Dark mode for LabVIEW IDE

[TiTou]

When working in LabVIEW in low light conditions, it would be nice to be able to have a quick way to switch to a dark mode, where the default block diagram colour would be a mid-dark-grey.

[MichaelBalzer]

This was an idea I raised as part of the NXG beta, in the form of theme support (light / dark / classic / custom). See the quick and dirty mock up below:

NXG light theme  NXG dark theme

I've played around with manually colouring LabVIEW to a dark theme, and it works quite well combined with the alternate block diagram data type colours. Monokai and Tomorrow Theme are nice dark theme colour references.

You can manually colour the block diagram to anything you like with the brush tool, but a dedicated dark theme switch would be nice. It could recolour block diagram + structure borders / backgrounds + text, and switch to the alternate block diagram data type colours.

[TiTou]

Great stuff, I like the theme support idea!

[Mancho00]

I could swear I've seen a duplicate of this request before, but can't seem to find it now.

One concern I have is in the appearance of the VI when on another machine.  The appearance of the block diagram should only change based on local theme settings (i.e. theme setting should not be part of the VI).  Snippets should always appear as the standard (light) theme until imported into a block diagram.

[nkruft]

This would be fantastic. At least for the block diagram and ideally would only change the IDE and not the file.

[crossrulz]

nkruft,

If you really want this implemented, you need to give the idea a kudo (hit the star next to the idea title).

[marshaul]

If they had this in NXG I would actually start using it for new projects. 

[-Newton-]

I've found using the "Slide Background" color is a good compromise. It's dark enough, and wires and structures are clearly legible. (Black would be great, but dark gray is much better than bright white.)

You can set it to default for all new VI's following these instructions:

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z000000kHfNSAU&l=en-US

You'll also want to set the Application Font to a white'ish color (Control Background is good). This also propagates to new VIs. 

 

[LabbyCat]

I would love this!

[JimB.]

This would be great. Using the environment settings can get part of the way there, but unfortunately it is missing settings for a number of things that would be needed to create a true theme.

[dadreamer]

What an oddity, I've been thinking of creating such a thread for a few days now and even prepared some illustrations. And now I enter this thread and see I even kudo'ed it a while ago! 😮

As for the subject, there was a good start for Dark Mode interface in LabVIEW 2017 to 2020 as both the splash screen and the Getting Started Window (GSW) were coloured dark-gray / black.

But in LabVIEW 2021 NI ruined these color innovations, switching to new style completely.

Imagine, what I feel when starting LabVIEW 2021 on dark-themed Windows 10? That's why I like such a style a way LESS than 2017-2020 style. To my regret, I can't easily change that, because GSW is in GSW.lvlibp (compiled) and no adjustable settings in LV options. For the splash screen I can only edit the images in \resource\screenImages (but prefer not to do so yet).

Most of the software supports Dark / Light / OS defined mode (theme) now, leaving LabVIEW behind.