help request
what i mean by this is switching the color from white to black in stuff like the fx list, the top bar & generally just the ui i’m rlly frustrated lmao
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
Hi I had the same problem, and my solution was to install some 3rd party programs and it was game changing. I hate that Windows doesn't update these things. Nowadays even free Linux has more prettier and customizable interface.
Here are my steps:
1)Install a theme that has dark menu background you will notice that media and plugin explorers became dark. (You can also configure default theme by using "Theme development: Show theme tweak/configuration window" action) My personal favorite theme is Neptune VI
2)Install Rectify 11 to make everything in Windows 11 dark except title bars (Its open source program that still under development, but works well for me); installation process is quiet simple.
3)Install MicaForEveryone its a solution to make title bars dark (but it can do more)
If you want to know how it looks like, here are mine screenshots:
- Dark Reaper
- Dark Audacity
- Dark VLC
As a person who usually staunchly defends Reaper and it's incredible developers, I gotta stop you right there. Windows has made leaps and bounds of progress with this. Windows 10 asked me about dark mode on installation and has never ever shown me a light colored background. File explorer looks great. Settings windows looks great. Firefox looks great. Reaper is 10,000% at fault and behind the curve here. The threads upon threads of people repeating that the only solution to this incredibly basic and simple problem is to install unverified 3rd party hackware that's more likely to break your OS than actually change the color of the damn window are absolutely disgraceful.
There was a big shift in the UI frameworks that Microsoft provided to developers when going from Win95-thru-WinXP UI to Vista-thru-Win11. A lot of the paid app built on the old framework have upgraded to the new one, but it's a different story with free apps. It's a lot of work to switch to the new UI, to the point where it's almost a rewrite of the whole frontend. So we end up with free software that works well, but has poor UI integration. I use FreeCAD and OpenSCAD a lot, and both are examples of this same problem.
So yea, go easy on the free software folk, despite the lack of modern UI. 🙏
Reaper is not free
just so i understand correctly, i can just do the first step and it’ll make everything dark?
Yes, except title bars will remain white, but you can use Reaper in full screen mode to avoid seeing annoying white title bar.
thank you for the info !🤞🏻
Cheers )))
Tried this method a couple times even reformatting to have a clean Windows install. The issue I ran into each time, that I didn't take a screen shot of, is it makes the backgrounds lighter in the TCP and MCP areas. Turns them a medium gray.
I too prefer Neptune VI, but tried with a few other themes with the same results.
Also seemed to work inconsistently. After a restart sometimes the menu bar would be dark, sometimes it wouldn't be. Title bar I'm not too worried because that can be hidden with full screen.
Also tried methods outlined here:
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228668
https://keramsbookreport.com/index.php/2023/02/27/cockos-reaper-in-dark-mode-quick-guide/
Those are win32ui colors, and you can change them, but you will fuck up so many things on other programs. You can use WinPaletter to change win32ui elements. But honestly it isn't worth the trouble. You don't see pictures of full dark mode on windows reaper, because it cannot be done properly. There is also the penumbra windows theme, but again I am having problems with other programs. So, it's up to Microsoft to decide and update win32ui colors.
I recently bought a mac, and even with a full dark skin, reaper looks ugly. I make my living with reaper, but yeap, its ugly. Either with themes or not. Of course, you cannot have the customization of reaper and also have a beautiful UI. I get that.
pain .
I use V5 and changed almost all colors, works alright