Add some color to Visual Studio 2012
Usability studies have shown that both shape and color help to distinguis visual elements in a UI. The upcoming/current beta release of Visual Studio 2011 has removed color from the toolbars and from icons in e.g. the Solution Explorer.
Please make this optional so those of us that want a more accessible and user friendly IDE can have their cake and eat it too.
Michiel
shared this idea
Hi folks,
Take a look at the VS 2012 Color Theme Editor – it is an option for creating and editing your own Visual Studio themes.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05
thanks,
Doug Turnure – Visual Studio PM
1155 comments
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Jeff Fattic
commented
I love it! Great job, guys!
I'm still not a fan of all of the new icons, but I know how hard it can be to come up with representative icons for everything. Unlike the colors and all-caps, I think can learn to adapt to the icons.
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Tudor Turcu commented
VS 2012 Color Theme Editor is a big stept forward, but it's missing the most requested feature - to allow the user to customize the set of icons and to replace the ugly set of default icons.
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Topus Secretus commented
Kayson Wong in comments propound the good idea Visual Studio 2010 icons and theme in VS 2012!http://computerbeacon.net/blog/visualstudio2010iconsandt
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Is it hard to understand, that the metro style well when we have three buttons, but when we have 100 it is unreadable?
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The problem is icons
The better way is import VS 2010 icons. -
Dave Cousineau
commented
If the theme editor doesn't change the icons in the Solution Explorer and ToolBox windows (and other areas where the icons all look exactly alike, ie: black blobs) then while that is a step in the right direction, you have completely missed the point. At least tell us which .dlls the icons are in so that we could paint them ourselves. You even painted them yourselves at one point (adding the tiniest bit of color). Why can't you do this again, but use your brain this time and make them clearly distinguishable?
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EricTN
commented
I've been using the 2012 RTM IDE for weeks and not once have I been thinking about the colors, or lack of them. I'm not worrying a lot about "shouting" menus or "drab" glyphs instead of rainbow-colored icons - I'm buried in the code. I'm code-focused and I learn hot keys for every action that matters to me. If the editor was hard to look at, was buggy, didn't let me format the text font and text colors as I prefer - then I'd have a problem. But the VS2012 text editor is superb and gets better with each revision.
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Janie Pumphrey
commented
Now we just need more color in the icons. Different colors help us tell which file is which at a glance, without taking time to scrutinize the list. File types need to look more visually different....right now almost all file types are the same color. Checked-out files need to look more visually different too.
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Alan McBee
commented
The Theme Editor is nice, BUT...
The think I was looking for was colors within the glyphs/icons/etc. as an aid to distinguish between different types and between different states.
Having all of these the same color makes me feel like I'm having to look more carefully before I click. Am I really? I don't know; I don't do motion performance studies on myself. But if feels like it.
Let's put this another way. Why remove the colors, when you could have removed the shape of the image instead? Make all of the glyphs look almost exactly the same (maybe a tiny checkerboard), but use just the colors to distinguish them.
Your standard developer is not the same type of user as your standard users for consumer or professional versions of Microsoft products. It's a mistake to think we are happier to have a simpler interface by removing something your marketing dept assured you was a visual distraction: too many colors.
The colors of those tiny little pictures matter a LOT to us micro-efficiency control freaks. But even if we don't actually get an efficiency boost with colorful glyphs, we FEEL like we do.
It's beginning to feel like the UI of Visual Studio is being controlled by non-developers. Not a great way to endear yourselves to the developer community.
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exalting
commented
Kayson Wong>a workaround to get the icons from VS 2010 to 2012
this works, but restores only icons in menu/toolbars, when need solution explorer and intellisense -
Neville Silverman
commented
VS2012 is now usable - sanity has at last prevailed! Now if only we could have some colourful and meaningful Icons. Is this too much to ask for?
Nev
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Tadeusz
commented
Can't we have it right from the beginning? The new product and the first thing to do is to manually tweak it? I'm a developer, not a graphic designer.
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radioman.lt
commented
the job isn't done, cheep coders on microsoft, shame... no pride, no honour ;/
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LMK commented
Well done to the guy who made the theme editor. BUT for me the biggest problem is the icons used in intellisense and solution explorer. These need to be identifiable at a glance, and familiar.
So the problem still remains. I don't appreciate Doug Turnure coming on here and patronising us, with a "job done" type remark.
I've just been to Teched NZ and it was quite awkward to see how embarrassed/apologetic the presenters were when presenting VS 2012. They tried to put the MS "spin" on the new UI, which drew much laughter from the crowd, as expected.
So the issue remains. But I am a realist; with every passing day the chances of a 2010 becoming a reality are diminishing.
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John Maillet
commented
The color theme editor is a nice step, but the icons -- no, sorry "glyphs" -- are still terrible.
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Anonymous
commented
I'll stick with VS2010. I refuse to go around doing VS hacks to get around MS's stubbornness to accept their mistake. I was neutral to positive about Metro but after seeing how MS is forcing it down everyone's throats I hate the thing.
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Adam
commented
I have grown frustrated at the difficulty of distiguishing UI elements in the VS 2012 IDE. The new IDE moves steps forward for features, workflow and discoverability but is totally negated by these poor UI graphics. Microsoft better start listening and take action before it totally loses market share.
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Kayson Wong commented
a workaround to get the icons from VS 2010 to 2012: http://computerbeacon.net/blog/visualstudio2010iconsandt
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exalting
commented
:::::::::::::::: FIX BROKEN ICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::: FIX BROKEN ICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::: FIX BROKEN ICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::: FIX BROKEN ICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::: FIX BROKEN ICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :::::::::::::::::: -
Adam
commented
I tried, even with the color update, taking away the all caps, its just too painful on my eyes. The icons in the solution need color, it makes it so hard to differentiate everything. No borders leave everything blending in and it hard to quickly find icons.
I'm going to stick with VS2010 for now. All the other IDE updates are awesome, just wish I could stand looking at it long enough to use it.
