Interface -dark

Scaler 2 General Discussion
1

Hi all,

Just trialling Scaler 2 with Reaper on my Mac. It looks very interesting; however, it is very, very dark making it very difficult to read. Are there any ways to get this lightened up (and I mean, a lot)?

Cheers

2

Hi @mikecb, you can change Scaler’s theme via Settings (gear icon top right) then Preferences > Theme. If you find a theme that you find easier to view, you can set it as your default. Hope that helps, cheers.

3

HI @Steven

You are correct when you say

but IMHO the issue is more about contrast than just colours. Whichever theme you choose there are large areas where there is little contrast which can make it difficult to see all the text in the window for people with slight (or sometimes no) visual impairment. I am sure the interface is fine on a large screen but if you don’t have a large screen it can be difficult to use.

An example of this is the centre of the Home page where there is a description of the mood for each scale . It is grey on a black background (see image below which is the Classic Purple theme). Also the blue text on buttons is not helpful.

Theme1
Theme11250Ă—913 133 KB

I would suggest either yellow (#f4f50a) green (#00ff18), a light blue (#00bcff) or white would be more appropriate for text on a dark background. These offer good contrast to a dark background. It is also necessary to consider colour blind people who may not be able to distinguish between two colours (I believe the most common combination is red and green).

Ideally v3 will include an ability to edit colours on the interface if not a full theme editor, or at least some themes that have other options such as a light theme with dark text.

I would finally suggest that when objects are selected the object background and text should be inverted (i.e. black to white and white to black).

Just some thoughts on the issue.

1 Like
4

Very eloquently put - those are, precisely the issues.

Cheers

5

One other thought for consideration for the theme designers: please include one or more themes where the background is light (say cream or pale yellow) with black or dark text. I believe this may be ergonomically better than a dark background - car instrument panels are often white text on black background, but I believe that in fact black text on white background may be more restful on the eyes (less straining to read the text) even if it is retro in style.