Skinning with High Contrast Themes

Skin the App for a Darkened Venue

Dark skinning the app (Figure 1.) can help prevent eye strain in a darkened theater or venue. However, a standard Windows Theme appearance is the best choice for sessions when you are creating and editing Sound Lists because buttons and input fields will provide enhanced feedback (selection highlighting, mouse-over hightlight, etc.). Use the dark skins on event night when you are not doing intense editing/designing.

Figure 1. Dark Skinned App (click for larger view)

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High Contrast Themes - How To

To select a High Contrast Themes, right-mouse-click on the Windows desktop. On the resulting context menu, and pick "Personalize". The Windows Control Panel > Personalization dialog will appear (Figure 2). Select one of the High Contrast Themes by clicking on it. Windows Control Panel > Ease Of Access may provide additional customization for High Contrast (colors, etc) which you can save as a theme.

The High Contrast Themes provided with Windows are fairly basic. There are also many customized High Contrast Themes available for download from the Web. Do a Web search (many are free).

Figure 2. Select a High Contrast Themes

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Limitations

High Contrast Themes will NOT render background images on Windows controls (ex on buttons, panels, etc). This will cause the following program anomolies.

Easy Player Controls

Playback Control Buttons - The images on the large playback buttons (Play, Stop, Pause, Resume ,etc.) will not stretch to fill the buttons when you apply a scale factor to enlarge the buttons.
Cue Buttons - Images on the Cue buttons will not render. Cue buttons will appear with the foreground color (for text) and background color that you select.

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