Bring Back Full-Color Icons to Visual Studio 2012
The mostly black & gray glyphs used in Visual Studio 2012 are very difficult to distinguish between. Familiar icons that we have known and used for years are now gone, and it takes (wastes!) a ton of time trying to find the right icon/command/object. Please bring back the tried-and-true, full-color icons that clearly represent each command/object and are easily identifiable.
TIM
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103 comments
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Thomas Visel
commented
It only takes one mid-level manager of significant influence and with screwy ideas of what is "right" to make a whole multi-$B company look like it is loaded with morons.
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Anonymous
commented
Just applied VS2012 Update 2 and hoped that Options would allow a variable colour theme selection but not so. Also hoped that colour icons could be turned on but not so. Also hoped for a F#/WPF application in projects but not so. It may seem trivial but I have found VS2012 UI to be distracting when coding and more prone to creating coding problems. Where as I have grown with MS rich user interfaces, now I am in a state of inequity and not relaxation when programming. The Metro guys have accidentally or intentionally created an IDE that is psychologically disturbing on the mind, and for what? Are they just out of College? And by the way, any ancient programmer like myself will know from the past that orange text on dark backgrounds was the order of the night especially in operations. Even orange wall lights! Far better relaxation on the eyes when on night shift, programming and scheduling sequenced applications. It is a total paradox to me why anyone at MS imagined that Metro would be good for developers? Other than that, great work. P.S. What about my voice activated coding facility or plug-in for it. Very tired of my ancient keyboard!
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Nick Hustak
commented
Yeah I don't now what moron though my super display needed to be monochrome. This whole thing that less is more is bull. Either UI is good or it isn't.
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drweb86
commented
Please, please do not turn Visual Studio into Linux-like tool.
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drweb86
commented
Please, add colors to Visual Studio. Make us concentrate on benefits of this Visual Studio, not its drawbacks.
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Anonymous
commented
Exactly what I think. Bad feeling about this theme
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BZ
commented
agreed
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Jeff Elliott
commented
Please listen to your customers.
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Axel Grude commented
It is very hard to distinguish code files with this new 3-color scheme. color was great when it was used as a signal but at the moment there is a very haphazard approach to mixing in blue and black to make it "esthetically" pleasing. I think usability is seriously impacted and should be more important than aesthetics. By the way allcaps words are also ****** to read, so fix the menu while you are at it.
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Jaewon Kim
commented
Please listen to developers.
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Stephan Schaem
commented
VS managers, you are in control of the product.
Pleasing a few of your head strong UI designer is seriously hurting your relationship with windows developers.
The negative marketing this is creating is causing long term damages to Microsoft.
This mentality is tarnishing the best IDE on the market, please turn this around before its to late.In retrospect, how much effort would it have been to create a "VS2010 theme" for VS2012
Its not to late...
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Jared
commented
Microsoft, you WASTED a ton of money paying "designers" to come up with new BLAH icons for VS2012. The new icons SUCK. Give us back the old icons! (And refund us part of our upgrade cost for the money you wasted on new icons that contributed to the expense!)
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Pailma
commented
The VS 2012 and TFS Explorer 2012 UI designers should meet with the Office 2013 UI designers. Office 2013 icons are amazing, and then I launch VS 2012 and TFS Explorer 2012 and can't believe both UIs were designed by the same company.
Please task your Office 2013 UI designers with re-working the VS 2012 and TFS Explorer 2012 icons.
I have kept my programming team on VS 2010 in hopes that a the next VS update will correct this design faux pas.
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Richard Raby
commented
I develop software for a living. And as a software developer, I have learned that requirements are defined by my customers. I almost always have a vision of what *I* want, but I almost never push that vision on my customers without getting feedback from them first (i.e. usually before implementing and certainly before releasing). Negative feedback in the early stages of design means "go back and rethink this". It's called "Market Research". Microsoft should really give it a try! It doesn't cost that much to put together a focus group. How about Beta testing? If Beta 2 doesn't go so well, then address customer issues, go for Beta 3, and see if things settle down.
I haven't met anyone yet who likes the themes in VS 2012 who isn't colorblind. The only way to miss the mark on something like this is to COMPLETELY IGNORE customer feedback and push an agenda. What's the agenda? Alienate all previous supporters?
I upgraded to VS 2012 at the same time I upgraded to Windows 8. I'm seeing the similarities, and I'm absolutely hating both of them. Productivity has plummeted. I can't find anything, even if it's right in front of me. Every hour I use these "sleek new tools", I feel like I'm being punished by having to maintain 20-year old applications on the Mac or a UNIX workstation running X-Windows Motif. I hate to be blunt, but VS is NOT designed for the casual user toying around on a smart phone (or is it?). I could be wrong, but I'm betting that 99% of VS users are running on a desktop PC with a pretty decent GPU. Window and widget chrome is not a problem. COLORS DON'T COST ANYTHING. Gradients and drop-shadows are almost free on anything with a GPU made in the last 5 years. The smart phone in my pocket can run the latest 3D action games without so much as a missed frame, but MS acts as though there's been a sudden world shortage of GPUs, and video processing cycles must now be rationed. It doesn't make any sense. Or does it? Only if you're trying to target the most capable hardware and the least capable hardware simultaneously with the same operating system. Oh. That's right. They are. Windows 8. Metro. Modern UI. yay, i'm so excited. i'm going to tell all my friends to upgrade right now. not.
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Jordan Ravka commented
Microsoft, these design changes are hurting productivity, which is your bread and butter!
The old icon set provided helpful and quick visual guidance. The new icons, with the lack of colour and texture, make searching for files intolerable.
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Yann
commented
@MikeS - Yes, that's just one of the ironic parts of the decisions that have been made about Visual Studio 2012.
There are two extensions that make using VS 2012 at least "bearable".
NiceVS (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a36021f0-770a-4258-854e-724e9d12b8a6)
&
Visual Studio Color Theme Editor (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/20cd93a2-c435-4d00-a797-499f16402378)It's a pity that it requires two extensions to make it useable, but VS is made up of extension packages, so this is just "two more" I guess.
I suggest giving them a try, the difference is amazing.
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MikeS
commented
Been using 2012 for 6 months now and still struggle to figure out which icon to use. They are worried about distractions......after getting used to all the distractions of typical web sites the old colorful icons shouldn't be classified as a distraction.
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ITMAGE
commented
@ Dean J. "...told my colleagues to skip 12 when they asked if they should upgrade. "
I've been telling that to lots of people including students who are new to it. And it's not just my personal bias, but rather from observation. Initially some students/teachers were considering it, but then after they took one look at the UI, they were like "Whaaaaat the ?!?!"
It really is a bummer not to be able to reconfigure it to use the VS2010 icons, themes, borders etc. Yeah some people like it, but the vast majority of folks I've spoke with just don't. Mind you I also don't like the Adobe CS UI either.
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Przemysław Karlikowski commented
It's really ****** to use new VS than version 2010, mostly because one has to pay attention to what the symbol on the icon is. In version 2010, colors helped to see the difference more easily.
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David Savage
commented
ALL CAPS MENUS IN VISUAL STUDIO 2012? ARE YOU SERIOUS? THIS IS NOT WINDOWS 3.1. I googled (yes googled, not binged) and found an easy registry change that fixed that. The icons, however, are giving me headaches. I don't know what they are. They all look too similar and the flat non-3D monochrome effect makes the UI nearly unusable. The default VS 2012 UI is execrable. Give us a large button to make the interface usable by making it look like real Windows programs.
