Why is the Ignition Designer UI so outdated?

Ignition
21

I’m still going through the Ignition online course, so yes, please rescue me from this endless checkbox-style “development.” :joy:

To be fair, I haven’t spent much time with FactoryTalk or some of the other industrial automation platforms yet, so maybe I’m in for another surprise.

But I think part of my reaction comes from my background. My degree is in telecommunications, I started my career around power-plant instrumentation, sensors and automation, later moved into software development, and now I’m coming back into automation again.

Because of that, I naturally see connections between the two worlds. Underneath it all, we’re still dealing with data, live values, servers, databases, communications, reusable logic, visualization, scripting, etc. Automation obviously has its own requirements, especially around reliability and real-time systems, but many of the development problems themselves aren’t fundamentally alien to modern software engineering.

So when I see something that requires clicking the same boxes or configuring similar objects repeatedly, my immediate thought is: surely there is a way to parameterize this, template it, script it, generate it, or otherwise automate it. I’m not very good at accepting “this is just how we do it” when the tools underneath appear capable of doing much more.

And yes, somebody please tell me there are better day-to-day workflows before I spend the rest of my life staring at a dead-white window clicking tiny checkboxes. :joy:

I also still think something as simple as a proper Designer dark mode plus a few sensible font/UI scaling options would be a great improvement. That doesn’t require turning Ignition into VS Code. The outcome just needs to be thoughtful and consistent.

22

There are lots of requests for new features and feature improvements, and notice what the top trending one is. They are continually prioritizing and addressing them.

24

That answer was just not accurate. The official Ideas page shows established Ignition users have been asking for dark mode for years, so this clearly isn’t just a “new user complaining” thing.

Honestly, some of the reactions here feel more defensive than logical. I hope that’s not representative of the wider Ignition community.

25

I wouldn't read into it too much, but it is a little heavy handed to bash on Ignition for your very first post to the community forum, or at least sound like it.

The designer could use some TLC, sure, and fair point on the dark mode timetable.

Either way, I think you got an answer, so moving on...welcome to the forum :waving_hand:

26

I think the hostility was that a lot of users realize the amount of effort it has taken to make ignition a good program that actually does what users want.

Most of the time that IA has not done something it's not out of disregard for the community its typically because they want their solutions to be well made and well taken by the community.

if IA has to choose between fixing a bug or adding dark mode I think I can speak for the community when I say we would rather have the bug fixed.

you're post disregards the actual software and instead quite literally judges a book by its cover.

I think with time you will come to realize that the pros of the software far out weight the cons of the UI

27

Fair enough :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I probably came in a little hot for a first post. I was genuinely baffled more than trying to bash Ignition.

I did get some good technical answers though, especially around Swing, Vision, and the dark mode history. Appreciate the welcome.

28

We don’t work with technology alone — we work with people, and people have very different ways of approaching problems.

What I find ironic is that many developers here probably use modern IDEs with dark mode, adjustable fonts, scaling, better contrast, etc., while explaining why those same conveniences have been too difficult or too low-priority to provide in Designer since 2016.

My first-time user experience apparently hurt some feelings, but the eye strain is real. If tiny fonts and a bright white interface are really “good enough,” try turning your own IDE into white mode, shrink the fonts and icons, and use it that way every day.

And I still don’t buy the “bug fixes or dark mode” framing. Those are not necessarily the same developers, the same work, or even the same budget.

A lot of problems in technology are not really technology problems. They’re people, priorities, assumptions, and willingness to understand how someone else experiences the tool.

29

Part of it is probably that many of us also work in other applications regularly that make Ignition look like a dream.. like Concept 2.5 (still in there on a regular basis.. ugh.) or iFix (want to talk about an absolutely atrocious UI...) or Connected Components Workbench (when you try to go online, just don't do ANYTHING after you push that button until the status bar turns red or it may break.. [and will also just crash randomly anways])

30

I checked a few of those on YouTube. iFIX honestly looks like pre-2000 Microsoft Office to me. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: It doesn’t look completely terrible in the videos, but I’m guessing customization like font sizing, scaling, themes, and background options is pretty limited.

Looking toward the next decade, though, industrial software is clearly moving more toward cloud-connected and web-based systems. Once the UI becomes web-based, JavaScript/TypeScript is the obvious frontend choice because the web ecosystem is already extremely flexible for building responsive, scalable interfaces.

That doesn’t mean the backend has to be rewritten. Java can absolutely remain on the backend. You can put a clean API/WebSocket layer between them and let a JS/TypeScript frontend handle the user experience while Java continues handling the core platform, services, data, and business logic.

That kind of separation is already normal in modern software, and I think industrial automation will naturally move further in that direction too.

31

Cloud and web technologies will bring a lot more leverage, especially as AI becomes integrated into development, operations, troubleshooting, diagnostics, documentation, and data analysis. Developers and operators will be able to get much more assistance from the systems they already work with.

Of course, security becomes even more important. Banks, hospitals, critical infrastructure, and other regulated industries have to be much more careful about data access, privacy, availability, and what AI is actually allowed to do. But that doesn’t mean they avoid the transformation — many are already adopting cloud and AI while developing stricter security and governance around them.

I think industrial automation will face the same transition. More connected and web-based platforms create new risks, but they also create huge opportunities for better tooling, remote diagnostics, AI-assisted troubleshooting, and smarter developer/operator workflows.

Security shouldn’t be a reason to stay with old technology forever. It becomes another engineering problem that has to be designed into the new architecture.

32

In industrial automation not everything on the security side is about stopping someone from shutting down your system and losing some production. I work in oil and gas and a security breach could mean an explosion costing lives. So while web based technologies are great many of these systems will continue to be air gapped because the risk is just too great.

33

Yes, and that is definitely the reality today. I just don’t think “keep everything isolated forever” is going to be the whole security strategy of the future.

As more of society becomes digitally connected, security will have to evolve too. A lot of the difficulty in OT seems to come from backward compatibility and legacy equipment rather than a lack of better technology. Traditional Modbus is a good example — it was never designed with modern authentication and encryption in mind, while newer approaches can add things like TLS, certificates, segmentation, and much better identity/access control.

Of course, newer technology is not automatically secure. But newer architectures generally give us more tools to build security properly, while old systems often force us to work around limitations that were designed decades ago.

And cost is a huge part of it. Plants can’t just replace every PLC, drive, network and control system because something newer exists. That installed base keeps older technology alive for a very long time.

Looking further ahead, I think AI and robotics are going to change automation much more dramatically than dark mode or web HMIs. A lot of what we manually do today — tag configuration, mappings, repetitive logic, diagnostics, documentation, troubleshooting, maybe even portions of commissioning — seems like exactly the kind of structured work AI will eventually become very good at.

Today’s automation may look surprisingly primitive in hindsight.

Until then, I guess we hang in there and find some fun in the checkboxes. :joy:

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This whole thread...

35

I almost said something earlier when he was monologuing but I didn't want to jump to conclusions

36

Just digging around the forum and finding some really interesting discussions. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I use AI heavily for pretty much everything, especially since English is my second language. Who has time to worry about spelling and perfect grammar when I have an instant editor called AI? :joy: At this point my writing is sometimes more grammatically correct than native English speakers. AI turned me into a top author overnight. :joy: Claude Desktop + MCP Module: bridging the stdio/HTTP mismatch with mcp-remote

37

Ever imagined being a billionaire, a king, or some ridiculously wealthy business tycoon with a private secretary, personal tutor, researcher, editor, financial analyst, adviser, translator, and an army of specialists whose job is to help you?

Well… welcome to AI. :joy:

You don't need to become a billionaire. You don't even need to become a millionaire. You can be an ordinary nobody sitting at home with coffee, while having access to a level of personalized assistance that historically only the richest and most powerful people could dream of.

Need your English fixed? Editor.

Need to understand something? Tutor.

Need research? Research assistant.

Need code? Programmer.

Need ideas challenged? Adviser.

Need something analyzed? Analyst.

And the funniest part? They don't sleep, don't roll their eyes when you ask the same question 14 times, and are available at 2 AM. :joy:

That's what fascinates me about AI: not just intelligence, but the democratization of assistance.

We may not all become billionaires, but suddenly millions of ordinary people can access something that looks surprisingly like billionaire-level personal support.

Argue with me. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

38

great get AI to fix your dark mode problem or can it only complain for you?

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image courtesy of bmusson.

39

“Plagiarized information synthetic system” is a pretty bold definition. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

So let's test it: if an AI takes concepts it learned during training and produces a new solution to a problem it has never seen in exactly that form, where exactly is the plagiarism?

And if learning from existing human work automatically equals plagiarism, we might have to have an uncomfortable conversation about how humans learn too. :joy:

Come on, defend your definition. This could get interesting

40

I'm not touching the AI argument, thats already been done to death in this forum. I will say though, the guidelines request that we don't divert topics mid-stream. Here we've gone from a complaint about the UI, to attempting to discuss AIs place in society and industry?

41

I posted my real experience with Ignition and explained where I’m coming from. What surprised me was how quickly I was ridiculed and treated like a black sheep just for using modern web tools and AI.

The AI discussion didn’t come from nowhere either. People criticized my use of AI, so naturally I responded.

After only one day here, I already got a taste of how toxic this environment can feel when someone brings a different perspective. It seems very tight-knit, people back each other up quickly, and anyone outside that circle can get mocked instead of simply heard.

That gave me a pretty bad impression of the community. Still, I actually think Ignition itself is worth trying. I can dislike the culture I experienced here and still see value in the product. Wasted my time