Designer Dark Mode Module
A dark Ignition Designer, from one item in the Tools menu
Free, open-source dark mode for the Ignition 8.3 Designer. One toggle restyles the whole window, dock panels, trees, tables, menus, the Perspective palette and property editor, the tag browser, the script editors and the output console, then puts it back exactly as it was when you switch off. Your choice survives the next launch.
Free and open source · Apache-2.0 · Ignition 8.3+
One menu item, the whole window
Drag the handle, or hit the toggle, to wipe between the two. Same project, same panels, same window position: the only thing that changed between these two captures is Tools then Dark Mode.
Dark mode offDark mode onWhy it is a module
One install, every project
It lives on the gateway, so every Designer that connects finds the menu item. Nothing to import into each project, and no client tag to carry the setting around.
It remembers
The toggle writes a preference on your machine and the theme applies at startup, so the next Designer launch comes back dark without you asking again.
Off puts it back
Switching off restores the stock theme from a snapshot taken before the swap, down to the original colour values. It restores from the components it tracked rather than walking the window, so a dialog that happened to be closed at the time still comes back light.
It reaches what a theme swap cannot
Ignition hands components literal colour constants at construction and draws its docks, trees and tables through painters and renderers that sit outside the component tree. The module installs FlatLaf, then rewrites those colours and painters as well, so panels nobody catalogued come out dark anyway.
Signed and tested
Releases are signed. JUnit tests cover the colour rewriting and its restore, CI builds every change, and the module runs on Ignition 8.3 and later. Designer scope only: nothing of it runs on the gateway.
Free and open source
Apache-2.0 on GitHub. No trial, no activation, no fee per seat or per gateway. Install it on as many gateways as you like, open an issue when something bugs you, or send a pull request if you beat us to the fix.
Why this module exists
Ignition ships the Designer with one light theme and no dark option, and a dark Designer is the most-requested Designer idea on Inductive Automation's ideas portal. Everyone who spends the day in an IDE already has this. We wanted it in the Designer too, so we built it and put the source on GitHub.
What you get
A signed module for Ignition 8.3 and later, Designer scope only, with the full source on GitHub under Apache-2.0. Install it on the gateway, relaunch the Designer, and Dark Mode is in the Tools menu. The theme is built on FlatLaf, and the script editors get Ignition’s own dark syntax theme rather than a lookalike. Perspective, scripting, tags, reports and pipelines all come out dark. Vision is the exception, and the next section says why.
Vision projects: dark mode steps aside
A Vision window saved from a dark Designer picks up the dark theme's fonts, colours and border classes as if you had set them by hand, and a Vision client cannot open it at all. The cause is the platform's window serializer, not anything this module paints, so rather than put your windows at risk the module keeps out of Vision's way. Tools then Dark Mode is refused while a Vision window or template is open or the Vision workspace is selected, and the status bar says why. A dark Designer turns itself light the moment you select Vision in the project browser, before the window you are opening loads, and stays light until you have left Vision, closed its windows and switched it back on. Your saved preference is kept through all of that. Perspective, scripting, tags, reports, pipelines and everything else are unaffected. If you spend most of your day in Vision, this module is not the right one for you today. The Exchange script below is.
The Exchange script, and when to pick it instead
Justin Edwards published Dark Mode for the Designer on the Ignition Exchange, a well-polished Jython script under MIT that has served this need on 8.1 since 2024, and since its 1.3.0 release in September 2026 it runs on 8.3 as well. On 8.1 it is the only option. On 8.3 you have a choice. The script is imported into each project, toggled from a View menu checkbox it adds, and paints the Designer's components one class at a time. This module installs once on the gateway, toggles from the Tools menu, and swaps the look and feel, so surfaces nobody catalogued come out dark anyway. The one place the script wins is Vision: it never swaps the look and feel, so the problem above does not arise, and on a project that is mostly Vision it remains the better choice today. Do not run both in the same project. The script keeps running in every Designer that opens a project it was imported into, and what it paints, dark or light, is nothing this module's toggle-off can undo. Remove its designerPatch Vision client tag before turning this module on; the darkModePatch library script does nothing on its own and can stay. His catalogue of where the Designer leaks light shaped our testing, and we are grateful for it.
Found something that stayed light?
Ignition colours a lot of its own interface in ways a theme swap cannot reach, so a panel or dialog somewhere may still come out light or dark-on-dark. Those reports are welcome. Open a GitHub issue and it gets looked at. Two things stay light on purpose and are not bugs: the Perspective view canvas, which renders your view the way a session would and follows the session’s theme rather than the Designer’s, and on Windows and Linux the native title bar and window frame.
The module has been checked by eye on macOS. Its automated checks run on Windows and Linux too, but nobody has yet sat in front of a Designer there, so reports from those two are especially welcome.
What makes a report actionable is the component inspector the module ships. With dark mode on, hover the offending area and press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+I (or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F12). It writes the component chain, its colours and its UI delegate to ~/.ignition/designer-dark-mode.log. The log opens with a block describing your operating system and JVM, so paste it whole alongside a screenshot, and the fix usually follows from it directly.
Security problems are the exception: send those through the private channel in SECURITY.md rather than a public issue.
Installing it, start to finish
- 1
Download
Take designer-dark-mode.modl from the latest release on GitHub. One file. Nothing to build, no account, no licence key.
- 2
Install
In the gateway web UI: Config, then Modules, then Install or Upgrade a Module, and pick that file. The gateway asks you to accept the certificate, because the module is signed by us rather than by Inductive Automation. That happens once, on first install.
- 3
Turn it on
Relaunch the Designer, then Tools, then Dark Mode. Your choice is remembered, so the next launch comes back dark on its own.
Needs Ignition 8.3.0 or newer. Everything this module does happens inside your Designer: it adds no gateway service, no tags and no scripting functions, and it changes nothing for Perspective sessions, Vision clients, or anyone else on the gateway. Upgrading is the same three steps with the newer file. To remove it: Config, then Modules, then Uninstall, then relaunch the Designer. One thing the module refuses: turning dark mode on while a Vision window is open or the Vision workspace is selected. Close the window, move to another workspace and try again. The Vision section above says why.
Get Designer Dark Mode Module
Designer Dark Mode Module is free and open source. Grab the latest signed module from GitHub releases.