Yes, right-clicking on an empty icon (or one consisting only a LMB command) should do nothing. If someone wants to edit their icon, the classic Shift+RMB combination is exactly for that purpose.
Hey @Rhino_Bulgaria, thanks for the feedback. The colors for the button text/borders should be modifiable in advanced settings, but that does mean it would change all of the other buttons. I’ve added RH-95858 Make Command Line Buttton colors configurable to address that.
You can also switch back to “links” style by using the CommandMode command, which would get you back to what was in v7/v8.
Cheers,
Curtis.
Thank you! Individual settings only for the Command line are much needed.
By the way, I can’t open the YouTrack page from the link you provided. Is it private?
Ah yeah I forgot to poke the right button, it should now be visible. Thanks!
That’s a very bad idea. Rhino’s default colour for selection is yellow since decades. There are very few exceptions such like the dots objects etc. Suddenly, the users would become confused that the purple selection icons are for modeling purposes rather than for selecting.
Replacing the classic Rhino blue with experimental purple, lime green and other random colours is also a bad idea, but at least the developers promised to implement an option to choose a classic blue icon pack as a safe alternative.
The regular colors we have now?
I’ll get v9 then!
Having more choices is better for everyone. 
Just don’t ruin/remove the classic blue icon colour scheme (with yellow icons for selection).
hi @Rhino_Bulgaria
people would know that is a selection feature when they see arrows on the right upper corner and left bottom corner so that does not cause confuse people.
Likewise, people will know that a yellow icon with a mesh inside is for selecting meshes, because it’s basically the same icon like the one for modeling, but coloured in yellow. 
Imagine the huge confusion if you have literally the same purple icons in two different toolbars, with the only difference being the tiny L-shaped elements at two of the opposite corners.
On the other hand, 1 in 12 persons of the male population, and 1 in 200 of the females, have a form of colour blidness. There are 7 types of colour blidness, and I have two of these types simultaneously, which makes the things more complicated. Purple, lime green, pink and other uncommon colous used in the new V9 icons are super improper as UI elements for colour blind people like me, hence the request to offer an alternative icon pack with the classic Rhino blue icons that will NOT include purple, lime green, pink etc.
As I mentioned above, yellow is the default colour for selecting objects and sub-objects in Rhino, hence it’s natural to use yellow in the icons for selection of different types of objects.
Those little corners are far too small to be easily visible quickly. I’m also for keeping selection icons yellow. I even added yellow “highglights” to the selection icons (mostly curve selection) that do not have a yellow color by default.
(this is V8)
If you need to classify the different selection tools by object type, make separate toolbars for each…
To be fair, now that you mention toolbars… all selection commands are already grouped in their dedicated “Select” toolbar, so it is already clear that the icons in that toolbar are used for selection, regardless of color.
I do not think it makes logical sense to tie icon color to function in this case. For example, we do not use one color for geometry creation, or geometry edition. Right now, color seems to be assigned by object/type, (curve, solid, subD, mesh) not by command function, so why should selection require its own color rule?
Anyways, I think the approach could be a hybrid one, in fact is is already being done this way in some areas:
Geometry type color + selected part in yellow.
These new low contrast icons only work “just fine” in the dark mode. However, when the background colour for the tabs is set to neutral gray (such like RGB 190, 190, 190), the low contrast icons make the readability substantially worse and cause eye strain in the long term. Especially for people with colour blindness and/or those with reduced vision who barely see the UI in focus due to the inability to use glasses up close. The latter also forces those people to stare at the screen at a closer distance, further damaging their eyes.
This is where the classic blue icons of Rhino 7 are superior and better for the health of those with reduced vision.
Not to mention that the whole rainbow thing to make the V9 icons in many other low contrast colours (that are also seen as much different colours by colour-blind people) simply don’t work well in many other regards. If I click on a certain area of the UI, I already know the category of the icons. I don’t need to have every category painted in lime green, pink or whatever other new colour replaces the classic Rhino blue.
Why would I lose the ability to see the individual icons easier, faster and at normal distance (not being forced to stare at the screen up-close due to the low contrast) just because the category has its own colour other than the nice contrasty classic blue? After all, when you want to reach a sub-toolbar, you first click on a single icon, then open the former to choose across the icons it consists in the pop-up window. While the new V9 icons are advertised as “easier to navigate the correct category”, in reality you lose the advantage to read the icons faster and from a longer distance as soon as the pop-up window. That’s because they:
- have lower contrast;
- are not seen properly by colour blind people;
- force the people wearing glasses (or those who remove the glasses while working from a certain distance) to adjust their posture and distance from the monitor in an unnatural manner;
- still look the same from icon to icon (I read somebody saying that for the classic clue icons, but it does not matter if all icons are contrasty blue or lime green, other than the latter are 10 times more difficult to read).
Plus, I see the lime green either as green, yellow or orange depending on the other colours and elements inside the icon. The same refers to the pink, purple and other new colours of the V9 icons. For example, take a look at the little screen-shot in the post above my one. I see the 3rd icon as pink, whereas the 1st and 4th ones are more like a light blue. The 2nd icon is something between gray and light blue to my eyes.
The 3rd icon has a very low contrast due to the thin yellow lines across the middle (that I see as green, by the way; and they fool my eyes to see a pinkish accent), hence it forces me to stare it it from 30-40 centimeters instead of my normal working distance which is 60-80 centimeters.
I understand that people like me are a minority (just about 12% of the male population are colour-blind, plus an unknown percentage of people wearing glasses who don’t use them while working), but I wrote the above opinion as a last resort to describe the difficulties that the rest people with normal vision don’t notice and can’t understand due to the fact that they see everything fine. My hope is to be able to set a classic Rhino 7-style blue icons mode for Rhino 9 when it releases before “Grand theft auto 6” in September.
I read a lot of your stuff and yeah it might be sub optimal for you.
But i like the redesign, and the approach.
The colors might be a little to washed out yeah, mainly the blue.
What i don’t get is why do you change to a middle grey if that lowers the contrast to black and white?!
A reason or just personal preference ?
The default light gray in Rhino 9 BETA actually lowers the contrast of the lime green and pink icons (I see pink and light gray as almost the same colour). It also lowers the contrast of the yellow icons, such like those for selection of different types of objects. The V9 light blue icons (or purple, as the normal people see them) are seen sometimes as pink, as I mentioned above.
In contrary, the medium gray background provides a much greater readability to the yellow “selection” icons, the contrasty medium blue icons (a.k.a. classic Rhino blue), and all the white elements of the icons. Plus, the medium gray is easier to the eyes during longer modeling sessions. Especially on a large monitor.
The new color scheme definitely seems like it’s optimized for dark mode - I’ve been playing with the Beta a bit (in dark mode because otherwise the color icons look very washed out). My observation is that while dark mode looks cool / “modern”, am finding I am getting a lot more eye fatigue from it which I chalk up to dark mode (and I’ve got more-or-less normal vision, with near-sighted correction). Have looked a bit at modding some of the color settings, but its rabbit hole I’m not sure I want to climb into right now. (one thing I noticed is the newly-graphical Selection Filter icons states are really tough to discern on-vs.-off against certain background densities)
There are tons of discussions online about how light text on dark backgrounds is more difficult to visually parse, and its not at all about aesthetics.
A lot of variation in how this presents for individual users is going to be down to screen physical size + actual pixel pitch + distance to screen in combo with brightness settings ambient lighting conditions. (Not to mention Compositing Scaling and Anti-Aliasing settings on OS’s being major under-appreciated conspirators in this that are tricky to replicate).
(I also am hoping for good support with non-pastel icon packs with the ability to switch to reasonable contrast levels)
The light gray background colour is the reason to abandon the beautiful and perfectly readable (on a medium gray background) white elements off the new V9 icons. It’s pity that this has happened… You can clearly see this if you compare the icons for any tool that required a curve or surface edge input, such like “Sweep 1 rail”, “Sweep 2 rails”, “Loft”, “Split edge”, “Surface from planar curves” etc. The last one is especially difficult to read.
Many icons still have a flat polygon-like look due to the removal of the nice gradients. Example: The icons in the “Solid creation” toolbar such like those for building of cylinder, tube, sphere etc.
By the way, the mouse tooltips still don’t show up sometimes when I hold the LMB to open the secondary pop-up toolbars. Even in the latest Rhino 9 BETA.
Also, the same toolbars still shrink by one row upon every time I drag their top bar to convert them to a floating window.
On the subject of ‘cel shading’, I’d like to add that a highlight doesn’t necessarily have to mean cel shading.
There have been – and still are – icons with colour gradients and highlights. Here are a few examples:
Unfortunately, when I open the SVG files, the transparent white color gradient (highlight) don’t display correctly. svg error:
But the SubD Box, for example, has a Highlight:
A sphere icon with a colour gradient and a highlight might look like this:
