BIM Coordinator Program (INT) April 22, 2024

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About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

GUI settings = Master Layout and Sheet Colors!

Anonymous
Not applicable
Does anyone know where/how to set the background colors for...

1) Master Layout WINDOW background colors (not the sheets themselves, yet). Mine is currently grey and I want to change it.

2) Sheet colors (the "paper" color for the sheets above).

I suspect I'm using defaults. I'm working late nights, and the light greys and whites burn my eyes!

Thanks, you Gurus of ArchiCAD Heaven!
11 REPLIES 11
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
I suspect this is hardwired into the program and cannot be set by the user. I checked the Registry Editor, but could not find any setting that could influence this.
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Anonymous
Not applicable
Well thank you for checking!

I did find some *.css tables in the app folders, with color references.
I've saved some backups in case I mess something up, and I'll edit them to see what exactly they control.

If I find the solution to more GUI customization, than usual (The app uses the windows API/Defaults usually), I'll post here. I know if one uses something like a custom windows GUI, that the program follows suit.
However, in the program itself there is definitely somewhere a color command for these things, because I can edit everything else and it remains the same in ArchiCAD... so it's specific TO ArchiCAD itself...

Hopefully I'll have more to come soon!
David Maudlin
Virtuoso
JP-Design wrote:
Does anyone know where/how to set the background colors for...

1) Master Layout WINDOW background colors (not the sheets themselves, yet). Mine is currently grey and I want to change it.
JP-Design:

Not sure if this is what you are referring to, but look at Project Preferences > Layouts: Color of Master items on the Layout.

David
David Maudlin / Architect
www.davidmaudlin.com
Digital Architecture
AC27 USA • iMac 27" 4.0GHz Quad-core i7 OSX11 | 24 gb ram • MacBook Pro M3 Pro | 36 gb ram OSX14
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks. I already checked that- not sure how everyone else uses it, but I use it for firm templates/logos/standard printing sheet information fields.
It simply changes the colors for the master-template items (I.E. your, say, A3 templates) in your sheet views to the color specified in that field.

I suppose I COULD make a master template for night work that masked the whole sheet, with a dark color, and lay it BEHIND everything...
Hmmmm....

The css edits I did changed nothing so far. Must be something deeper or I've not discovered what I edited... lol!
David Shorter
Advisor
Its an interesting one
you can change the grids and background background in every window type except the layout or the master environment. You can set the grid colour everywhere but not the background.
Perhaps its a bug ! unlikely I know ......
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Balazs Simonyi
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Quick and dirty workaround:
Place a really big 50percent (gray or black) fill on every master (you can choose the item's own color option in the project preferences).
Be careful before printing or publishing

(I think one of the css belongs to the reviewer, and the other to the FindOutMore app.)

Balazs
Anonymous
Not applicable
Yeah I tried that the other night- fast and dirty... Problem is, when you "move around" or zoom in and out, the screen redraws (least with my current setup) flashing the screen bright white- which really hurts the eyes in low-light working conditions at night.

So I'm still hunting...just as we can re-skin the whole app, there's something somewhere that triggers these default colors... they're nice most of the time and for usual work, but it's those late nights... I've got my screen inversed (black is white and white is black) for night working, and my entire GUI swapped, but this is the ONLY place that I've not found a way to change!
...

Yeah the css's are for something related but not the app directly... Bah!
-Humbug!

Anonymous
Not applicable
Adjusting your screen brightness / contrast at night doesn't help?
Anonymous
Not applicable
I know I know- that would be the first thing, but I'm on a laptop and I've got a custom GUI, not only in Linux but all my windows OS's (res-hack) that makes them all the same (sort of a fluxbox midnight very dark theme). I've skinned everything except my Mozilla, some websites, Some adobe apps (they're a pain to change) and...
ArchiCAD.

So the screen at night in a darkened room, when that master layout or sheets come up... talk about painful! It's really noticeable on my laptop LCD's... white burns the retina!

By the way, I sent a project review today and I noticed that it WAS the css style I edited, as it was all dark with white lettering this time. But the files and PDF's remained white. Interesting- I can skin PART of AC but not specific apps. I suppose I could call the people in the office for this part of it and simply ASK them to release me something so I could make a "dark GUI" theme for AC 12....

Hmmmm.... yeah.
(check the attached jpg to see what I mean)[/img]
AC12_Dark-GUI-sm.jpg
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