Description: Because in release 25.2 we are introducing UI themes, now the appearance options System/Light/Dark can seem confusing to the users. Steps to Reproduce: I am suggesting the following options to make the experience better: 1) Remove the System/Light/Dark choice entirely. This is what I would go for. Present to the user a gallery of available themes with thumbnails and let the user choose its preferred option. This is the same way other software works, such as VS Code. You choose exactly the color theme you want and stick to that. Each theme will have a single color variant. Simple and effective. 2) Keep the System choice, rename as “Follow System” and make it a check box. This way we must allow the user to select two separate themes from the Gallery, one for Dark mode and one for Light mode. This will offer the user the option to automatically change the theme based on their operating system, allowing for dynamically changing the theme on a night/day schedule if needed. Downside for this, will complicate the Theme gallery selection by offering two choices and have to make a good design to be intuitive. 3) Keep all three options (System/Light/Dark). This is the actual behavior, but I do not recommend this as by selecting a theme from the Gallery, the user expects that the look to be the same as in the thumbnail. Changing a single theme to Dark or Light is confusing as the theme might look different as presented in the preview. Actual Results: - Expected Results: - Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: Also I am suggesting to add the Icon theme to the same Appearance page and make the theme plugin automatically choose an icon theme that looks good with the theme.
Created attachment 198902 [details] Appearance window mockup design
Please test/comment against a nightly toward 25.8 release. Moving icons theme and size from the Options -> View seems reasonable, but not clear a gallery of theme thumbnails really adds anything appealing.
IMHO the System-Light-Dark remains the correct approach. And requiring each Appearance LibreOffice Theme to define both Light and Dark color sets for the single theme. The onus then on the theme designer to provide both color theme flavors. That way the 'System' setting explicitly responding to the color mode--Light or Dark--as set by user on their os/DE preferences. This continues to make to most sense, whereas making each color LO Appearance Theme a single color set would require user to explicitly set a Light theme or a Dark theme with no ability to follow os/DE handling (i.e. to support Night Shift or Night Light shifts, or explicit Light color vs. Dark color theme support). I don't think making the LO Appearance themes static single mode choices (even with user ability to further customize color set) would not improve the feature. And would double the maintenance tail for dev/designers implementing their Appearance themes.
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #3) > (even with user ability to further customize color set) would not improve s/would not improve/would improve/
(In reply to Mihai Vasiliu from comment #0) > 1) Remove the System/Light/Dark choice entirely. The light/dark + system mode are how the appearance has developed in the past. Originally only a color theme could be used, enhanced later by a second set for a dark mode, changed into dual color for automatic values. Point is that all OS can change the colors depending on the time so one gets a bright look and feel during the day and dark at night. We support this, but obviously it's not easy to understand that a theme has to ship light and dark values (or the user changes to the set which is defined in the theme). The alternative is to ignore the day/night shift if a theme is installed entirely. Consequently we would have to disable the radio buttons if some other theme than Automatic is chosen. But in case of Automatic, what if the user wants to change the background color, for example, in dark mode but not for light? Or going even further, we omly color according the System and ship dark and light themes. > 2) Keep the System choice, rename as “Follow System” and make it a check > box. This way we must allow the user to select two separate themes from the > Gallery, one for Dark mode and one for Light mode. Sounds as clumsy as today, or even more.