SharpCap News January 2026

[kaymann]

I will affirm that having a well-documented manual beats the hell out of wasting time poking around the interface, having to ask questions, waiting on replies, then in a lot of cases having to separate the wheat from the chaff. I don't know what you intended with the statement “thinking about what is logical” but I do know I don't like the implications.

And I will affirm that the manual is my resource of last resort. My feeling is often that, if I have to check the manual, the interface has not been built correctly. Using software should be intuitive. How to use it should be obvious, as much as possible. Of course with a piece of software that has as many features as SharpCap, this is hard. And not everyone thinks about things the same. What is intuitive and obvious to me might not be to someone else. Someone else might enjoy trying to find the information they need in some 300 page document. I definitely do not.

I don't think there is any untoward "implication" of "thinking about what is logical." Nobody tries to build their user interface in an illogical way, do they?

This guy has several videos that touch on my thoughts about software interfaces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-3wEC6Fj_8

I guess I am tiny bit more middle of the road - I agree intuitive is huge in UI - so I read manuals (that are up to date) because I don't know what I don't know. Do you know what I mean - SC can do that! I never knew... The other thing about UI's is they need to be OS consistent even if that means a little off base for a specific scientific community. If not then clearly note it in a well written manual (darktable struggles with this - multiple contributors with multiple UI Ideas). SC is in a unique situation of being the only the only one in the Live Stack community so with great power comes great responsibility. If I remember correctly SC has some python and Qt core components that have more Linux looking than Win based UI libraries... I could be wrong on that... Either way if the libraries he uses don't support the latest wiz bang UI than well SC is out of luck... and the differences need to be noted in a manual.

[admin]

On the UI front, SharpCap uses a fairly standard user-interface library, but I did some customization to make the dark theme work. When I did that, I did it on top of the (then current) Windows 8/10 look and feel, so SharpCap is currently using that look and feel regardless of the operating system.

So, if you are running Windows 11, you will see a more angular, slightly older look in SharpCap compared to some other apps. In terms of bringing this look up-to-date, there is an easy option, which would give light and dark themes, but the dark theme would not have the classic 'orange' look. Or I could try to re-do the work I did on the Windows 8/10 theme to create a custom dark theme with the orange look, but more work.

cheers,

Robin

[admin]

I quickly disabled the way SharpCap does it's custom themes and told it to use the Windows 11 theme. Admitedly there are a lot of things that could be fine tuned, but even imagining that those were done, I still don't like the Win11 look on SharpCap

The biggest problem is that the new look gives more space around every UI element, which feels very modern but means that things no longer fit, take up more vertical space or just look odd. SharpCap is designed around a fairly high density user-interface so that lots of things are there and ready for you to use, and the newer Windows theme just contradicts that.

Screenshot 2026-03-02 191135.jpg (257.11 KiB) Viewed 2254 times

Yuck...



Robin

[archer1960]

I don't know if it is true in general, but I found that there is a setting in Windows File Explorer to push entries closer together again. Like you, I don't like all the extra space in Win 11. I will have to dig to find that setting, but if I do, I'll let you know.

[turfpit]

https://www.tech2geek.net/how-to-reduce ... indows-11/

Dave

[archer1960]

Yep, that's it, and it appears only to apply to Explorer. Too bad...

[admin]

Hi,

yes, I already have that set on my PC, sadly no effect outside Windows Explorer. I had to find and apply a similar option in Mozilla Thunderbird the other day when a new update suddenly spread everything out to the point of only seeing about six or seven emails in the list rather than 10 or 12...

cheers,

Robin

[kaymann]

SharpCap, Thunderbird, darktable, OneCommander, etc. all struggle with the UI issues. I believe OneCommander nails it perfectly. Color coded Creation dates make it so easy to fine new and old files... As far as SC goes I love it I would make some tweaks others would hate and maybe love. I personally dislike the Win 11 look I am 95% ready to move to Linux. So thank you Robin for not going there. Winboat will run SC perfectly on Linux so no loss - sorry I digress. In my original post above I was trying to support Robin as most of the UI decision are whole hog with lot's of consequences from one change.