Ventana software support forum

1. Run Vensim 8 on macOS 10.14 in dark mode. Vensim runs in dark mode.
2. Show an output window that contains text such as Table.
3. The window has black text on a dark gray background.

Black on dark gray is hard to read. White on dark gray would be more readable.

Thanks, this should be straightforward to implement as we already change some of the icons when in dark mode.

I think the way forward for dark mode is to have two different initialisation files, one for normal and one for dark.

You can change the output font for the table/graph/stats etc. But what one person likes does not always match with what others want.

I'll look into having two initialisation files, that would get around the issue.

I see now that the font selection in Global Option Settings includes color. That solves the immediate problem. I agree that there need to be separate initialization files for light and dark mode with reasonable color choices.

Another option that I see in many other apps is the ability to override the system dark mode setting for this app. That would be useful for what may be a common case in which someone runs their Mac in dark mode, but prefers light mode for Vensim.

I'd favor the latter approach, because PLE is used so much for teaching. Having radically different appearances on different platforms is problematic.

Hello all,

The Loops tool has a font that isn't changed by any of the font controls in global options.

Best,

Jaime

Hello all,

Any update for that? I am using Vensim DSS 8.0.2 on a Mac and also facing the same problem.

Thanks.

No, there have been no updates to dark mode functionality.

I believe that should be a priority then.

As another member mentions above, Vensim is used heavily for teaching / educational purposes, in our case too, and this bug is not facilitating our effort.

If a user wants a separate initialization file for when they use dark mode, that's easy enough to achieve. If the user browses to their home folder, they will find a hidden file called .vensim (or .vensimdp or .venple depending on the version). Create a copy of this file and then adjust the colours/fonts to suit dark mode. If the user want's default functionality, use the old .vensim file, if dark mode, use the one that has been modified.

This is all we can suggest at the moment. The release of Catalina is producing a lot of support requests, when this has settled down we can take a proper look at how Apple have implemented dark mode.

I think the problem is with the design of the font color palette. In most applications such as MS Word, there is this "Automatic" color option that makes the color of the font responsive to the background, meaning that in light themes they use dark colors and the other way around.

https://imgur.com/a/Bj7CrTe

https://imgur.com/wUXwmuH

https://imgur.com/0ZdJE1q

There are bunch of codes that provide this option for CSS in HTML environment to have this automatic color switch. I guess the implementation would not be so hard for C or similar languages.

This logic can be even applied to other color palettes used for arrows and flows. Having this will resolve the issue of having two initialization or even overriding the theme, although having the overriding feature would be necessary in general.

Thanks!

aliakhavan89 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2019 10:38 amThere are bunch of codes that provide this option for CSS in HTML environment to have this automatic color switch. I guess the implementation would not be so hard for C or similar languages.

We have to have something that works on both Windows and Mac which is why the colour pallette is basic.

Thanks! But, the idea that Microsoft is implementing works both on Mac and Windows. I may have missed something.

For dark mode, isnt most of the issue resolved when you ('right-click') ctrl+click the sketch area and select new color (white) for the background? This seemed to solve most of my visualizing problems. Or does the dark mode issue go beyond a simple visualization preference?

Hi,

Regarding the previous posts, I right-clicked on the Graph in the Analysis Toolbar, and then accidentally changed the background color. Then, when I wanted to change back to the default color (which includes the hyphen, and I do not the technical name), it was gone! Check the first two screenshots.

https://imgur.com/p2hsUzv
https://imgur.com/i7lBjvq

I also found that in the optimization window, the texts for the menu work fine. However, the texts for the optimization parameters are in black with the dark background. Could we have an inverted color shift here too? Check the screenshot below.

https://imgur.com/AHKaqXH

Best,
Ali