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sumatrapdfreader
Dark theme improvements
When using a dark Windows 7 theme, Sumatra v3.4.6 has some issues (see this screenshot and this one):
- The toolbar icons are very hard to discern.
- The tabs do not honour the theme colours.
- The
Aboutdialog box and default Sumatra opening screen are not legible.
Theming was improved for XP and Vista in version 0.6 (2007) and was fairly stable until Win 7 was introduced so good for 10 years up to version 3.1.2 (2016 fixed issue with icons being purple in latest Windows 10 update)
Experimental Win7+ themes (attempted April 2017) were dropped a very long time ago i.e. around April 2017, (did not work well with constant windows system colour changes) so widows 7 (dead) had some effects such as your blue header, but current win 11 has very little its like white cows in a snow field unless using some high contrast settings,
- new black vector icons should be dark grey on light grey fields (solves bitmap issues)
- there are no theme colours in 3.4.6 (they are a Work In Progress)
- windows main colour background is for mid to light contrast you should not invert the UI colors only the paper as required.
- Did I say there is no longer theming ? But is still planned, pending code contributions.
There have been umpteen corrections to maintain prior single theme status, even neutering the default Watchman Yellow :slightly_smiling_face: Effective Duplicate of status in March 2017 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/743 inter related to https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/559 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/898 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/1275 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/2048 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/2224 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/2320 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2335 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2360 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2441 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2475 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2552 https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/discussions/2555
I think perhaps the easiest place to start is to use the colours (background and text colours) defined by the Windows theme for the Sumatra tabs. Because the Sumatra UI is already picking up and using those colours for some of its UI elements, it seems like perhaps a reasonable place to start.
@Gitoffthelawn there is often user confusion due to naming, so others abuse Media TEXT "background and text colours" TextColor = #000000 BackgroundColor = #ffffff"
so should not be used as UI colors the reason they are inside the FixedUI settings is historic, different for pdf and ebook that is often the reason everyone complains color's are "wrong"
The color's for external UI elements such as borders scrollbars, title panel etc. are controlled by Windows (can be themed by Windows Blinds) but SumatraPDF has to maintain its own control (that works evenly, across every user system OS and color settings) otherwise its mayhem as seen when sys colors High Contrast is used.
this is covered by dozens of duplicates so closing as duplicate of https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/743 & https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/898