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preferences:preferences_categories:colors_and_fonts:windows_colors
Windows Colors
This page lets you configure the colors used by controls and system-provided elements like menus.
As Microsoft have never provided a "proper" dark mode that Win32-based applications can use, the dark mode in Directory Opus is implemented by hooking the system visual styles system to allow all the colors to be configured.
Changes made on this page only affect Directory Opus - they won't affect other Windows applications.
The System Colors group lets you configure the 25 or so standard Windows colors. These aren't used much any more - modern Windows uses the visual styles system which generally bypasses system colors. They do turn up occasionally though, so we've made them configurable here.
The Visual Styles group is where most control color configuration is done. Every control type supported by Opus has one or more entries in the list, giving you access to the individual colors for all the different parts of the control.
The pages for most controls have a Custom checkbox at the top, that lets you enable the hook for that control and configure its colors.
In light mode, most of these are turned off, as the default system light colors are acceptable. However, you can turn them on if you want to tweak a control or create your own completely custom light theme.
In dark mode, however, they're all turned on, as the hooks are required to render dark mode versions of the controls.
Some controls have lots of parts - in the example above, a checkbox control, there are 14 distinct colors that you can configure. Changes you make are updated in real time, and the best way to experiment with control colors is to use the Theme Tester, which you can access from the link on the Introduction page (or with the command Help THEMETESTER).
The Theme Tester lets you turn on individual control types, so you can see in real time the effect of color changes you make in Preferences.