Dark Mode

Will "DO" ever make a dark theme on their own? why do we have to rely on a .dlt , while some are acceptable, they always need a fix. Leo gives us a fix then an update comes along and the fix is no good plus never updated. So what good is it. Some of the .dlt are 5 years old and still not fixed to work properly
Every company selling applications these days make their own upgrades in this area and Directory Opus is not one of them. Its appearance has not changed for so many years , to me it's boring now. I have paid and paid for updates and still looks the same. I believe I am not the only one who thinks this way so lets move on with the future. I do not want to spend my time trying to get >.DLT's to work

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Lots of threads about this already. An official dark mode is coming, but it's complicated, since we use a lot of standard Windows controls in Opus and Microsoft still haven't updated them. (Microsoft still haven't published any documented, supported API to even know if Dark Mode is enabled. People have had to reverse engineer it, and the whole thing is a half-baked joke on Microsoft's part.)

There are no issues with any .dlt files that I know of. They should all still work. It doesn't matter if they are old; they are just lists of colors at the end of the day. If there is an issue with a particular one, please report it in the thread for the theme.

Feature-request:Dark mode everywhere.
The same type of software already has a complete dark mode, I think Opus should also be able to adapt, such as the title bar, configuration menu, hover prompt area, etc.

It's coming, as mentioned in other threads. We gave up waiting for Microsoft to finish dark mode in Windows (something it has become clear they have no intention of actually doing) and have taken things into our own hands, but it's a long and complex process to do properly when you're fighting against the OS rather than working with it. It is coming though.

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@Leo you always moan about Microsoft. Your living depends on Microsoft. I am a developer as well and agree Windows is not perfect. None of the other operating systems are either.

Please get it done....

We are getting it done, and it will be worth the wait. We are doing things properly, which involves patching half the OS because we use standard controls and the OS has no dark theme for them. That’s just a fact. Look at any other app using standard controls and they will be the same, and programmer forums are full of people talking about this with no complete answers to the problem (only ones that cover a handful of controls and have loads of issues; directions we investigated and found didn’t work).

File Explorer still doesn’t have a real dark mode, so you can hardly blame us for taking this long. Explorer is still full of light dialogs or the entire window goes light in some folders. It’s no better than current versions of Opus, and they wrote the OS and could change the OS if they wanted to.

Sorry, but the fact Microsoft are now so bad at making Windows you can’t even have a choice of two themes, let alone choose the colors of things like you could in the 80s, without man-years of effort, while they pretend the OS has a “dark mode” (it doesn’t) and don’t finish or document any of it, but make people expect it in all software, is going to get a “moan” out of me. It’s a ridiculous situation.

We would rather have spent the last year and a half doing something more functional and not purely aesthetic, but we realise people really want this and we have been working on it. When it’s ready we think you’ll be impressed by how complete it is in terms of coverage and also configurability. (It is not just a light/dark switch, although there will be one for people who just want that.)

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Thanks for the detailed explanation. Good luck with your implementation. I am looking forward to using it.

I don't typically like dark modes as they are usually too high contrast and hurt the eyes but thanks to customization in DOPUS I currently run with this:

I agree with Leo that it takes time to make a proper dark mode and just inverting the colors is just as bad if not worse than with dark mode off.

I don't understand the problem, in theme-section there are dark mode themes available, they are just not "official"!

So maybe there needs to be an option to adjust the dark mode level, although I like full dark.

You can set the color of a lot of things yourself, but most Windows controls at the moment are fixed. E.g. the Find panel.

Those themes are not all dark, and some people may need a switch to toggle.

DO is primarily a filemanager to work with, unlike a music-app where you switch your theme/visualization daily. But as said, you can already theme it to your needs and save/load different themes.

E.g. I love using the hover infotips, I wish the dark mode was there too.

It will be. We have had to patch how Windows renders tooltips to make them dark (or any color you want, for that matter), but it will be. :slight_smile:

Meanwhile, in File Explorer...

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Sell the dark mode you have once done to Microsoft Thumbs-up

Looking forward to it.

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When you're finished with dark mode, please make sure it can be set to be toggled automatically on and off on specified times.. I am pretty much looking for light theme during day and dark theme during night, much like auto dark mode does for windows.

It will track the OS mode, if you're already switching that based on time.

That's even better, can't wait