🎨 Themes & Appearance
MidiEditor AI ships with eight built-in themes that restyle the entire application - toolbars, lists, scrollbars, dialogs, the piano roll, velocity editor, and every custom-painted widget. Pick the look that suits your workflow and time of day.
All themes applied to the same MIDI file - pick your vibe.
⚙️ Appearance Settings
Open Edit → Settings… (or press Ctrl+,) and switch to the Appearance tab. The panel is wrapped in a scroll area so all settings are reachable at any window size. From top to bottom you can:
- Theme - pick one of the seven built-in themes (requires restart)
- Color Preset - choose from 10 one-click channel color schemes
- Smooth Playback Scrolling - toggle smooth viewport following during playback
- Timeline Markers - toggle visibility of Program Change, Control Change, and Text/Marker event indicators on the timeline
- Color by Track / Channel - choose how marker colors are derived
- Channel Colors / Track Colors - collapsible sections (click the ▶/▼ arrow) to individually tweak each channel or track color
- Reset Colors - revert to the current preset’s defaults
Settings → Appearance - Theme, color preset, timeline marker toggles, and collapsible color pickers.
🔄 Theme changes require a restart. When you select a new theme from the dropdown, a confirmation dialog appears. Click Restart to apply immediately - the app saves your work, restarts, and re-opens the Appearance settings so you’re right back where you left off.
The restart confirmation popup - Cancel keeps your current theme.
🎨 Theme Gallery
Each theme defines a complete colour palette - backgrounds, accents, borders, text, and all custom-painted editor areas. Hover over the swatches below to see the hex values.
🌙 Dark dark
Deep blue-black inspired by GitHub’s dark mode. Easy on the eyes for late-night editing sessions.
☀️ Light light
Clean white palette for well-lit environments. High contrast, classic look.
🌸 Sakura light
Light cherry blossom aesthetic with soft pink accents. Piano keys are tinted lavender blush.
🌑 AMOLED dark
Pure black backgrounds with warm orange accents. Maximum contrast, ideal for OLED screens.
💎 Material Dark dark
Charcoal purple-gray base with teal accents. Inspired by Material Design dark themes.
🎵 MidiEditor AI dark
Brand theme - deep navy base with brand cyan focus rings and a violet accent reserved for AI/MidiPilot surfaces. Default for new installs in 1.6.0.
🖥️ System (Auto)
Follows your Windows dark/light mode setting. Switches automatically between Dark and Light.
🏛️ Classic
Original system-native MidiEditor look. No QSS applied - uses your OS window style.
Theme Comparison
| Theme | Background | Accent | Type | Title Bar | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark | #0d1117 | #58a6ff blue |
Dark | Dark | Late-night editing |
| Light | #ffffff | #0969da blue |
Light | Light | Daytime / well-lit rooms |
| Sakura | #fff5f8 | #db7093 pink |
Light | Light | Cherry blossom vibes |
| AMOLED | #000000 | #e67e22 orange |
Dark | Dark | OLED screens / max contrast |
| Material Dark | #1e1d23 | #04b97f teal |
Dark | Dark | Material Design fans |
| MidiEditor AI | #0B1020 | #00B8FF cyan + #7C5CFF violet |
Dark | Dark | Default brand theme - AI-focused workflow |
| System | Follows OS setting | Auto | Auto | Set it and forget it | |
| Classic | Native OS widgets | Native | Native | Original MidiEditor look | |
🎨 Note Bar Color Presets
In the same Appearance panel you can choose from 10 color presets that instantly restyle the channel and track colors in the piano roll. The selected preset is remembered across sessions.
📍 Timeline Markers
The Timeline Markers feature overlays visual indicators for Program Change, Control Change, and Text/Marker events directly on the piano roll. Each marker type can be toggled independently in Settings → Appearance.
- Dashed vertical lines extend through the note area, coloured by track or channel
- A dedicated 16 px marker row below the ruler displays labelled badges
(e.g.
PC0,CC7, lyric text) - Toggle each type on/off: Show Program Change, Show Control Change, Show Text/Marker Events
- Choose Color by Track or Color by Channel for the marker colours
Timeline markers in action - Program Change and Control Change events displayed as dashed lines and badges below the ruler.
💡 Tip: Timeline markers make it easy to spot instrument switches and volume/pan automation at a glance. Combine with Color by Track to match the note colours.
🎵 MIDI Visualizer
The MIDI Visualizer is a real-time 16-channel equalizer bar display embedded in the toolbar. Each bar represents one MIDI channel and animates based on note velocity during playback - green-to-blue colour interpolation with smooth decay.
The MIDI Visualizer in action - one bar per channel, animated at ~30 fps.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Channels | 16 bars (one per MIDI channel), only active channels show activity |
| Colors | Green (low velocity) → Blue (high velocity) interpolation |
| Animation | Smooth decay at ~30 fps, thread-safe atomic reads |
| Toggle | Enable/disable in Settings → Layout → Customize Toolbar |
| Dark mode | Icon auto-inverts for dark themes |
🔄 How Theme Switching Works
When you change the theme:
- A confirmation dialog asks if you want to restart now or cancel.
- If you confirm, the app saves your current file and records the new theme choice.
- A new MidiEditor AI process launches with the
--open-settingsflag. - The old process exits cleanly.
- The new instance starts with the updated theme and re-opens the Appearance tab so you can continue customizing.
💡 Why restart? Qt caches icons and some widget metrics at startup. A full restart ensures every icon, toolbar, and custom-painted widget reflects the new theme perfectly - no stale colours or mismatched icons.
💡 Tips
- System theme follows your Windows dark/light mode - flip the OS toggle and restart MidiEditor AI to match.
- Color presets are independent of themes - you can use the Punk preset on any theme, or match Sakura preset with Sakura theme for full cherry blossom immersion.
- The Sakura theme tints the piano keys slightly pink (lavender blush white keys, dark rose black keys) for extra aesthetic points.
- The AMOLED and Material Dark themes were inspired by colour palettes from GTRONICK/QSS (MIT License), adapted to our QSS structure.
- All dark themes automatically get a native Windows dark title bar via the DWM API.
- Toolbar icons automatically recolour to light gray in dark themes - coloured tool icons (FFXIV Fix, Explode Chords, MidiPilot) keep their original colours.