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Hi, ALL,
More and more people are switching to use "Dark Mode".
However, it looks like native Windows applications are not supporting "Dark Mode" as they use different coloring scheme.
Does MS have plans to update Win32/MFC application/SDK to support "Dark Mode"?
If not - what is recommended way of updating the application to look good in "Dark Mode"?
Thank you.
Hi @Igor Korot,
Does MS have plans to update Win32/MFC application/SDK to support "Dark Mode"?
I can't reply this question at the moment, I suggest you report it to DC about this issue.
This is not a problem about MSVC, its a problem about basic Windows control that do not support "Dark Mode" and standard Windows (Win32?) application that do not support "Dark Mode" as well.
And possibly MFC application that cannot be updated because MS cannot decide on the proper API and/or appropriate color scheme for the "Dark Mode".
Thank you.
If not - what is recommended way of updating the application to look good in "Dark Mode"?
Not the recommended way, but an usual way is
to detect dark/light mode change with WM_SETTINGCHANGE and lParam = "ImmersiveColorSet"
Then you can use undocumented functions from UXTheme.dll called by ordinal and named like SetPreferredAppMode, AllowDarkModeForWindow, ... (many samples on Google in C++ or C#)
For example, a quick test with a Button and Context Menu in C++/Win32, Light/Dark:
@Castorix31 ,
I presume "not recommended" comes from the fact that it uses undocumented function?
It would be nice if those were documented, so that people wouldn't have to guess and have a way of impeoving UX...
Thank you.
P.S.: As an example - try to do Search control in "Dark" and "Light" mode.
I presume "not recommended" comes from the fact that it uses undocumented function?
Yes, some have even already changed since first versions of Windows 10
MS should document them officially in MSDN
@Castorix31 ,
Yes, they should.
Byut maybe the reason for it is that it is still changing?
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(252.8, 83%, 34%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EC%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Do you have sample code?
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(256, 32%, 34%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EMT%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
I cannot answer to MS's plans for MFC but from my understanding it is not really a framework they are actively maintaining. Yes it ships with VS but so does ATL and only because these are the only frameworks for C++ that MS provides. Today if you were to ask MS about building a UI they are going to push you toward WinUI3 or .NET UIs like Maui or WPF (or whatever we're calling it today). Therefore I would be shocked if there is any investment in updating MFC beyond recompiling for the newer C++ libraries.
At the same time you have a compatibility issue as well. MFC is just a wrapper around Win32 and therefore the bulk of the functionality is provided there. MFC cannot just be updated to use functionality only available on newer OSes without breaking support for existing OSes and that would be a major issue for MFC. So I think the best option, outside of moving away from MFC if you need this behavior, is to use a third party library that might support it.
But 5 years ago someone tried to start making MFC support the Windows theme. You can read about their efforts here. Be aware though that there are going to be gaps and issues, lots of code to write and probably things that aren't going to work properly. The key is the CMFCVisualManager class which is where the existing MFC framework is able to support some of the (new/old) Office themes back when Office was doing this. However I'm not convinced that just creating a derived type from that class will make everything work correctly.
Retrofitting a modern UI onto a legacy framework just isn't feasible. If you really want a modern UI then maybe you should consider updating the UI to a modern framework and leave your non-UI C++ code as is. They can work together. But this is just my opinion.
From your reply I gather that MS will not support "Dark Mode" even in their own application that ships with Windows (talking about Notepad for example), and therefore will not update Win32 API to support it as well.
They went too far away from basic Win32 API and put all effort in developing JAVA-based solutions that are adapted to the basic Windows API/applications.
It sucks, but I guess this is the way it is.
People will have to live with the Notepad not supporting the "Dark Theme" and they will try to install and use Notepad++.
Thank you.
The built in Windows apps are moving to the newer UX one by one. Notepad has already been migrated and supports dark mode. See this blog article on the progress.
well its just one of..
Anyway thank you for the reply and the link.
I guess MS is really trying to abandon all its C++ stuff and move to JAVA-based solutions.
Its not good but I guess it just a way it is.
Notepad nor any of the other standard Windows apps are Java based. Not really sure where you're getting that from. If anything MS is moving to their .NET platform. There are a few MS products that are Electron based but none of the Windows apps are.
Not an answer as such, but I have been working with the undocumented APIs and making progress: