Changing UI / Toolbar colours

noro · 22 Nov 2013, 12:48

Hello,

I would like to share my settings for GUI for Windows7/Sketchup/Vray/Ps. I feel what you mean and maybe you will find them useful.

As an architect, I'm recently responsible for modeling, rendering and post processing and those are settings born during my practice. First of all my main goal was to eliminate white stark skp glow from two panoramic screens I'm working with. I'm a big fan of dark themes almost in all cases. I wanted to create a perfect combination for OS and those three applications to make my pipeline harmonious and teardrop free.

Start with switching to windows classic theme as was said above. Go to window color panel and change almost everything to dark grey (in my opinion the best option is to take the exact dark grey color from dark photoshop theme). Leave active/inactive window option to black (no irritating gradient), all fonts and hyperlinks to whites or creamy whites, selections to oranges (somehow modo inspired). Tips set to white on black. You may also want to experiment with font sizes and types, I left them default. The only flaw I found is in vray frame buffers color panel. Grid for curves is invisible, they are set to dark grey by default and is not OS variable. But you can live with that once you learn them.

Second step is working on dark styles in Sketchup. I recommend  slightly modified Generic Cad style built in skp. Switch off the ground and make background dark grey (slightly brighter than toolbars), change the front color of faces to white and back color to any bright color you like (I use light blue). Change the lines for all model to black (white is sometimes disturbing imho) I also changed locked object styles to red. Grids for oranges. Thats all, everything works really great for me. You feel like working on one big application :smile: Hope you will like it.

Cheers

Very nice, but I have no idea where to change it . Could u explain it step by step plz?

noro · 22 Nov 2013, 13:12

Could u share your settings?

noro · 23 Nov 2013, 10:50

Ok, I got it - sorry, I thought it's somewhere inside SU code

Bob James · 25 Nov 2013, 06:07

How did you get the SU toolbars to change?

jenujacob · 25 Nov 2013, 17:08

@bob james said:

How did you get the SU toolbars to change?

yea... how u do that?????

Box · 25 Nov 2013, 17:11

You have to change the style of your Operating System, it can't be done in Sketchup.

Vicspa · 25 Nov 2013, 18:23

Can you guide us through it? let's say Windows 7

Box · 25 Nov 2013, 18:54

Wenclav's post above explains how to do it.

You are simply changing the settings in a windows theme.

Right click on your screen and select personalize to get to the themes settings.

You can create a specific SU theme that you can save and switch to when you want it.

Vicspa · 25 Nov 2013, 21:01

OK, I got it, thanks.

Bob James · 26 Nov 2013, 05:46

@box said:

You have to change the style of your Operating System, it can't be done in Sketchup.

I did that, but nothing I did changed the toolbars. What did I miss?

Dave R · 26 Nov 2013, 10:11

Bob, the toolbar buttons won't change with the themes because they are PNG files. They are like any other PNG file you might have on your computer and would be unaffected by the change to the background. If you want the buttons to match your chosen background color, you'll have to edit them.

Bob James · 26 Nov 2013, 10:32

Thanks, Dave: Not worth the effort

Dave R · 26 Nov 2013, 10:38

I don't think so, either.

Don't you ever sleep?

Einstein · 26 Apr 2019, 21:25

I know, the thread is oldish but maybe someone will find my little research helpful. I found a theme based on Windows Aero which looks neat and it's quite dark. So dark that you may even find some icons hard to see. But anyways I prefer low contrast brought by this theme. A lot more comfort to the eyes. If you share my love for dark GUIs, check this out and follow their instructions:

Steam VS for Windows 7 by yorgash on DeviantArt

(www.deviantart.com)