Adjust RegexBuddy’s Appearance to Your Taste

RegexBuddy’s user interface is very flexible. You can adjust it in many ways to your taste, eyesight level, and monitor size.

RegexBuddy includes three themes that change the appearance of its entire user interface. Which one RegexBuddy uses by default depends on your version of Windows. For Windows 10 and 11 it also depends on the Windows theme that Windows itself was using the first time you ran RegexBuddy. You can switch to any of them by clicking the View button. It’s the 3rd button from the right on the topmost toolbar.

• White theme: The white theme relies on Windows itself to draw most controls, making RegexBuddy look like a standard Windows desktop application. It is the default on Windows 10 and 11 when Windows is using its light theme. It is always the default on older versions of Windows.
• Dark theme: The dark theme is fully custom drawn. It has white text on a dark gray background. This reduces contrast, making the theme a better fit for high contrast monitors. Many controls like buttons are a bit rounded, giving this theme a Windows 11 flair. RegexBuddy defaults to it if you are running Windows 11 with its dark theme.
• Black theme: The black theme is also fully custom drawn. It has white text on a pure black background. This is a high contrast theme, which can be easier to read on older monitors with washed out blacks. Controls are squared, giving this theme a Windows 10 flair. RegexBuddy defaults to it if you are running Windows 10 with its dark theme.

The colors used for syntax coloring by the various editor controls are determined by color palettes that you can fully customize via the Preferences dialog. Most of the predefined palettes come in light and dark pairs. RegexBuddy automatically switches between paired palettes when you switch between the white theme and the dark or black theme. The “default dark” palettes take their text and background colors from the theme. This allows them to automatically match their background do the dark and black themes.

Many of RegexBuddy’s toolbar buttons do not have text labels. The View button is one such example. You can make them larger by right-clicking any toolbar. You can select between small icons, medium icons, and large icons. The large icons are about 50% larger than the small ones. Large icons are available on displays with up to 300% display scaling. Medium icons are available up to 350% display scaling. Small icons scale up to 400%. RegexBuddy’s icons are always perfectly crisp on all the standard Windows scaling percentages from 100% to 400%.

By default the toolbars are locked into position. There isn’t much need to move them around. But you can if you want to. Right-click any toolbar and uncheck Lock Toolbars. Then you can move toolbars around by dragging them with the mouse. Lock the toolbars again when you’ve put them were you like them, because it’s easy to drag them accidentally.

The side panels can also be rearranged. In the default layout, the History panel is docked to the right of the regular expression. The other panels are docked in a row of tabs. You can drag the History panel by its caption bar and the other panels by their tabs. While dragging a panel, a ghost outline appears to indicate where the panel ends up if you release the mouse button. Panels can be docked side by side with other panels or on top of each other in which case tabs are added automatically. Panels can also be dragged off of RegexBuddy’s window. This is very useful if you have a second monitor to place the panel onto.

If you mess things up, click the View button and select Restore Default Layout to do exactly that. This docks all side panels back in their default locations in RegexBuddy’s main window. All toolbars are also placed back in their default locations, and are locked again.

If you have a large widescreen monitor then you can select the Side by Side Layout. This layout is very similar to the default layout. But instead of one row of 8 tabs it has two rows of tabs. The Create, Convert, Debug, Use, and Library panels take up the left hand side of the window. The Test, GREP, and Forum panels take up the right hand side of the window. The main benefit of this layout is that you can have the Test panel visible next to the Create or Debug panel, which makes creating and debugging regexes much easier because you can see what happens to the sample text at the same time.

If you have two (or more) monitors then you can select the Dual Monitor Layout. This layout has the same idea as the side by side layout, but instead of putting two rows of tabs side by side within RegexBuddy’s window, it puts the Test, GREP, and Forum panels in a separate floating window on your second monitor.

If you have two (or more) large widescreen monitors then you can select the Dual Monitor Side by Side Layout. This layout allows you to see 4 panels at the same time. The main window shows the Create or Convert panel at the left hand side and the Use or Library panel at the right hand side. The floating window on the second monitor shows the Test or GREP panel at the left hand side and the Debug or Forum panel at the right hand side. This is a very comfortable way of working because you can keep key panels like Create, Test, and Debug visible at all times.

If you prefer a custom layout then you should use the Custom Layouts menu to save your layout once you have all the panels exactly where you want them. It’s easy to accidentally move a panel. A saved layout lets you restore your preferred layout instantly. You can save multiple layouts. If you sometimes have a second monitor plugged in and sometimes not then you could save one single monitor layout and another dual monitor layout.