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• exalting commented  ·  September 22, 2012 9:34 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  :::::::::::::: REMOVE BLACK SQUARES, RESTORE ICONS!!! :::::::::::::

• sharmin commented  ·  September 21, 2012 5:03 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  I am stunned, shocked, and much sad by seeing new VS 2012. VS 2010 is attractive, and I have great pleasure whenever I use VS 2010. I agree with others: the UI of VS 2012 looks cheap, and the dark theme is too dark and the light theme is too light. MS should release a patch for VS 2012 and convert this UI to look like VS 2010's UI. I will just use my VS 2010 whenever I can. I don't even like the new logo of VS 2012; the logo of VS 2010 is so nice. We love our VS 2010 --- make VS 2012 to be like VS 2010.

• Anonymous commented  ·  September 21, 2012 2:58 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  exists a microsoft connect request to reverse/rollback to vs2010 UI? we all have to vote it faster! :(

• Anonymous commented  ·  September 21, 2012 2:56 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  seems like that I'm editing with a monochrome monitor on a windows 3.1 interfase, it is awfull :( can use a theme/hack/whatever patch to make vs2012 have UI from vs 2008/2010?

• Anonymous commented  ·  September 21, 2012 12:30 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Im having alot of trouble with the new icons, they all look the same to me. I relied on the color to quickly zero in on an icon. Im somewhat upset about this change, i have been looking for a way to undo it without a great amount of effort.

  The worst area is the toolbox, i am now forced to read the name of each tool. Very unproductive and painfull to the eyes.

• Marc commented  ·  September 20, 2012 11:21 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  That's a workaround but I don't like to make the product productive at my own. Instead the manufacturer should do that asap. Especially throwing away all help that color gives in recognizing symbols (in this case icons) is a shame. Why would anybody do this? Only because Metro throw away the advantage of colors for user-experience it doesn't mean that a IDE like VisualStudio should ever follow this bad practice. From a usability point of view this is worst!

• Jason commented  ·  September 20, 2012 4:57 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  The new default look is terrible.

• mrdev commented  ·  September 20, 2012 10:23 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Monochrome icons are ok if you have just a few of them and you really are focused on the content, ie. like reading a web page. So this makes sense for the web browser.

  But this theory falls apart when you have lots of icons, in different arragements, and the icons themselves represent content ie. the makefile for which solution explorer is a metaphor.

  But the "yes men" Visual Studio managers went to their manager meeting, some guy in a suit showed a power point, then he said "are we all on board", and all the other suits cheered "YES!", and this is the result.

• Mike commented  ·  September 19, 2012 6:34 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  My god, i just downloaded VS2012. It feels like we're stepping back towards the dawn of computer..when monochrome and shapes were all blocks. Who really is the genius behind these UI changes...i get that Microsoft wants a consistent look across the board...but how about distinguishing between consumers vs developers. This just sucks imo.

• Robert commented  ·  September 18, 2012 8:12 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Congratulations to the guys responsible for the new theme editor. Should have been built in to the original product, but still, we have it now.

  Enjoying the fresh look of the new UI now I've been using it for a while. I can live with the icons and have suppressed the upper case menus.

  However, a request - with it being so easy to change themes now with the theme editor - it would be great if you could set a different theme for each Visual Studio window you have open.

  Then it would be very easy to distinguish between the different projects (solutions) you are working on.

• exalting commented  ·  September 17, 2012 3:58 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Tom>forums and MSDN sites are now starting to have this grey text on white backround (instead of black text on white)
  forums distract you from writing code, so must be indistinguishable
  >What the heck is going on?
  microsoft cares that you write, write, write code. Not look at icons, not read forums - just write more code.

• brian commented  ·  September 17, 2012 12:47 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Guess Microsoft really have lost the plot when it comes to user interfaces - suspect if it continues they are going to find themselves on the wrong side of disability/equal access law suit or legislation and quite rightly so. Whoever is the art/GUI lead here is just incompetent!

  The Windows 8 look is just about ok - nowhere as nice as easy to use as Windows 7 but at least usable - but some of their web pages are now boarding on unreadable Grey or light blue on white - for !!!! sake are you just stupid?

• Dale commented  ·  September 17, 2012 12:01 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  I don't want to create visual studio themes. I want to write code. I pay you (Microsoft) to create great usabble software. You failed to deliver.

• PRISMAY commented  ·  September 17, 2012 11:44 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Did you notice that the sub menus are all lower case? under HOME, SAMPLES, LANGUAGES, etc. I guess we can expect the VS menus to follow suit using Microsoft's explanation of why the main menus are ALL CAPS? Ugh...

• ITMAGE commented  ·  September 17, 2012 11:39 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Forgot to post an example of a site using grey text on a white background:

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa496123.aspx

  Very aggravating.

• ITMAGE commented  ·  September 17, 2012 11:36 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Slightly off topic here, but has anyone noticed some Microsoft forums and MSDN sites are now starting to have this grey text on white backround (instead of black text on white)? They also have a lighter color blue for hyperlinks instead of the standard dark blue? It's like there's no contrast and the text blends into the background - it's one big eye strain. Seriously I was trying to get some work done and each time I encountered this I had a hard time reading it. What the heck is going on?

• Blorkfish commented  ·  September 17, 2012 8:14 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  The issue here is about productivity.

  Our developer brains have learned to speed-read our Visual Studio environment, and each subtle change in colour is an important part of that process.

  For example - when speed-reading source code, our brain will focus on blue for class names, red for string literals, green for comments, etc. We don't have to read each line when searching for comments, because the colour coding is so powerful.

  So too with the icons.

  With the useless grey / black icons, I can't immediately see what is a folder, and what is a file - resulting in a completely frustrating experience, and ultimately a loss in productivity.

  Even very subtle colour differences ( e.g. the different icon for a class file to style sheet ) can be picked up and processed by our developer brains in a fraction of a second.

  I can't believe that the UI designers have no concept of how powerful colours are when processing large amounts of information quickly.

  Many thanks to Adam for his three links to put it all right again.

• Anonymous commented  ·  September 17, 2012 7:51 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  When running VS 2012 on Windows 7 it is not recognizing Aero settings. While not exactly a color problem, I do use transparency and would like to see it recognized by the application.

  Thanks for the color editor, it does help but are we working on a solution for the icons?

• Piggy69 commented  ·  September 17, 2012 5:26 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Very happy with the "VS 2012 Color Theme Editor", now I am removing votes from this request because the very good extension solved the problem.
  (it was not a problem about the "look", but the usability and eyes problems caused by the default low-contrast themes).

  Thank you very much.

• Anonymous commented  ·  September 14, 2012 4:08 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  I am not exaggerating , this new VS 2012 style and themes are causing an eye strain.