Dark Mode for Quicken for Windows (6 Merged Votes)

dagwoodg said:

I get dark mode will be difficult, but it's needed. Would having Windows High Contrast settings apply to Quicken be another approach or will the same issues still apply?

After you mentioned it, I decided to see what would happen if I used the Windows 11 Accessibility options for high contrast themes and other than changing some scrollbars and a few pulldown menus, it didn't change Quicken's GUI.

@Rocket J Squirrel - Genius! That post should be a sticky. Very nice workaround until they finally get dark mode implemented. I have another app that runs in full screen that also blinds me. They too are working on dark mode but this trick makes that one look beautiful too.

For me, I stay in dark mode, skipping step 1 - just starting the magnifier, step 4 to get size back to normal, then minimize it. Afterwards when I run Quicken or the other app I just toggle with step 3 when needed.

Thanks!!!

@Isomeme - equally Genius! I initially overlooked that since I'm not on Win11 yet.

Your method works on Windows 10 also! No need for the magnifier in this method. Leaving this intact. I just hover the mouse, look down at the keyboard, left click, Win+Ctrl+C, then look up to avoid the light

It's an annoying workaround since I'm usually switching between browsers and Quicken when paying bills. But it's allot better than NOTHING and REALLY nice for times when I'm just poking around in ONLY Quicken, running reports or looking for money

This makes sorting through all the off-topic stuff worth while - glad I stuck around!

I'm gonna have to disagree on this. Using the Windows accessibility functionality to invert colors is a sledgehammer approach to inverts colors for EVERY APP you run under windows, which means apps that DO have a dark mode suddenly all end up with white backgrounds.

While this is a perfectly fine solution for some users, for many, it's far from ideal.

I hope the quicken team keeps this on their radar

Fletch200 said:

I'd have to see the code to be convinced the task is insurmountable and Quicken isn't going to do that. I GET the age of the code base is an issue, but still.

I don't have to look at the code to know that it would be a nightmare.  I'm mostly retired, but I do maintain some pretty old programs for a company I contract with, and I was asked for the very same thing.  I looked into it and it would go like this.  A large part you would be able to change in just a few places, but for rest you would be in almost every control changing the code/colors.

I might add something that a lot of people might not realize about how GUIs are developed.
A lot of what you see can be setup with just changing settings in the properties of controls in the GUI editor.  I would say for a lot of programs this is the lion share of how it is done.

You can also write code that changes setting for a given control.

No one is requesting Quicken to be changed to Dark Mode only.  Therefore, the changing back and forth has to be done in code, not in the settings in the GUI editor.

And basically, none of that code would exist before one started such a project.

With the most modern APIs Dark Mode (change of the colors) was in the design and as such it would be much easier to change (but usually still not trivial).

I'm on the fence, on the subject of forgetting it though.

If I only used Quicken then color inversion would be a good option but I often use other apps (Excel, web browsers, etc.) concurrently with Quicken. Having to continuously switch color inversion on/off is a real pain and you still get those blinding flashes of brightness while switching inversion on/off between apps. I don't think that this is a work-around I would use often. Yeah, I'd like all the other problems to be fixed but I don't think dark mode should be deferred. Since I used to work in IT, I understand the problems of maintaining legacy systems but at some point you have to consider the future costs of maintaining legacy code versus the cost of a rewrite to a more manageable system. Legacy systems maintained over a period of time soon resemble the architecture of the Winchester house. Sooner or later, you have to bit the bullet and generally sooner is better than later.

I too would rather Quicken devote resources in fixing current problems. Dark mode would be a nightmare to implement. The reality is that at some point Windows will stop supporting 32 bit programs. I have been try to advocate work start on a 64 bit Windows version of Quicken since 2015. It has been 7 years. The longer Quicken delays the more likely that once the requirement hits for only 64 bit programs in Windows they will only have three options; Rewrite the program, write an emulator that will run 32 bit Quicken in 64 bit, or let the program die.

I agree with @jtemplin it is EXTREMELY unlikely that Windows will drop 32-bit support any time soon.
I think the only way that Microsoft would drop 32-bit support is if it had to support 128-bit programs and that is never going to happen.  Whereas a 32-bit program has a memory address space of 4GB a 64-bit program has the address space of 16 exabytes, which is 16.7 million gigabytes.  Even if you had a supercomputer you wouldn't run into that limit because their address space isn't accessed by one CPU, they have thousands of CPUs.

@jacobs I'm much more pessimistic about this getting implemented and don't trust the "Planned".

Quicken Windows developers have been trying to "modernize" Quicken Windows for years.  And most of the time when they do that the results aren't what people would like, not to mention causing extra problems.  I found it extremely ironic that when surveyed "Modernized Quicken" was one of the most requested "features", and then when they did some of that the Quicken users were quick to complain that Quicken Inc's opinion of "modernize" was quite different than theirs.

I think you have been introduced to enough "We have this feature in Quicken Windows, why not Quicken Mac, and then found out that in Quicken Windows that feature hadn't been updated in many years." to understand that Quicken Windows like Quicken Mac are complicated and take years to put features in and in the meantime Microsoft and Apple decide to change things up every few years.  There just isn't enough developer time to go back and fix all this. Not to mention that some things literally can't be fixed without a total rewrite, which isn't practical.

As for Quicken Windows being a dying old dying program, yes that is exactly what I think it is.  And most likely that is in a dying industry of Desktop personal finances software.  Quicken Inc didn't create Simplify because they thought Quicken Windows was the future.

Please. We need dark mode !

This method will not work for me. I am a professional photographer and my computer, monitors and printers all have to run from a coordinated color profile. Doing what is suggested messes this all up. I would rather see Quicken fix other issues such as the process for printing checks and other things. Dark mode for Quicken would just be another kludge that may degrade other things in the program.