[EXP] Colored labels and icons are missing in expert mode

[Luckyman]

Hello Mario,

Has anyone already reported that the colors and icons are missing in expert mode when you open the menu in the file window to rate a file?

IMatch 2023 (Version 2023.6.6)
The screenshots show the comparison of expert mode / normal mode

[Mario]

Experimental Mode you mean, I think?
In that mode IMatch replaces the 3rd party user interface toolkit with standard Windows menus for compatibility, theming, assistive technologies etc.
By default, these menus show no icons. I need to find a work-around for the FW menu where showing icons (or label colors, in this case) would be beneficial.

This is all still in flux, hence experimental.
If you report a problem with an experimental feature, adding a [EXP] in front of the subject line is helpful.

[Mario]

Future IMatch versions will use standard Windows menus.
I have managed to re-introduce the label colors into the menu using Windows functions. Unfortunately, Windows in that case no longer applies the current user's Windows theme (e.g. dark menus) to the popup menu.

I have no idea why Windows does that or how to keep the theme working. As soon as I tell Windows that one of the menu items has a bitmap (aka the color box with the label), it ignores the Windows theme when displaying the menu.
Even after one day of extensive googling and ChatGPT'ing I did not find a solution for this - except for making IMatch draw menus by itself - which is a very tough job due to all the theming and assistance features tacked on to menus. Custom menus hence never look right or outdated, as soon as something in Windows changes.

One of the reasons switching from the 3rd party menus to standard Windows menus was to reflect the menu type and style selected by the user in IMatch and to re-enable assistive features .



In general, IMatch will not display "icons" in menus unless absolutely required. It makes sense for the color labels, but not for everything else.