Calibre Night Mode?

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

We can all thank @Kovid.

we can, and I have. profusely.

I think I have to wait for the release because that info link you gave me is like reading Japanese for me... I don't. *shrug*

[jackie_w]

@Kovid,

Thanks very much for Windows nightmode.

I spent a few hours with it yesterday without too many problems, but I did notice a few things for possible further consideration before initial release.

1. Editor TOC panel. The expand/collapse chars for nested entries are no longer visible (see screencap) unless the mouse is hovering over them. The TOC Editor does not have the same issue.
   
2. Separator lines in a sub-menu are no longer visible (QMenu.addSeparator()).
   
3. If anyone has a plugin which uses QPushButton.setDown() to show whether an option is on/off then it is no longer easy to see a visible difference between True/False settings. I was able to find a workaround for my own plugin which previously used .setDown().
   
4. This is probably stating the obvious but quite a lot of the standard Editor icons are not currently suited to nightmode, e.g. Smart Comment, Insert tag and most of the Text formatting ones (bold, italic, subscript, align-left, etc)

I attach a screencap showing issues 1 and 4.

• TOC Parts One, Two and Three should all be displaying a visible '>' expand char.
  
• I've placed quick & dirty customised icons for Bold/Italic/Heading in my config resources/images directory but the Subscript/Superscript icons on the far right are typical of what the average user is going to see for text formatting options.

[kovidgoyal]

@jackie_w: Adapting the icons for dark mode is a long tem project, I suggest switching to one of the other icon themes that works better with dark mode.

As for the other issues, they are basically problems with the Qt fusion style, which may or may not be fixable, one will have to experiment.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

As for the other issues, they are basically problems with the Qt fusion style, which may or may not be fixable, one will have to experiment.

I do hope 'one' means you not me

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@jackie_w: Adapting the icons for dark mode is a long tem project, I suggest switching to one of the other icon themes that works better with dark mode.

For the few that matter to me I'll be OK with personal customised icons in config/resources/images. By far the biggest culprits icon-wise are the ones from my own personal calibre plugins. A long session with Photoshop awaits (sigh).

Speaking of custom icons ... I can't remember whether it is possible to customise calibre plugin icons in the config/resources/images directory in the same way you can for main calibre icons. I have a vague memory of kiwidude discussing it many years ago but I don't recall whether it was a special feature unique to his own plugins.

Does anyone else remember?

[kovidgoyal]

Load the icons in your plugins as

I('plugin_name/image.png')

and they will automatically come from the configresources directory if present.

[thiago.eec]

Hi, @Kovid.

About this commit: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...9e118a40fa7a90

Can I import this from a plugin to detect if Dark Mode is set? Maybe like this:

from calibre.gui2 import is_dark_theme

Is this a boolean? This would be useful to adapt the icons automatically.

EDIT: Oops... already answered below as I was editing it.

[kovidgoyal]

In a plugin if you want to check if dark mode is currently active, you use

QApplication.instance().is_dark_theme

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Load the icons in your plugins as

I('plugin_name/image.png')

and they will automatically come from the configresources directory if present.

Please can you clarify the use of I('plugin_name/image.png') using this real-life example? I'm not clear where the 'I' goes related to 'get_icons'. Nor am I sure exactly what dir structure to use for the custom icons.


Note: Non-techies may want to skip this post ...

I have a plugin named 'TTS to MP3'. It's located as a .zip in config/plugins/TTS to MP3.zip.

Inside the .zip is:

• a mandatory plugin .txt file (plugin-import-name-tts_to_mp3_plugin.txt)
• plugin icons are now in their own subdirectory (TTS to MP3), but I've always used the name images in the past.

In the plugin genesis() I have:

self.icons = get_icons(['TTS to MP3/plugin_icon.png',
                        'TTS to MP3/play.png',
                        'TTS to MP3/stop.png'])
self.qaction.setIcon(get_icons('TTS to MP3/plugin_icon.png'))

and if I want to use an icon somewhere in the plugin GUI, something like

button.setIcon(get_icons('TTS to MP3/play.png'))

I've copied a customised icon to:

config/resources/images/TTS to MP3/plugin_icon.png

So what needs to change above? Where do I use the 'I' and is the custom icon config directory location correct?

[kovidgoyal]

Use I() first and check if the path returned exists, if it does use it, otherwise use the image returned by get_icons().

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Use I() first and check if the path returned exists, if it does use it, otherwise use the image returned by get_icons().

Thanks.

It's taken a while but after some experimentation, I think I now understand this a bit better. I think I have some boilerplate code I can add to my User Interface plugins as necessary.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Thanks.

It's taken a while but after some experimentation, I think I now understand this a bit better. I think I have some boilerplate code I can add to my User Interface plugins as necessary.

If you are using a common_utils.py from one of kiwidude's plugins, the "get_icons" method probably uses "I()". Or is a wrapper for "get_icon" which does.

[thiago.eec]

Hi, @Kovid.

About the change to make menu separators more visible (this commit).
I saw no difference here. It's just like before. Menu separators are not visible.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Hi, @Kovid.

About the change to make menu separators more visible (this commit).
I saw no difference here. It's just like before. Menu separators are not visible.

That has changes to native code you wont see them using CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM you have to wait for the next release.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That has changes to native code you wont see them using CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM you have to wait for the next release.

Ok, then.

[Gorgoth]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

There is no dark mode setting on windows 7 for calibre to use. On windows 7 simply set the system theme to use dark colors.

I know, I meant like a dark theme for Calibre. Using dark colours on Win 7 disables Aero which looks awful.