Learning about "Dark Mode"

It seems that if an app uses the “System” defined colors (Fillcolor, DarkTinge etc)… that Darkmode support is “fairly easy”
but what if your app requires/allows the user to define a theme/skin using RGB colors… or you have code where you as a developer used &Cdddddd instead of Fillcolor.

Is there an equation that can take a “light” version of RGB and return its “dark” version… as I assume it is NOT just a matter of inverting the color

darkColor=MakeDarkRGB( rgb(123,096,234) ) // as an example

The theme colours should do this automatically. As I do a lot of custom drawing in my app I did most colours manually.

Yes I know the theme colors do… I am talking about being able to take a RGB color and converting it to its “dark” version

FYI… I have discovered that some apps (at least XCode) switch to a whole different copy of “preferences”… so not only are the colors different, but if you had set custom Fonts/Sizes, you have to define those again as well

No, not really. There are some SystemColors that have a different look depending on Dark Mode, like SystemRedColor (not available in Xojo but in CSTrueColors), and there is the new AddSystemEffect method that translates a color to a representation suitable for mouse clicks and other events, but I don’t know of any equation.
For the Windows side of TrueColors’ SystemColors, I ended up multiplying the pure system colors with a touch of white or black, depending on their general look. This looks quite ok, but I had to fine tune them manually to look somewhat like Apple’s dark system colors.

There’s a chrome extension called “Dark Reader”:

It does a very good job swapping colors. You might be able to look at the source on github for something like a MakeDarkRGB method.

Medical imaging folk might wanna know if you use these tools when looking at medical images…
Just sayin…

Such a ridiculous amount of brouhaha for a trivial feature that was available in the early 1990s under OS9 via extensions like ShapeShifter, until Apple made it impossible.

Hear ! hear !

I was more of a Kaleidoscope fan (having been a fan of Greg Landweber from Greg’s Windows and Greg’s Browser).

Then Apple decided theming was a thing, included it in System 8 and then decided it was not and didn’t allow it in OSX. sigh

I now look at the styles I loved to use and while some are still nice most are incredibly garish :smiley:

Ironically, the one I liked the most in the end was Apple’s own paper-based “Drawing Board” theme, which was only seen in Japan but eventually hackers made it work elsewhere.

Also the time of Window Tabs, control strip and many other features that made working in so small screens a lot more bearable :smiley:

ObTopic: Some of the nicer “Dark mode” tricks I’m seeing make me remind of the playfulness of those times. For example, Microsoft is unexpectedly embracing Dark mode in a funny way, replacing suns in icons with moons: https://twitter.com/AgentAkki/status/1057011899420659712 (tweet with animated screenshot)

Yes! Thank, you Eduardo for those screenshots :smiley: It’s been so long, I’d forgotten Kaleidoscope, but I loved and used those garish themes, they were so much fun. I loved being able to customize system sounds with Xounds as well.