[8.0ß] Menu highlighting style different from native

[Flint]

Windows 7, Aero theme.

In native applications (like Notepad) the main menu sub-items are highlighted with a light blue border and a lighter blue background. And in TC the drop-down menus are highlighted the same way, see screenshot:
http://flint-inc.ru/Temp/tcbeta80/menu_highlight_tc_dropdown.png

However, the main menu is highlighted with solid intense blue background:
http://flint-inc.ru/Temp/tcbeta80/menu_highlight_tc_main.png

This difference looks inaccurate. If this is not extremely hard, I'd like to see the main menu look like the native ones.

[Lefteous]

This limitation only applies when icons are displayed in menus.

[Flint]

With the 32-bit version I confirm that, but in the 64-bit version highlighting is always solid-blue, even without icons.

Anyway, context menu contains icons, and still highlighted using light-blue gradient with a border, so there's no technical limitation to display menu with icons with native-looking highlighting.

[Sob]

From other thread:

I have to draw the dropdown menus myself, otherwise I couldn't support all the various options in Configuration - Options - Icons, like the 3d border around icons, or the separate checkmarks.

I gave up back then, but when I think about it now, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be linked to XP themes option in Configuration->Layout. If someone wants themed UI, then he most likely wants to include menus too. So it would be simple choice: completely themed menus OR separate checkmarks and 3D border options.
I mean, can there be anyone who wants everything themed but not the menus? Such person is out of luck anyway, because several other menus will be themed in any case. Context menu for files (handled by Windows), tab menu (native menu in TC), whole Lister menu (drawn by Lazarus according to system-wide settings), maybe others...

[ghisler(Author)]

The 64-bit version uses owner-drawn menus also when not using icons. The problem with using themes in owner-drawn menus is that the themes use a considerable amount of extra space. That's the main reason why I'm currently not planning to use themes in the menu, sorry.

[Sob]

I don't know if I missed some important point, but the difference in used space is actually very small. With Windows 7 and default Aero, TC's Show menu (the longest of dropdown menus) is 482px high. If it was themed, it would be 522px high. It still fits perfectly fine even at 600px high screen (still used in netbooks for example). And I don't think we need to worry too much about themed 640x480, Windows doesn't even offer me such small resolution. :)

[ghisler(Author)]

It depends on the theme how many pixels per item would have to be added. What you compare is just the extra space needed in addition to text, the icons need even more space (especially when using more than 16x16 pixels).

[Sob]

What I compare is actual menu in TC (the longest one) with the same (default Aero themed) menu in test Lazarus app. Icons or no icons (for default 16x16) makes no difference, the menu item height is same in both cases (unlike with system-drawn classic menus, where icon makes tiny difference to item's height).

All of the few 3rd-party themes I tried use the same menu item height as default Aero, but yes, it's probably possible for some other theme to have it different. I also admit I didn't think about larger icons.

So I tried to set 48x48 icons. With them the menu does not fit even on my large desktop screen. But it scrolls! So there's no real problem. If it happens to someone, it's just a friendly indication that he went too far with icon size. :)