6.1: how to get rid of the dark theme?

ParaView Support
1

I don’t see any controls in the settings. The dark theme is really hard to read – it is too dark.

On Windows 11.

2

Check this post: Switch off dark mode in 6.0?

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3

Yes, paraview came up light. But: the “open file” dialog ended up stretched to unbelievable width (many multiples of the window width). Not clear why…

4

Try resetting your configuration files. Edit/ Reset to Default Settings.

Restart ParaView.

Does that help?

5

Not with the “light” paraview. The “File open” dialog is still so wide as to accommodate ALL possible input file types. The “dark” paraview is fine.

6

How big is your display in pixels?

7

2880x1920 (Surface Pro 9).

8

@mwestphal @cory.quammen

Do we support Surface Pro’s?

9

Even if you don’t, the dark-mode Paraview is fine (6.0.1). And I’ve used previous versions on it as well.

10

They run Windows, so yes.

11

This is probably caused by the hack of the Qt style you are using as provided in Switch off dark mode in 6.0? - #6 by s1291

A proper setting to control theme should be added to ParaView in my opinion.

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12

I don’t see any size control (except padding) in the style file…

As you say, a proper selection of theme from Paraview would be ideal.

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13

If ParaView 6.1 launches in dark mode even though your ParaView color theme settings are correct, the issue is that Qt (the UI framework ParaView is built on) automatically detects Windows dark mode and overrides the app’s theme settings.

Solution: Set a Windows Environment Variable

  1. Press Win + S and search for “Edit the system environment variables”, then click it

  2. Click “Environment Variables…”

  3. Under User variables, click “New…”

  4. Enter the following:

Variable name Variable value
QT_QPA_PLATFORM windows:darkmode=0

  1. Click OK on all windows

  2. Restart ParaView

That’s it! No need to modify the registry or change your Windows theme.

Why this works

ParaView stores its color theme in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ParaView\ParaView\6.1, but Qt6 detects the system dark mode and overrides it automatically. Setting QT_QPA_PLATFORM=windows:darkmode=0 tells Qt to ignore the system dark mode detection, letting ParaView run in light mode without affecting any other apps or your Windows theme.

Note: This environment variable only affects Qt6-based applications. Your Windows system theme remains unchanged.

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14

TLDR: Set QT_QPA_PLATFORM env var to windows:darkmode=0

Please note I have not tested this.

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15

Thanks for sharing! That’s actually the cleanest solution so far. I tested it on Windows 11 and it works!

2 Likes
16

Good !
Thank you