Windows Visual Style

I've been working on a project that I've been designing in Windows 7. It is very Form driven and the button/background colors have all been set using Windows System colors.

The end users will be using this project on a Windows Server. It is set to Windows Classic Style by corporate group policy.

Needless to say the forms look ghastly when they display in the System colors used by Classic.

So I've been thinking...

1. UPDATE - SOLVED Would it possible to use API to detect if the OS is using Windows Classic Style?
2. Would it be possible to calculate (or maybe someone already has) the Palette equivalent of the non-classic style System colors? e.g. say we have System color "Scroll Bars", what is the nearest equivalent in Palette?

My idea is that I could detect on WB open whether the OS is using Classic Style or not (using answer to #1). If it is then a global variable would be set to indicate this and all UserForms initialize could be set to programatically change their buttons & backgrounds to use the nearest palette equivalent (using answer to #2). Wouldn't look as good but still an improvement over Classic Style color theme!

I do not think API is necessary. Colours are specific hex value and you will know what they are when you design the form. You may simply add constants to your project to colour your controls - scrollbars colour is &H80000000&.

Originally Posted by Izandol

I do not think API is necessary. Colours are specific hex value and you will know what they are when you design the form. You may simply add constants to your project to colour your controls - scrollbars colour is &H80000000&.

No offence Izandol but I don't believe you have understood my problem.

I prefer to use Windows System colors for buttons & forms. e.g. Me.BackColor = vbScrollBars. (and yes, as you point out I could set this as hex - &H80000000&)
My design choice of Windows System color palette works fine when the form is displayed on a Windows OS that is not using Windows Classic Style.
However. When the same form displays on a PC/Server that is using Windows Classic Style, the colors appear different. It seems that Windows Classic Style uses a slightly different color palette for form objects?
In any case, the form that looked good when designing on Windows 7 looks headache inducing when appearing on the end users server.

So I've decided to create two different color themes for each form. The choice of colors used would depend on whether the end user is using Windows Classic Style or not. Which leads me back to my opening post - I need a way to detect this. And the hex for the nearest color equivalent (as appearing on Classic) to the appearance of the System colors (as appearing on non-Classic)

Originally Posted by ragulduy

I would expect for #1 you would need to pick it up from the registry, maybe something like:

Thanks ragulduy. I tried it and received a Null error on both machines. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Originally Posted by LJMetzger

The following thread discusses obtaining 'Windows Classic Theme' information using
one of:
a. Registry Entry: HKEY_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
b. IsThemeActive() from uxtheme.dll

See http://vbcity.com/forums/t/73483.aspx
Lewis

Thanks Lewis! +1

That was exactly what I was looking for.

The code below returns the correct result on each machine.

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OK question 1 is solved. 1 question left.

"Would it be possible to calculate (or maybe someone already has) the Palette equivalent of the non-classic style System colors? e.g. say we have System color "Scroll Bars", what is the nearest equivalent in Palette?"

This is badly worded. I'll try again. The problem is - that no matter what you set a backcolor as - the color won't appear the same when it is displayed on a system using Windows Classic style theme.

This is most obvious when using blue colours. To give an example I am using a backcolor of vbHighlight (hex = &H8000000D& ). On Windows 7 this appears as a startling bright electric blue. However when it appears under Classic Style, this blue is a very dark murky blue (And No, it's nothing to do with the monitor settings - I tested the difference using the same monitor)

So - for each system color - I need to determine what is the nearest equivalent color to use instead - so that the form control/object will still appear with the intended color when shown using Classic.


See below for an example. As you can see I am a long way off getting the colours close.

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This will help towards solving the problem - http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...ackcolors.html - by showing what each system color looks like on your current style.

Note that the system colors will vary slightly depending on what theme you are currently using.

My main goal is to not use the System Colors as backcolors when the form appears on a PC using Classic Style theme.