So what's up with the limited theme colors

[the real smackbo]

I don't understand why I can't just create my own custom color theme and accent color .. You would think that it would be really easy to incorporate a custom color swab .. Am I missing something ?

 

[TonyDedrick]

Who knows? And from the crowd on here, you'll probably get responses from those with the same question and from those who think the choice should be limited.

 

[the real smackbo]

If they market it as the most personal phone .. Then you should be able to create your own color .. I find myself constantly changing the color theme because I am just nit in live with any of the color choices given

 

[sakahn]

Custom colors will be the new killer feature of Windows Phone 9 ;-)

 

[irvin792]

Custom colors will be the killer new feature of Windows Phone 9 ;-)

lol I wish they would just give us the option now...... I would like a less orangish red

 

[manunitedfan5]

I don't understand why I can't just create my own custom color theme and accent color .. You would think that it would be really easy to incorporate a custom color swab .. Am I missing something ?

lol I was thinking the same thing, some apps allow you to create your own color for the tile..

 

[irvin792]

Yea wiztiles has a color wheel

 

[jdhooghe]

I want a tie-die color scheme

jk

 

[irvin792]

I want a tie-die color scheme

jk

lol, though it would be cool to be able to set each tiles color separately

 

[RN50]

Would love to change app tiles individually. Luckily WP Central allows u and so do a few other but i'd like to main apps like IE, Calender ect to have different colours.

 

[rockstarzzz]

One of the reasons is OS font colour compatibility. On certain colours you can't read. Certain looks ugly. So probably safer approach to give tried and tested colour range that works throughout the OS and on third party apps. WP is more colourful than any other OS if you think about it.

 

[jiayit]

We should be given the choice to choose our own theme colours. If it's unreadable, we would change it. I'd like a lighter shade of blue theme, with a dark blue font. Also, the yellow needs to be more striking, with black font.

 

[rdjward]

lol I wish they would just give us the option now...... I would like a less orangish red

The custom "rogers" red that comes preinstalled on the Rogers 920 is probably what you're looking for, it's what I use.

 

[halimaw96]

One of the reasons is OS font colour compatibility. On certain colours you can't read. Certain looks ugly. So probably safer approach to give tried and tested colour range that works throughout the OS and on third party apps. WP is more colourful than any other OS if you think about it.

Lol if that was the reason some of the colors they included wouldnt be usable, I can barely read my apps with the yellow color theme. They should just let us change the font color as well.

 

[the real smackbo]

Yeah I really want a black theme .. Without switching the high contrast on because I don't know about you but I like have a lock screen image and being able to see pics in my email .. Bummer c'mon msft .. Hook a Brotha up

 

[rockstarzzz]

Lol if that was the reason some of the colors they included wouldnt be usable, I can barely read my apps with the yellow color theme. They should just let us change the font color as well.

Yellow is perfectly fine on my yellow lumia 920. In fact that's the only theme I use!

 

[stmav]

I'm good with the color for my tiles. But I don't see anything wrong with giving people a choice to create their own color themes. I think it would be wild to see some of the colors people come up with on the show your screen thread.

 

[dawindbag]

I don't understand why I can't just create my own custom color theme and accent color .. You would think that it would be really easy to incorporate a custom color swab .. Am I missing something ?

I think this is a silly limitation. I really want a color wheel or something similar that offers nearly limitless variation. Not having one really contradicts the personalization messaging and it also makes the phone feel like a deficient/beta device when you consider that color wheels have been standard PC/Office functionality forever.

lol, though it would be cool to be able to set each tiles color separately

Let the apps offer that functionality. It's a nice way for App developers to differentiate.

One of the reasons is OS font colour compatibility. On certain colours you can't read. Certain looks ugly. So probably safer approach to give tried and tested colour range that works throughout the OS and on third party apps. WP is more colourful than any other OS if you think about it.

We should be given the choice to choose our own theme colours. If it's unreadable, we would change it. I'd like a lighter shade of blue theme, with a dark blue font. Also, the yellow needs to be more striking, with black font.

This shouldn't be a limitation. First, MS could simply use a smaller set of colors for the fonts than for the tiles. If I pick a really dark green for the tiles that's not readable as a font, I can either switch to high contrast mode or MS can automatically chose one of the closest stock colors for fonts that looks good while leaving my tile color choice alone. As jiayit notes, MS can let us decide if something is unreadable. At a certain point in software development you have to stop dummy-proofing when it starts adversely impacting your core customers.

The custom "rogers" red that comes preinstalled on the Rogers 920 is probably what you're looking for, it's what I use.

As sad as it sounds this is probably why MS has created this limitation. My making theme colors limited they are trying to create scarcity. By manufacturing this scarcity the thinking is that they can entice device manufactures/carriers to promote the platform by offering custom theme colors as a type of differentiation. Frankly I think this is a ridiculous argument because I don't think MS's partners realistically see much value in this (because customers almost certainly don't), but it might be a concession they are making to prevent Android-like crapware and ugly UI skins which create OS fragmentation.

That said, maybe there are a lot of people out there buying a Nokia 920 from Rogers or T-Mobile just to get that custom theme color. I suppose people chose a carrier based on which color phone is available so maybe it's not that far fetched,

 

[manicottiK]

From a coding perspective, WP developers use standard system colors to draw things, including Foreground, Background, Accent, and Subtle. (There are others, but those are the main things that we program with.) This helps deal with idea of a "light" or "dark" theme. Since foreground and background are alternately black/white, this means that the Accent color MUST be about half-way between black and white to provide enough contrast to see things written in one color that's on a background of the other.

For example, if I made my accent color dark gray and use the dark theme, none of the text written in the PhoneAccentBrush color will be readable when placed over the background color. Choice sounds great until it gets you trapped in a place that you can't dig out of. Microsoft is consciously choosing a path between the locked-down stance of Apple and the anarchy of Google's way.

 

[Benoit35000]

A first step would be to be able to affect different colors to the default windows tiles (even just within the current offered colors). I expected my home screen to be colourful but so far it's just a one color theme, as I don't have many apps on the homescreen and especially at the top of the homescreen