v8.4.8 Dark Theme Icons are forced to minimalist

Lycan Thrope

Peter gave you the answer, but since 1 picture is worth a thousand words, here is the setting in the Preferences Dialog that you want to click and turn on:

mikegonzalez2k

@Lycan-Thrope Found it thanks!

Arczi008TV

@PeterJones

I still can’t have ALL standard icons back. Am I missing something?

There is “Alternate icon” option. But that is not I want.

PeterJones

@Arczi008TV ,

The developer chose to always use the more-meaningful empty/pencil/lock icons rather than the archaic colored-disk-icons when in Dark mode, because in the dark mode, there isn’t enough contrast to tell the difference between the different colored disks (or didn’t like the looks of the color combos in dark mode) (and because an icon indicating a 3.5" floppy has very little meaning to a generation that has never touched such an archaic piece of technology). He intentionally made Dark Mode not make a significant difference between “alternate icon” and non-“alternate icon”, and that is not user configurable. Sorry.

Mark Olson

@Arczi008TV
Technically it is possible to change any icon in Notepad++ to any other icon (including icons from outside sources). See my post here for an explanation of how.

I do this pretty routinely to change the red save-disk icon to a pencil (so the opposite of the change you might want to make), because I change between Notepad++ versions a lot and so the alternate approach of changing a setting isn’t very reliable.

Arczi008TV

@Mark-Olson Oh yes, that helps, thanks.

I see no issues with these icons in dark mode…

@PeterJones said in v8.4.8 Dark Theme Icons are forced to minimalist:

(and because an icon indicating a 3.5" floppy has very little meaning to a generation that has never touched such an archaic piece of technology).

Why then floppy icons are default for white mode. :D

PeterJones

@Arczi008TV said in v8.4.8 Dark Theme Icons are forced to minimalist:

Why then floppy icons are default for white mode. :D

Good question.

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones said in v8.4.8 Dark Theme Icons are forced to minimalist:

Why then floppy icons are default for white mode. :D

Good question.

Because… they always have been.
When new features are introduced, old stuff is made the default. If you want the new behavior, you have to change something.

PeterJones

@Alan-Kilborn said in v8.4.8 Dark Theme Icons are forced to minimalist:

When new features are introduced, old stuff is made the default. If you want the new behavior, you have to change something.

… except when he feels otherwise or someone convinces him otherwise. :-)

For examples of “new feature” that at least eventually got changed to a default behavior:

DirectWrite checkbox was eventually changed default status.
Multi-editing was an option defaulting to off through 8.5.8, then always-on or only-off-via-file for 8.6-8.6.2, and back to being an option but default-on starting in 8.6.3.

And, even if those don’t count, because they were a “long time” before they changed:

in that same v8.6.3, the related new feature and its corresponding option Enable Column Selection to Multi-Editing was turned on by default, even though it was a new feature.

So default settings can be changed, when he feels like it or is convinced. And new features can and do get shipped turned-on, when he feels like it or is convinced.

Hence, my statement that it was a “good question” why those floppy-disk anachronisms are still the default icon in Light Mode but not in Dark Mode. (And the “good answer” is because “he didn’t feel like it, or no one convinced him, so he went with new-option-keeps-status-quo-behavior-by-default”.)

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones

Of course, my statement was a generalization – it is what usually happens.
Another big contradiction was when “change history” was introduced – it was defaulted to on.
Typically, though, if a new alternative to an old behavior is introduced (disk icons to alternate icons is a perfect example), the old behavior is favored (defaulted) over the new.