WinAPI ToolBar Text Color

Question

I am currently writing a program that makes use of the WinAPI ToolBar to display a menu at the top of the Window. Using the DarkMode_Explorer style

SetWindowTheme(Script, L"DarkMode_Explorer", nullptr);

I am making the ToolBar's background turn grey for dark mode. However, the ToolBar button text still remains black. How can I change the color of this to red, or green, or white?

As you can see, it is all black. I want the text to be a different color (red, green, white, purple, should all be possibilities). I cannot find a way to do this at all, read the docs, nothing.

Answer 1

I figured it out. You should be able to handle it in WM_NOTIFY->NM_CUSTOMDRAW. Set the LPNMTBCUSTOMDRAW clrText (text color) to the desired color. You can specify font there as well.

case WM_NOTIFY:
{
    switch (lpnm->code)
    {
        case NM_CUSTOMDRAW:
        {
            LPNMTBCUSTOMDRAW data_ptr = (LPNMTBCUSTOMDRAW)lParam;
            if (data_ptr->nmcd.hdr.hwndFrom == ToolBar) {
                switch (data_ptr->nmcd.dwDrawStage)
                {
                    case CDDS_ITEMPREPAINT: {
                        SelectObject(data_ptr->nmcd.hdc, GetFont(L"Microsoft Sans Serif", 15));
                        FillRect(data_ptr->nmcd.hdc, &data_ptr->nmcd.rc, CreateSolidBrush(RGB(44, 44, 44)));
                        data_ptr->clrText = RGB(228, 228, 228);
                        return CDRF_NEWFONT;
                    }
                    case CDDS_PREPAINT:
                    {
                        return CDRF_NOTIFYITEMDRAW;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Make sure to set your Toolbar's theme to remove visual styles, or it won't work.

SetWindowTheme(ToolBar, L"", L"");