7 Explore the accent
We’ve deliberately chosen a fairly garish red here so you can
really see what difference changing the accent colour makes to
the look of your system: if you look closely you’ll see that not only
has it changed all the icon backgrounds in the Start Menu, but it’s
even affected the highlighting of the Search bar and of the active
icons in the Taskbar. Apps’ title bars are now bright red too.
8 Mix your own
If none of the available colours quite float your boat, you
can mix your own. To do that, just click on the big plus sign
immediately underneath the selection of Windows colours. Click
in the main box to move between colours and use the slider to go
lighter or darker. Windows will warn you if a colour could make
things hard to read, and it does so in very readable red text. Q5
Check the changes
Your changes will be applied to Windows immediately.
When you click on the Start Menu you’ll now see it in whichever
mode you chose. You’ll also notice that the May Update simplified
it a little bit. It’s worth noting that not all apps will support the
new themes – our music player app is determined to be None
More Black no matter how we set Windows.
3 See your settings
When you open the Personalisation section of Control Panel
you’ll see a little image showing what your system settings are.
Above you can see that we’ve got the standard Windows theme
and colour scheme. If you’re changing from light to dark or vice
versa you might want to change the background picture from this
screen. Click on Colours in the sidebar to continue.
6
Change the colours
One thing that hasn’t changed is your ability to change the
accent – the colour of Windows’ title bars and borders, plus
interface elements such as check boxes. It’s just a little further
down the Colours screen than before. As with the light and dark
themes, any changes you make will be applied immediately so
you can see whether luminous orange is a little too bright.4 Step into the light (or dark)
You should see the ‘choose your colour’ drop-down here.
There are three options: Light, Dark, and Custom. Our screenshot
shows what happens if you choose the Custom option: where
Light and Dark change Windows to light or dark mode, Custom
enables you to have different settings for Windows and for apps- you might want Windows to be dark but your apps to be light.
Explore
Explore Windows’ light theme
August 2019 | |^37