UI Modernization - Win 11 - Mica Backdrop - Dark Mode

[softworkz]

UI Modernization - Win 11 - Mica Backdrop - Dark Mode

Getting these things working right in a Win32 application is quite challenging, as MS have shifted focus for Windows UI towards UWP/WinUI2 and now WinAppSDK/WinUI3, unfortunately. Especially when it's about using Mica (or Acrylic) backdrops, because that requires composition which is something, GDI just wasn't designed for, so one could probably also say that MS were kind-of forced to move away from GDI and apps using plain Win32 controls. Still, there are ways (as so often), even though less obvious and not necessarily always straightforward.

What I can offer

• Code, genuinely written for 7zip
  • Not using any libraries
  • Not copied from other projects
    (albeit I have some thanks to say)
• Follows existing patterns
• Win11 UI support is optional; when disabled or unavailable, everything keeps working as is
• Preserves down-level compilation support
  (imports are loaded dynamically)
• Avoids OS compatibility issues
  There's a single decision point in code. No fallbacks, no dealing with behaviors on specific Win 11 versions.
  Only when all requirements are met, the new UI features are available.

Features

• EXCLUSIVE: True Mica Backdrop Support
  • Including ListView transparency
  • This is most likely exclusive; I haven't seen any other project being able to do this
    (there are some forks claiming support for this, but they don't show screenshots and when you install, you realize that it's not the real thing)
• Dark Mode
  Everywhere, for all controls and windows
• Modern icons
  • Close to the original shapes and colors
  • Dynamic icon color adjustment for
    • all button states (normal, hot, disabled, pressed)
    • different adjustments for Win11 light, Win11 dark and classic display modes
  • Three sizes (16, 24, 32)
• ToolBar
  • Tooltips only shown when buttons have no captions
  • Adjusted spacing and button sizing
• Semi-transparent logo spanning title bar and menu bar area with menus inset from the left
• Modernized status bar
  • Adjusted, size and spacing, font and color
  • Transparent for Mica see-through
• Menus
  • Transparent MenuBar rendering
  • Dark theme item drawing
• ListView
  • Show column sort indicators
  • Win11-Style item selection rendering in detail view
  • Keep showing selection when window is unfocused
• Main Window
  • Add space around address/path input
• New Options
  • Enable Win11 Appearance
  • Enable ListView transparency

Code Updates

• CWindow2
  Implement notify message reflection, adding OnNotifyReflect and OnDrawItemReflect
• Introduce CControl
  as base class for controls and derive some controls from it
  • Inherits from CWindow2 for its built-in subclassing
  • Member methods to simplify custom-drawing with theme APIs
    (like DrawThemeText, DrawThemeBackground)
• Add CUiApiLoader
  Dynamic loading of windows libs and function entry-point pointers
• Introduce CThemeManager
  Available as global static g_ThemeManager
  Centralizes all implementations for Win 11 UI features
• Add WinCompat.h
  Win Api definitions for down-level SDK compatibility
• ImageList.h
  Add function for loading 32bpp images with full alpha channel
• CListView
  Implement custom drawing with double-buffering and alpha text
• Add ReBar.cpp
  Implement custom drawing with alpha background
• StatusBar.cpp
  Implements custom drawing using Windows themes APIs for modern appearance
• Add ToolBar.cpp
  Image list management, dynamic icon colorization

Question

Are you even interested in a PR?

Best,
softworkz

[softworkz]

Mica Backdrop - Light Themes

[softworkz]

Mica Backdrop - Dark Themes

[softworkz]

ToolBar Icons - Dark Mode

[softworkz]

Classic Appearance

[SRC267]

It would be a nice step up from using this fork

[softworkz]

It would be a nice step up from using this fork

I've seen that, but only short before completion - the approaches are quite different, though.

	ozone10	softworkz
Integration	external library	implementation specific to 7zip
Focus	Add dark mode appearance to light appearance	Modernize UI in both, light and dark appearance
Mica Backdrop Effect	Pseudo/Faked	Original
Control rendering	Mix of visual styles and custom painting in dark mode	Always use visual styles for painting - in light and dark mode
Compatibility	Adaptive to Windows version	Single yes/no crossing (win sdk >= 26100)

The approach I've taken for the Mica backdrop in a Win32 GUI app is new and unique, I think. At least I couldn't find any public project on GitHub or the web doing it that way.

The question I'm asking myself is whether the world would really need once another fork of 7-zip? I don't have any intentions in this regard, but if @ip7z isn't interested, at some point I will probably do.

[d5aqoep]

Just fork it out and do it yourself. The original 7-Zip dev is a stuck up sob.

[maverick74]

Since there are request for a GUI on Linux (#19 #118), would this be cross-platform?

If not, why not use something that may work everywhere (using Qt, for example)...

( your images look awesome, btw!!!)

[Th3EvilGod]

@softworkz This looks great. To align more closely with standard Windows 11 Fluent Design (WinUI 3) desktop density, I recommend a few structural adjustments to the header:

• App Logo: Scale the 7-Zip logo down to a standard 16x16px window icon so it doesn't bleed across the layout hierarchy.
• Command Bar Padding: The vertical padding on the top action icons (Add, Extract, etc.) is currently taking up a lot of unnecessary space. Reducing this to standard 32px or 40px would greatly improve the desktop feel.

One more thing; is it possible to replace the default Windows 11 "Compress to..." context menu entry with the modern 7-Zip option?

Repalce this

With this

[softworkz]

Just fork it out and do it yourself. The original 7-Zip dev is a stuck up sob.

I'm afraid, but I see it in a very different way. 7z is a great achievement which deserves respect in the first place.
Not just technically but also the fact that he is publishing and providing the results of this work to everybody - for free.

He doesn't owe anything to anybody. Some developers do not want to have any 3rd party code and prefer to have every single line written by themselves. If that is the case, I can understand that, that's why I'm asking here before even submitting it as a PR.
(@ip7z - I think it would be fair to indicate this clearly if that would be the case)

I'm not keen on creating and maintaining a fork where the code mainly consists of the code from somebody else, so my first and most preferred option from my side would be this to become a contribution to the original code and application.

@ip7z - may I kindly ask for your position and intentions in this regard?

Thanks

[softworkz]

@softworkz This looks great. To align more closely with standard Windows 11 Fluent Design (WinUI 3) desktop density, I recommend a few structural adjustments to the header:

• App Logo: Scale the 7-Zip logo down to a standard 16x16px window icon so it doesn't bleed across the layout hierarchy.

That "bleeding" is intentional and surely an opinionated choice. The idea was to create something unique and recognizable. I don't think that it goes against Windows 11 fluent design. Custom title bar content is a built-in feature of WinUI 3, which is actually provided by the Desktop Window Manager at the low-level. In that case though, you are fully responsible for the title bar drawing, and in case of 7zip, this would have meant that the Win32 menus couldn't have been used anymore. That's why I chose a different way to achieve this (non-client paint), which has been challenging - like all the transparency rendering (required for Mica overlay), given that GDI has never been intended for alpha-blended composition.

That being said - as a contribution it would be up to the owner whether he wants to keep it or not. In case of a fork, I would say it could be possible to allow disabling by option. What doesn't change in any case is the overall height of titlebar + menu bar, the logo display doesn't have any influence on this (the title bar height is always a bit larger for modern Win 11 apps).

Command Bar Padding: The vertical padding on the top action icons (Add, Extract, etc.) is currently taking up a lot of unnecessary space. Reducing this to standard 32px or 40px would greatly improve the desktop feel.

It supports the same toolbar options like before, only the icon sizes are depending on whether caption text is enabled or disabled. The 4 modes' appearances:

Small Icons - With Text

Small Icons - No Text

Large Icons - With Text

Large Icons - No Text

[softworkz]

Since there are request for a GUI on Linux (#19 #118), would this be cross-platform?

No, I'm afraid, this is pure Win32 API code.

( your images look awesome, btw!!!)

Thanks!

(to avoid confusion: all images are screenshots of the runing app)

[jpnaweb]

This theme is similar to WinRAR.

[softworkz]

This theme is similar to WinRAR.

This is Windows 11 Design, not the design of any specific 3rd-party application.