The Invantive products for Microsoft Windows render their windows light or dark, following the app mode set in the operating system itself. Nothing has to be configured for it: from release 27.0 onwards, a device on which Windows is set to dark shows the products dark. The app mode is set in Windows under Settings, Personalisation, Colours, "Choose your mode". Windows distinguishes the mode of the system from the mode of the apps; the products follow the mode of the apps. ## The Appearance Is Fixed for the Run The appearance is established once, when the product starts. A change of the Windows setting made while a product runs is not followed, because the windows fix their colours as they are built and a change halfway would leave light and dark mixed on one screen. Close the product and start it again to pick up the new setting. ## What Follows the Appearance In the dark appearance: - the title bar, the ribbon and the frame of every window are dark; - the SQL editor is dark, including the syntax colouring, the line numbers and the markers in the margin; - the trees and the grids are dark, including the column headers, the band on which a column is dropped to group by it, and the scroll bars a grid draws itself; - the dockable panels are dark, including their tabs, their captions and the strip along the edge on which a hidden panel is named; - the dialogs, the tool bars, the menus and the status bars are dark. A colour which carries a signal keeps its meaning rather than following the appearance. The band which reports the statement being executed, and which carries "Cancel" to stop it, therefore stays yellow: light yellow in the light appearance and a dark amber in the dark one, in both cases with text which reads against it. Two things sit outside the appearance of the product. A page shown in an embedded browser renders as its author made it, and an exported document is unaffected: an export made on a dark device is identical to one made on a light device. ## Overruling the Appearance The following environment variable controls the appearance and is available on the products with a user interface from release 27.0: - `INVANTIVE_APP_THEME`: overrule the appearance in which the user interface renders. Defaults to the app mode of Microsoft Windows, and to light on an edition or version of Windows which does not have that setting. The value is one of the following and is not case sensitive: - `Light`: render light; - `Dark`: render dark. For example: ``` set INVANTIVE_APP_THEME=Dark ``` Any other value is ignored, upon which the app mode of the operating system decides after all. The variable is meant for support, and for reproducing a problem in the other appearance on a device which is set the other way; it is not a substitute for the Windows setting, which the products otherwise follow. ## Which Products Honour It The appearance is part of the shared Microsoft Windows framework, so it is honoured by: - [[Invantive Query Tool/Invantive Query Tool|Invantive Query Tool]]; - [[Invantive Data Loader/Invantive Data Loader|Invantive Data Loader]]; - Invantive Studio; - an application built on Invantive Producer for Microsoft Windows. [[Invantive Query Tool Multi-Platform/Invantive Query Tool Multi-Platform|Invantive Query Tool Multi-Platform]] is a product of its own with an appearance of its own, which this variable does not reach. ## What It Does Not Do The appearance changes what the product looks like and nothing else. It does not alter what the product does with data, which databases it reaches, which rights apply, or what an export contains. ## See also - [[Privacy]] - [[Run Signal]] - [[UI Language]] - [[Invantive Query Tool/Main Window|Main Window]]