Rhino WIP Icon Filter Themes

[CallumSykes]

I’ve taken a few attempts at allowing for Rhino-wise customisation of icons and it’s quite a tricky problem to solve elegantly for a number of reasons. I did however have a simple idea that you can try out, it’ll be in the latest Rhino 9 WIP, the command is TestSvgThemes, it gives you a small panel that lets you tune the icons like a TV. It’s not perfect, it’s not persistent between sessions, but I’m hoping it helps us/me figure out how best to enable customisation.

These settings let you make rhino Grayscale, if colour isn’t your thing

If you think the icons are too saturated you can knock down the saturation and/or opacity

I found a combination of settings I like that makes rhino look quite e-ink (to my eyes anyway)

[CADARTZ]

@CallumSykes

TestSvgThemes

thank you downloading now and testing

[Akash]

Thanks a lot this looks like a great start.

any chance you could include [or better allow for a separate setting] the Panels icons too?

As of now, once desaturating the tool bar icons, the Panels icons feels even more aggressively colorful

[CallumSykes]

These would recolour if they redrew, which I’m unsure when they do. The command tells Toolbar icons to redraw. If the settings saved a restart would fix this.

The filters should recolour EVERY svg icon in Rhino.

[CADARTZ]

playing with opacity a bit makes things more sharper for me def potential with this

[CADARTZ]

@CallumSykes

TestSvgThemes

has mcneel tried any darker shade of green? what other variations has been tested?

[m.oguz]

I very much like e-ink

[davide76]

Grayscale icons are nice but a little sad.
Colored icons are clearly visible and attractive against a dark background (better if the background is black, as they have good contrast).
On Rhino’s traditional gray background, colored icons look ugly. This is just my personal impression.

[CallumSykes]

You can also change Rhinos background colours to suit your preferences

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

Is it possible to change the accent colour individually? By “accent colour” I mean the high contrast white accents of the icons in Rhino 7 that were later replaced with black in V9… That made the icons worse, so being able to restore the white accents and increase the contrast is essential.

Original quality of the PNG image:
Rhino 7 UI versus Rhino 9 UI.rar (386.7 KB)

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Question #2. Are we able to customize the icons of all types of toolbars globally to get rid of the ugly green icons and convert them to nice blue like the classic Rhino 7 icons, or the Icon filter themes are limited to just changing the default contrast and other aspects of the SVG images, meaning that the green will remain green in those icons that were green by default? Also, note that the icons for SubD are a different washed out colour of considerably lower contrast compared to the main blue icons. Is it possible to swap that particular colour with a nice blue, and the green icons with nice blue icons?

[CallumSykes]

@Rhino_Bulgaria

the Icon filter themes are limited to just changing the default contrast and other aspects of the SVG images

This command prototype only does this. Replacing colours would be good, but I need to spend more time to create something like that.

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

In my opinion, the accent colours need their own setting where the user could easily change the colour. Most icons in Rhino 7 have a while accent colour, but unfortunately it was changed to black in Rhino 9. Combined with the less contrasty blue, that makes the readability of the V9 icons much worse. Some other icons in Rhino 7 (“History”, some SubD tools etc) have a secondary accent colour, such like yellow, red or green. These also need their own setting for a quick global change of the colour.

I think that having a hundred green icons is a bad idea, especially for the 12% male population who are colour-blind (like me). not only the green is much worse than the classic Rhino blue, they also have several times lower perceived contrast than their counterparts in V7. the same goes for the SubD icons that now have a very muted, nearly flat colour that make them difficult to distinguish.

[PowerShape (MR_Rhino)]

Hi @CallumSykes

Your idea is really great! It’s a good starting point for further development — for example, allowing color customization for each section, such as the Mesh Tools section, Surface, and others. This way, every user can personalize the interface to their liking, and most of the issues between users will be resolved.

Thanks

[CallumSykes]

This is helpful. It seems like this is what people want then.

• The ability to change the icon theme colour-set (SubD, Mesh etc.)
• The ability to change other consistent colours such as the border and maybe highlights
• Achieve these changes with a colour swap
• Allow these filters on top for global adjustments.

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

These were proposed numerous times in several posts since months, but the developers refused to make it so far.
Note that some icons have 2 or 3 highlight (or accent) colours, so the “Highlight” options must be at least 3. For example, in Rhino 7 input curves are typically represented by white, thought the “Project” icon has a black input curve in the air and a white output curve on the surface. Some icons have a third highlight colour, usually red, such like an “X” representing the “delete” action.

[CallumSykes]

@Rhino_Bulgaria

These were proposed numerous times in several posts since months, but the developers refused to make it so far.

I’m the developer for icon themes or filters, but I don’t recall refusing to create anything. Has someone else? I’m reading every comment in every thread on the topic to best understand a solution that is feasible and covers (ideally) everyone. A large motivation for me to undertake this too is colour blindness, which is why I started with the filtering idea

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

I don’t mean that someone from “McNeel” wrote “We refuse to implement these proposals”. I mean the actions (or lack of actions) that led to the current situation where we have vastly reduced contrast of the icons (both, as washed-out colour and outline) many months after the V9 icons were shown for the first time, and various people shared their worries about the changes. Plus, the introduction of lime green and cyan icons that are seen worse by colour-blind people. Furthermore, most icons that consist a cylinder, a ball or a cone now look misleading due to the removal of the smooth gradient, replaced by a limited range of 3 shades. As a result, the “Cylinder” icon in Rhino 9 WIP appears to be used for creating an octagonal extrusion.

I recall people writing proposals (myself included) about implementing customization of the SVG icon elements (main colour, secondary colour, outline, accent colour etc) and a pack of icon themes to choose from (Rhino 7 style, Rhino 8 style, Rhino 9 style), . Until now none of these were further discussed and taken into consideration.

Note that I, as a Rhino user, am not against the idea to offer a new look for Rhino 9. As a colour-blind person I’m a minority and I fully understand that most people have a normal vision, hence they can easily distinguish the new low contrast outline and lime green and cyan icons (some Rhino users like them). My hope is that the “McNeel” team will be willing to listen to the shared opinion of those who find the new V9 icons difficult to distinguish (especially colour-blind people) and would like to at least have the option to switch to a classic blue Rhino icon set, where the lime green and cyan icons are also blue with the usual solid black outline - just like the previous iterations of the program.

Take this icon for example. The user must be able to change both, the colour and transparency level of the icocurves separate from the rest elements. The best approach is to have sepatate settings for the surface isocurves, SubD isocurves and Mesh wires.

Left side: 50% transparency, dark grey colour
Right side: 100% transparency, whatever colour (does not matter at full transparency)

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Edit: I added the following part in the 1st paragraph above:

Furthermore, most icons that consist a cylinder, a ball or a cone now look misleading due to the removal of the smooth gradient, replaced by a limited range of 3 shades. As a result, the “Cylinder” icon in Rhino 9 WIP appears to be used for creating an octagonal extrusion.