Proposal : Redesign the UI of ParaView

Development
1

I feel like the UI of ParaView seems a bit old. Indeed it uses all Qt elements by default without any customization. Elements are also all packed together and the widgets have no space to “breath”. Modernizing the design of interface could also give to ParaView a unique visual identity. This would be done by modifying the CSS of the base widgets used in ParaView : QPushButton, QToolButton, QComboBox, QLabel, QLineEdit, QCheckBox, QSpinBox, QSlider, QDockWidget. By customizing these elements (more rounded shape, removing too flashy borders, adding padding inside elements and between elements, etc.) it could already improve the design.

Here is some redesign I rapidly made :

Screenshot from 2026-07-06 17-14-21
Screenshot from 2026-07-06 17-14-21424×463 29.8 KB

Compared to the actual design :

Screenshot from 2026-07-06 17-14-09
Screenshot from 2026-07-06 17-14-09424×395 24.8 KB

The purpose of this topic is not to discuss this specific design in detail, but rather to assess whether you are open to similar large-scale changes across the entire application. If so, I will propose more substantial and comprehensive improvements.

2

If there is customization, will ParaView have to do any work to continue using system themes? For example, on macOS, ParaView is pretty well blended in with other apps (IMO; I do not use macOS apps regularly though).

I’m not too concerned about rounded shapes, flashy borders, etc. and more concerned with things like information density (I prefer dense, but understand that others may prefer more padding) and color blindness concerns (though I’m not affected myself), and tab navigation ordering being sensible. Perhaps keeping padding for touch screens is also useful these days.