Colored Toolbar Separators

[TestMeister]

With all the rich features XY gives us I feel more than a little uncomfortable asking for anything else. However...

While we have the ability to add multiple separators to the toolbar, they tend to blend into the background so visually they represent less of a boundary between grouped items. Any chance we could specify a color for them?
It could just be single color for all separators perhaps added as a tweak.

Either way, thanks Don for this amazing tool!

[admin]

The current color is too weak for you?

The color contrast is even slightly stronger than in File Explorer (Win 8.1):

sepcolor.png (3.47 KiB) Viewed 307 times

[TestMeister]

Here is an example where from the left my TB separates system I-O, views, folder tools, file tools, and XY maintenance

Lower image is using multiple spacers to attempt distinct grouping, upper image uses fewer, colored spacers.
.

TB2.png (95.24 KiB) Viewed 278 times

[admin]

Didn't answer my question.

[TestMeister]

Yes, at lease for me, I barely see the separators, where they function more like spacers.

[WirlyWirly]

Not exactly a fix, but a hack-around is to make a CTB, set the icon to a separator you like, and then just have it there as an empty CTB.

Something like this, maybe set the left-click option to ::end; so nothing happens if you miss-click on it...

2025-12-02_15-48-43.png (16.64 KiB) Viewed 236 times

If you want grouping, you can use a blank image as the button icon...

2025-12-02_15-38-12.png (16.23 KiB) Viewed 241 times

From the Customize Toolbar window, you can ctrl+drag a button to duplicate it, that way you only have to use-up 1 CTB slot as your separator.

That said, having more options for spacers/seperators would be nice, so that we don't have to use a bunch of toolbar buttons to accomplish the same thing.

I use Affinity for all my image-work, which has great options for toolbar spacing/separators, from fixed-size spacers to flexible spacers, with the option of naming groups and such...

2025-12-02_15-28-52.png (25.76 KiB) Viewed 241 times

2025-12-02_15-28-20.png (25.38 KiB) Viewed 241 times

[TestMeister]

Using a CTB is a great idea, thanks!

I already use CTBs for another hack to deal with a too-long list of Favorites:
I replaced my Favorites TB with a multi-line CTB that serves as a parent and links to 3 child CTBs with each representing a different drive
Each of the child CTBs has a multiline list of paths for that drive
I then move the child CTBs to a second toolbar so just the single Favorites CTB is displayed
This gives me nested favorites that are easy to maintain without scripting.

[admin]

This cannot be opened to customization. The interrelation between the various colors is too complex.

[Filehero]

@WirlyWirly
Your icon choices and arrangements are always tasty and delicious!

I hope you don't mind me borrowing some inspiration.

[admin]

I was also inspired, and I think I can expose the separator contrast to the tweaking user.

[WirlyWirly]

Thanks hero! Outside of computer stuff, a couple of my other other hobbies include cake baking and calligraphy, so I like to think I picked up a thing or two on presentation

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Using a CTB as a separator/spacer is quite customizable, any chance we can have an option to nullify mouseovers and captions per button?

Maybe like how text:Button will display that text as the icon, but instead a nullify label that will prevent mouse-over highlighting and captioning for that button.

[admin]

But you can use each CTB only once per toolbar. Doesn't sound like fun.

[Filehero]

@WirlyWirly
Cakes can be delicious and mind-kicking as well. ^^

The day you'll decide to release a XY icon set I'll donate.

[WirlyWirly]

@Don

Do you mean you would have to program each button individually to make that check?

I'll be honest, I'm so heavy on keyboard shortcuts, I have trouble filling out just the one toolbar. If buttons aren't reusable between toolbars then that's news to me.

That said, for the screenshot above, the only CTB I'm using for that is ctb64 and then just duplicating it with ctrl+drag into the positions I want.

Editing one of the buttons affects every other of that button on the bar, so changing all the separators is only a matter of editing one CTB.

[admin]

That said, for the screenshot above, the only CTB I'm using for that is ctb64 and then just duplicating it with ctrl+drag into the positions I want.

WHAT!? I didn't know this was possible! Nice one!