Page 272 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Figure 4-2. The “Choose your color” menu offers three options. There’s Light (top), featuring the
newly sparkling-white backgrounds of the May 2019 Update; Dark (bottom); and Custom.

In Custom mode, you can choose light or dark independently for Windows itself (the menu bar, File
Explorer windows, Action Center, and so on) and apps. That’s for people who like the Dark look only
for the desktop, but the Light look in their programs (or vice versa).

Light mode, the factory setting in the May 2019 Update, gives a clean,
whitish look to the taskbar, Start menu, and other elements. Dark mode is a

dark-gray color scheme. Once you turn it on, most of Microsoft’s built-in
apps take on a stunning white-writing-on-black-background appearance.

Here’s what doesn’t change in dark mode:

Your desktop picture. Or any pictures at all, for that matter.

Web pages.

Preexisting non-Microsoft apps. Software companies have to
update their programs if they want them to take on dark mode’s

dusky hues.

In general, you’d really have to stretch to say dark mode helps with your
productivity. Mainly it’s just cool-looking.

This page of Settings also lets you tweak some other color settings for your

world:

Transparency effects. There’s no particularly good reason you’d

want Windows elements like the Start menu, taskbar, and Action
Center to be partly see-through; they’re easier to read when they’re
opaque. But you know—whatever floats your boat. If you turn this

switch on, the brightest or darkest parts of your wallpaper picture
blurrily shine through your Start menu, taskbar, and Action Center
areas.

Automatically pick an accent color from my background. If
you leave this switch on, then Windows chooses an accent color

for you—the shade that paints the tiles and background of the Start
menu, window buttons, the taskbar background, and the Action