Windows 10 Dark Mode

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rocrail
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Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by rocrail »

Hi,

under macOS the Desktop Dark Mode is also reflected in wxWidgets based applications.
The same application remains 'Light mode' under Windows even if Windows has set Dark Mode.

The diff between both builds is that under macOS the Git master is used, and under Windows wxWidgets release 3.0.3.
Should I also build the Windows target with the Git master?
Best regards,
Rob.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

Just curious: Is there really a dark mode in Windows 10 that affects not only UWP but also Win32 applications (such as Notepad, Wordpad, MSPaint)?

Anyway, AFAIK the "dark mode" support has been introduced relatively recently and therefore is available only in the 3.1 branch and for MacOS only.

EDITI just tested (v1809): none of the applications mentioned above respond to the dark mode setting being on, also in a generic application colors returned by ::GetSysColor() seem to be the same. I could not find any information about there being a relevant compatibility manifest setting...
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rocrail
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by rocrail »

Hi,

the Windows setting is found here:
win10dark.png
The File Explorer, Calendar, ... does change its color automatically, but other common Apps like Wordpad does not.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by ONEEYEMAN »

Hi,
You should recompile with the Git HEAD on Windows.
But if my memory serves me right, the "Dark Mode" was introduced to OSX only.

Patches always welcome. ;-)

Thank you.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

rocrail wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 1:17 pm The File Explorer, Calendar, ... does change its color automatically, but other common Apps like Wordpad does not.
Calendar is not a Win32 application*. Adding dark mode to File Explorer, which is, was not that simple, i.e. it had to be done for this single application by hand.

Most of wxWidgets controls on MSW are wrappers of their native Win32 equivalents. UWP "features" are exposed to C++ Win32 applications via winrt API (which wxWidgets AFAIK currently uses only for wxNotificationMessage). The native Win32 controls seem to be unaware of dark mode so adding some winrt support (e.g. wxSystemSettings::GetColour() using UISettings::GetColorValue() instead of ::GetSysColor()) would probably not be that useful. And I am just guessing here but I do not think Microsoft will make it easy/easier by releasing a new version of Common Controls capable of dark mode, similarly to what they did for themed controls when going from Win98 to WinXP. MS wants everyone to go UWP and likely will not spend any money on teaching the old dog new tricks...

* By Win32 / native Windows application I mean an application which uses the controls available since many Windows versions ago, not the UWP ones.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by catalin »

PB wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 5:40 pm MS wants everyone to go UWP and likely will not spend any money on teaching the old dog new tricks...
Actually it seems that Microsoft wants to close the UWP, Win32 divide. But indeed, at lest for now, UWP-only features are not available through wxW.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

catalin wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 10:38 amBut indeed, at lest for now, UWP-only features are not available through wxW.
TBH, I cannot see wxWidgets adapting the UWP controls anytime soon. It would probably mean undertaking a great effort and creating a compatibility nightmare. Partially adopting UWP controls may not be that great either, mixing UWP and Win32 controls in a single app would look odd. I am not really familiar with UWP but to me it seems that the controls may not be well suited to rich desktop apps, think MSVS or MS Office...

Sadly, I think Windows desktop is not in a good state, with at least 3 different major technologies being used (Win32 vs UWP vs web browser-based).
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by thoray »

Is there any solution to make Win32 application build with wx to have dark theme?

What really should happen though is that Windows would add such feature.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

I believe that unfortunately nothing has changed since the posts I wrote on May 13, 2019.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by mimi89999 »

Actually, there is https://github.com/ysc3839/win32-darkmode
There are many non UWP and non Electron/whatever apps that have a dark theme on Windows like Firefox (AFAIK they are using GTK). If you want, I can make a list of such apps and check what they are using.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

I had a look at that some time ago. Aside from being undocumented and relying on specific Windows 10 versions, is not the main problem that most Win32 controls do not actually support dark mode? AFAIK, the only ones that do are those used by File Explorer (window scrollbars, buttons, listview?) and window NC area.

I would say that Firefox basically draws every control by itself. As I wrote above, if the dark mode could be made to work for Win32 applications, why the built-in Win32 apps (Notepad, WordPad, Paint etc.) do not have it? I would say Win32 apps appearing dark went an extra mile and use custom-drawn controls (or a 3rd party theming library).

But I would like to be proven wrong.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by mimi89999 »

Do you know exactly which controls are supported on Win32 dark or know any better way of checking that trying all of them? Even if some controls are not themed yet, maybe it would still be interesting for some wxWidgets apps to use those that are available (if they are only using those that are available)? Would adding an option to enable dark theme in wxWidgets API require much effort?
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by PB »

I do not think a list of Win32 controls supporting the dark mode is officially available but I suspect it is very short ( as I wrote above). I believe mixing the dark and normal controls would look VERY odd.

Just look at how even Microsoft people struggle making just a window frame work as expected in dark mode (see also the File Explorer link in one of my previous posts).
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/3425

So, did you find any programs using vanilla Win32 controls working well in dark mode?
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by rocrail »

We now have Windows 11, but Dark Mode seems not implemented in wxWidgets 3.2 for Windows.
Any plans for implementation? Or is it still a struggle to get this under Windows.

For me personally no need: I'm a Mac user.
But the Rocrail Software is also used on Windows Platforms.

https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=start
Best regards,
Rob.
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Re: Windows 10 Dark Mode

Post by ONEEYEMAN »

Hi,
Why don't you try the latest 3.2 or even Git master?

Thank you.
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