UI Theme Preview (dark mode) - Feedback & Discussion

[keqingsong]

*March 25, 2025 - Fixed for March 2025 Product Update: 
• Timeline scroll bar is no longer missing.
• Highlight colors for activated component are now correctly themed.
• “Read Only” or “Editable” drop down menu in document thumbnail is now correctly themed.
• Version icon is now consistent across themes.
• Activated and inactive Simulation Study and Load Case highlight colors are now correctly themed.
• Render On Save text is no longer missing.
• Command dialog slider arrows in Render are now more visible. Render Viewer dialog is now correctly themed.
• Render Settings dialog is now correctly themed.
• Text highlight color in Save version, Save As, and other dialogs is now darker.
• Timeline tooltips on hover are now correctly themed.
• Text in Dialogs for New / Edit Plastic Rules are now correctly themed.
• Text for “Pin to Toolbar” and “Pin to Shortcuts” flyout text are now more visible.
• The “No components in design” dialog is now correctly themed.
• Activated Fluid Conditions highlight colors are now correctly themed.
• Document type icons (design, electronics design, PCB, and Schematic) in Data Panel are now dark theme compatible.
• Close, Search, Update, Refresh, Open, and Milestone icons in Data Panel have been updated to dark theme compatible versions.
• NC Program dialog experience is improved and now correctly themed in dark mode.
• NC Program dialog is no longer missing border space around the edges of the dialog.
• NC Program dialog layout is now correctly aligned in dark mode.
• Fixed an issue where the Expression Editor dialog made the toolpath dialog go blank.
• Icon for Manufacturing Assistant is now clearly visible in dark mode.
• Process order number column header now has correct colors on Windows machine when Dark Blue theme is active.
• CAM setup name in the browser is now more visible in light gray mode.
• Machine Library dialog experience is improved and is now correctly themed in dark mode.
• Hole Template Editor experience is improved for dark mode. 
___

If you try the UI Theme Preview (dark mode) and see any weird behaviors or issues, please report them here. Screenshots are highly encouraged. Our developers are watching and engaging with you; what you submit will help us prioritize future improvements.

___

Many of you have been wishing and waiting for dark mode for a long time, so we hope you'll be excited to know the rumors in the community are true: UI Theme (aka dark mode) is finally coming to Autodesk Fusion.

We’ve been working hard to get you the ability to switch themes in Fusion and we’ll soon be making it a preview feature, available to try as part of a staggered rollout. This means that not everyone will get access to the preview at first, but more and more of you will eventually get access as we continue to mature the experience.  This way we can ensure the functionality is working in tip-top shape when it becomes available to everyone.

To check if you have access, Go to your Preferences > Preview Features > UI Theme. If you see the UI Themes Preview option, checking it and then clicking on “Apply” will turn the option for you to change themes. Navigate to General section of your preferences. You should now see a Theme option. Change from Fusion Classic to Dark Blue and click “OK” and you should be ready to go. 

 

Note: If you previously changed the Display Settings Environment to a different canvas color, your previous settings will be retained.  To have the canvas color follow your chosen UI Theme, go to Navigation Bar > Display Settings > Environment and select Theme (default).

We’re still actively developing this feature, and we want your feedback

As stated above, theme switching is not done; we are actively improving the experience. Due to the expansive nature of Fusion and all the workspaces, we’ve primarily focused on fleshing out the Design workspace and the most common workflows. We want to make sure dark mode works well for every aspect of Fusion, across macOS or Windows, and with whatever machine you’re on.

If you try dark mode and see any weird behaviors or issues, please report them here. Screenshots are highly useful. Our developers are watching and engaging with you; what you submit will help us prioritize future improvements.

Thank you for your help and support! 

 

 

 

[s.hamiga]

Hi, I really appreciate the dark mode! However, I've noticed a few minor issues on my Mac Mini that could be improved:

1. The link icon in the browser is barely visible.
2. Some icons in the right-click menu for linked components (e.g., "Break Link") are also hard to see.
3. The "Job Status" panel remains white.
   
     
   Best regards

[machineopsZNFXR]

First, thank you! What a wonderful day to have eyes. I'm sure this was a low priority for a while, and many of us really appreciate the effort being put in here. I'd wager most users never think about the forums for the software they use, so know that there will be much celebration and appreciation for this, even if it never reaches your ears. 

Some feedback:

•  When you mouse over a browser item, it pushes the elements in that box a few pixels to the right, and it stays there. See the screenshot below where I moused over the second "Side Deck & Gunwale" Sketch and "Aft Deck Plan" Sketch
  
• Job status popup is still light mode. 
  

• The Notifications popup from the top right corner flashes white the first time you open it. 

• The nesting extension window crops the symbols for each item. 
  
• Timeline features look really off when highlighted with warnings/errors. 
  
• More misaligned icons. 
  

   

• The document recovery window is 👌 this is the exact kind of aesthetic I've been hoping for from dark fusion.
  
  
  Seth 

 

 

[keqingsong]

Thank you for your comments and feedback @s.hamiga and @machineopsZNFXR; we really appreciate you taking the time to reply with screenshots! We have these issues captured. 

[machineopsZNFXR]

More findings:

• The ruled icon changes from this segmented corner icon to a smooth corner when clicked. 
  
• The timeline scrollbar is not visible.
  
• The contrast between selected and unselected timeline features should be a bit more pronounced.
  

•  The insert SVG command is no longer orange, making it more difficult to choose at a glance. 

  
• The group delete dialog is difficult to read. 
  
• The 3 dot menus on file history versions are discolored as well. 
  
  
  

     

   

• Suggestion: Make the blue highlight of the active control change the background of the control, not just the outline. It's a bit too subtle.

 

 

 

[georgeN25TC]

Hello, finally the day has come.

Really appreciate all the effort into bringing themes to Fusion. Previous comments have most of the issues addressed already so I'll take the time to propose alternatives or an extra theme if you'd like.

While dark mode is great as a function, the color palette is awful and while the default Fusion theme looks fine as it is, the Dark Blue theme reminds of older software released 20+ years ago. It has such a negative psychological effect to the user it makes my computer feel slow. So I took a screenshot and applied some changes to make a real "dark mode" and brought in Fusion's orange color for minor details like the DESIGN button or the timeline error highlight. The concept theme is paired with the Grey Room environment, it's darker, more contrasty, easier to read etc.

Please have a look and consider this as an alternative. I'd gladly work on this to assist the team into releasing this and/or more themes to the public. Or simply give the user the option to craft their own by allowing them to change the accent color, ribbon and window colors, environment etc. although I understand that this would take even more time and effort and it's not a viable option at the moment.

Thank you for taking the time and keep up the amazing job!

[bentwookie]

A couple quick notes before I forget them:

• Setting the Environment to "Theme Default" doesn't work as I'd expect. If I have the environment "Theme Default" selected, I'd expect the environment to change as I changed themes in settings. When choosing "Theme Default" my intent is to say "use the default for the current theme, whatever that is". Instead, it seems to pick the appropriate environment for the selected theme, and then saves the choice of that particular environment, losing the "defaultness" in the process. Switching to a new theme doesn't then change the environment.

• Construction lines are pretty hard to read against any of the darker environments. The orange ones in Dark Sky are closest, but don't differ enough it brightness to be readable. They should be brighter.

• Creating a new electronics design shows a button with an unreadable title

[s.hamiga]

Hello,

A couple more things I’ve noticed:

1. The right-click menu is about 2x larger than usual (extra spacing between lines). On Mac, it's scrollable, while on Windows it adds another column.
    
   
   
2. The Dimension (distance) icon is hard to see in various tools.
   
3. The light blue selection seems too bright — icon and text become unpleasant to read.
   

Hope it helps!

Cheers

[bwalker145]

Loving the Dark Mode, thanks for working on getting this pushed out.

Just some minor items I've noticed so far:

[EDIT 2025-02-04]: I just keep adding items to this original post as I come across them:

1. Timeline settings dialog box looks a little funky:

2. Dark parameters icons, hard to see/appear unselectable:

3. Dark blue "More Info" on warnings/errors hard to read:

4. Would prefer a little more contrast between selected & unselected items in the browser

Would also prefer just a little more contrast between the items/ribbon & background in general

5. Delete documents dialog box is still light themed:

6. Milestone symbols hard to see:

7. Values cutoff in Draft Analysis (negatives in angle/tol, "1" in Opacity)

Edit: Looks like most analysis functions under "Inspect" have issues with cutoff values.

8. Selection identification for "Find In Browser" function is hard to see, would prefer brighter color/more contrast

9. Design backgrounds in Data Panel are based on pre or post-dark theme save state. Color difference persists when switching between themes as well:

10. Workspace drop-down no longer shows active selection:

11. Hole tool silhouettes could be improved.

Extent options have offset text/symbols as mentioned in a similar post

12. Duplicate w/ Joints light text

[jason_lakis]

Thanks for the feedback and the comp! The default dark theme for Autodesk products is dark blue by design. We've found it increases clarity, contrast and crispness in the interface, allowing users to read and recognize text and elements faster and better. Some Autodesk products may use a dark gray/neutral theme when even a small amount of color in the interface interferes with the way color is represented in the canvas (when color representation is crucial). That said, we are of course open to feedback and will absolutely factor it in when developing future guidelines. 

[keqingsong]

Thanks for reporting your findings @bentwookie @s.hamiga and @machineopsZNFXR , we have these captured and will prioritize accordingly. 
@bwalker145 We will be capturing your soon.

[maruska]

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes - the blue is very distracting. I want my UI to be secondary to my work, please.

[maruska]

The Industrial Designers here would argue that color representation is 100% crucial. I'm regularly doing CAD reviews with collaborators and clients in the viewport and we absolutely are discussing CMF.

[dfanz0r]

As a hobbiest user i switched to the insider to test dark mode, and I'm seeing a lot of issues with various UI elements from this perspective.

Learning panel color issues:

Check for updates panel still has a white theme:

Not sure whats going on here:

After the swapping to the dark theme, the colors for the preference panel don't fully change over properly:

Before i changed themes i had Theme (default) selected but the environment background seems to save or change to the specific setting for the theme default and doesn't stay there instead getting set to the specific option for that active theme. Meaning when swapping themes it won't automatically swap environment backgrounds.

More issues with disabled feature colors:

Another un-themed dialog:

The dropdown to make a document readonly is not themed:

Text contrast on the "team account" dropdown is bad

The pop-up overlay for the editable document limit is not themed:

When switching from a design to the home tab and back to a design some of the ui elements are no longer themed properly:

It's hard to get a screenshot of this one, but when switching to the home tab for the first time there is a gnarly full screen white flash before the page loads which can be extremely sudden and eye searing.

Then i also managed to get a crash switching from dark mode(i had booted up into dark mode) to the fusion classic theme, i had no designs opened at the time.

That's all i have for now, very happy to see progress on this so far, great job!

[dfanz0r]

Part 2:

Found some additional issues:

Had this happen where one of my active documents that i had just closed was stuck on a loading icon with white text background on it.

(also this screenshot shows that the team hub icon still has a white background when it should be the same as the panel bg)

hovering over it shows that it's still uploading, though there are no active upload jobs so not sure whats happening here.

Edit: Yeah something is messed up with that document, i changed it to read only. Was still showing in the editable list. Then i deleted the design (it was just a step import) and it's still showing. So something is very wrong here. Going back to the normal release still shows this document stuck on my account. So that is unfortunate that i may permanently have this orphaned document on my account.

[FrodoLoggins]

When you select multiple items in the browser all items are supposed to be highlighted. With the new dark theme they all get highlighted except for the last one that was clicked. So I'm constantly like "Wait are all the toolpaths I selected going to get copy/pasted or just the ones highlighted?" "Wait didn't I select the first toolpath as well?"

Also when clicking on single items in browser: The item gets highlighted for half a second, then unhighlighted for half a second, then finally it'll stay highlighted.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-support/which-color-is-the-text-supposed-to-be/td-p/13299126

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-support/how-can-i-distiguish-the-difference-between-the-canvas...

[dfanz0r]

Another bug, after switching back to the release version of fusion for a short time it kept the dark mode theme applied even though i don't have the preview feature available there. I went into the preview features tab there and it automatically removed the dark theme upon entering the menu. Then when switching back to the insider build i also no longer have access to the theme preview feature there either and can no longer test the feature.

edit:
Restarting the insider build did fix it, but it is a weird bug regardless

[dfanz0r]

Ok final feedback post for now:

I really think the document list in the data panel, would look a lot nicer if the thumbnails were rendered with a dark background to match the rest of the ui. Currently with using the light background it feels very out of place and makes the dark theme feel unpolished.

If there is some kind of backend limitation of having 1 saved pre-rendered thumbnail image per design maybe the thumbnails should be rendered with a transparent background and the bg in fusion be done client side based on the theme.

(edit: I do see now that newly saved documents are rendered with a dark bg so the suggestion about transparent bg is still relevant)

This one seems to be common to all themes:

Collapsed categories within the Preview Features menu are difficult to understand how to uncollapse since the arrow becomes invisible. It should rotate the arrow pointing towards the header when collapsing a section like this just like the other categories in the preferences page are. Additionally the arrow in dark mode in general is difficult to see as it has very low contrast with the bg.

Edit more things:

The material editor is not themed, and has some very badly themed elements:

[ibandim]

I not see this options, It's available for everyone?

I only see "Eletronics" options and not UI theme.

[hrvoje_misak1]

I don't see that option either...