manager he developed.
http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2012/01/phonethememanager/
There is a nice way of replacing the default brushes. Saves you setting Forecolor everywhere.
http://www.designersilverlight.com/2011/01/17/theme-forcing-for-windows-phone-7-silverlight/
You'll still need to set the background of the main layout node to the default background brush.
Background="{StaticResource PhoneBackgroundBrush}"
There is no way to force an app to use a specific theme.
The best you can do is create your own style for every control you use and mimic the light theme in your styles.
Beware, this can be a time consuming and tedious task. Be sure to test all pages and all controls in all states when both the light and dark themes have been specified by the user.
I've had to do this (but for the dark theme) and it's not something I'd do again out of choice.
There are a few tips on doing this from one of the PDC sessions on optimising performance http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/10/28/pdc-live-optimizing-performance-for-silverlight-windows-phone-7-applications.aspx
This is a very bad idea.
Windows Phones use OLED displays - the pixels generate light directly, they are not backlit. Power consumption is therefore highest for white pixels. This is why Microsoft is suddenly obsessed with light text on dark backgrounds. It's not a back-to-the-seventies thing.
If you do this you will cause ridiculous power consumption.
For the benefit of the jerk who voted down a factually correct answer, I quote page 63 of the Windows Phone 7 UI Design and Interaction Guide published in July 2010 by Microsoft.
Avoid using too much white in
applications, such as white
backgrounds, as this may have an
impact on battery life for devices
that have organic LED displays.
If you're wondering why Microsoft included a "light background" theme option, so am I.
As we know, several modern applications (IE9, Firefox 4, Chrome, Paint.NET, etc.) use DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea for the Aero glass effect.
What type of applications should you really use this for, though? For browsers I can understand minimizing as much extraneous space as possible, but really, what's the point? Why not just create the window without a frame (like Google Chrome does when DWM is not present)? I'm just looking for some rough guidelines on what type of applications should use this effect and when.
Well, as this is purely a visual eye-candy type of thing, you're asking more for subjective opinion than anything else. First, check out the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines, though.
Personally, I like Outlook 2010, where the tab labels are on a glass background - I like the background image on my desktop (or windows behind) seeping through. I think it gives the impression that the window is not taking up quite so much of my workspace. I also love Chrome and it's use of glass for tab space.
I don't like windows media player where the controls are on glass - it makes them seem busy on a busy background. I also don't like the Add Gadget window, where the whole thing is glass (although more blurry) for the same reason.
So pick your design ideals and keep it consistent. My personal pick is to allow glass to come in on windows aspects that are mostly text and uniform, and not the main focus of interaction. On things that are "busy" and are high interaction areas, I dislike having glass behind.
In Windows XP and Vista it is possible to enable system wide ClearType font rendering.
My question is:
Is it possible to force ClearType rendering for my site in FireFox (maybe some META-TAG thing) even if system-wide ClearType is not set (like in IE7+)?
I do not believe FireFox can do that on its own without OS help even if you ask it.
I was poundering the same thing as you this evening. I discovered that the thing contributing more to the look of fonts is not the cleartype smoothing, but font smoothing in general. Clear type is just one way to do it. If XP is in its default state and nobody turned off the font smoothing option in advanced system settings, then you are OK. Most people do it when they choose performance there and that switches off all visual stuff, font smoothing included.
So in my opinion most XP users will see smooth fonts. Those that don't, choose so themselves. Maybe they don't know they did, but you cannot do nothing about it. Except maybe try to educate them ;)