zlacker

Dark theme isn't the windows color theming that always existed. It's the actual system setting that instructs apps to use dark mode. It's in UXTheme.dll (an OS lib) and the function app devs use to query it is ShouldSystemUseDarkMode(). This was introduced in Windows 10 1903.

Drawing the line between the OS and "not the OS" is really difficult. Direct X is included with the OS and DX12 is not compatible with Windows 7 so basically DirectX 12 is something you did not have in Win7 and do Have in Win10.

>>alkona+(OP)
> It's the actual system setting that instructs apps to use dark mode.

Dark mode being use as a short hand - pretty much all "standard" controls used to have colors and font size defined. So if an application wants to draw text - it'd use the text area background and color, likewise for buttons. Being replaced with a single boolean configuration option is just a lazy downgrade. Also I don't quite see it as an OS function - in the end it just reads the registry.

Vulcan was supported on Win7 (along w/ the raytracing) and oddly enough Win7 had a port of DX12 by Microsoft [0]. It was quite an arbitrary decision to prevent Win7 & 8 to run DX12. I suppose one of the issues is that GPU drivers (esp. AMD) do not support Win7 (or 8)

[0]: https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/directx-12-windows-7/

>>alkona+(OP)
Ubuntu has had that kind of dark mode for years.

>>alkona+(OP)
> Dark theme isn't the windows color theming that always existed.

Yes, and no. The colour theming that has existed since at leats Windows v2 could be used to implement dark more quite easily if only your apps listened to the relevant settings (some did, many did at least partially due to the framework they were written in doing so, some didn't at all – partially is the worse option as it caused contrast problems between compliant and non-compliant parts).

> It's the actual system setting that instructs apps to use dark mode.

The old theming was through system settings too. There were GDI API calls to read the values so you could make your app mirror the user's choices. Not as convenient as a single “dark mode” switch but no different other than that affordance. Many toolkits did this for you.

>>xxs+a3
The fact remains there was no system setting for dark mode before Win 10 that apps could use to ask “does this user prefer dark mode”. Now it exists in windows as well as iOS, MacOs etc so its a pretty established standard by now to have that as a Boolean system wide (and that system apps follow it while third party apps can query it of course).

Even if dx12 is an arbitrary restriction to only work in w10 that’s beside the point. It’s a feature of win10 no matter how arbitrary.

>>dspill+z6
Yes but no apps (more or less) respected those settings. Yet in OSes with a single dark switch, it was seen as impolite for apps to not respect it. So basically Microsoft copied that. That’s the feature. That there is a switch that apps actually tend to respect. Nothing else. Might sound small or even like a regression from before, but it’s not imo.

>>alkona+rc
there was no system setting for dark mode before Win 10 that apps could use to ask “does this user prefer dark mode”

There was no need for apps to ask that. Previously, apps would just say "draw this dialog box in the user's preferred color scheme" and it would work fine. The only reason this dark mode hint is necessary is because too many apps started ignoring the Windows system color scheme and doing their own thing.

>>tremon+Lv
Exactly. Apps ignore anything but a “use dark mode yes or no” option, so the improvement was to add it. Tiny from windows perspective, huge for users (since the apps now actually respect it).

The difference to windows users is that you change a switch and apps actually change whereas before you couldn’t do that.

It wasn’t Microsoft’s fault before and it isn’t they who updated the apps now so they don’t get credit for that. But the fact remains you basically couldn’t use dark mode before and now you can.