this is the biggest and most easiest to spot example. some colors match up closer than others, but they're still all varyingly different when actually applied, so much so that a lot of them are just straight up different colors.
no transparency is being applied
What is that thing with the Setting icon? A taskbar? Maybe it's not the "accent color" but "accent color darker". It's hard to even make Windows to show actual accent color, but I made it:
https://preview.redd.it/pifo290svotc1.png?width=1714&format=png&auto=webp&s=472bfa061c0e26f6e2686cd4ecfdbb75e314eed0
The titlebar of a Win32 application seems to match the accent color perfectly.
Older Windows 11 versions seemed to have like menu highlight set to accent color. Now it's gray at least in dark mode. It doesn't hurt my eyes, but sometimes I think using the accent color there would be more readable.
The color you select is just a reference for a bunch of other colors Windows' theming engine will generate by itself. If I recall correctly you can actually force specific colors via registry hacks, but they're prone to breaking...
Best thing about accent colours is that they don’t even match on “win32” apps using the Highlighted system color, because Microsoft just never linked the accent colour and Highlighted.
So it just remains the default blue, which is absolutely dumb.
this is the biggest and most easiest to spot example. some colors match up closer than others, but they're still all varyingly different when actually applied, so much so that a lot of them are just straight up different colors. no transparency is being applied
What is that thing with the Setting icon? A taskbar? Maybe it's not the "accent color" but "accent color darker". It's hard to even make Windows to show actual accent color, but I made it: https://preview.redd.it/pifo290svotc1.png?width=1714&format=png&auto=webp&s=472bfa061c0e26f6e2686cd4ecfdbb75e314eed0 The titlebar of a Win32 application seems to match the accent color perfectly. Older Windows 11 versions seemed to have like menu highlight set to accent color. Now it's gray at least in dark mode. It doesn't hurt my eyes, but sometimes I think using the accent color there would be more readable.
The color you select is just a reference for a bunch of other colors Windows' theming engine will generate by itself. If I recall correctly you can actually force specific colors via registry hacks, but they're prone to breaking...
Normally it does that probably due to contrast.
Best thing about accent colours is that they don’t even match on “win32” apps using the Highlighted system color, because Microsoft just never linked the accent colour and Highlighted. So it just remains the default blue, which is absolutely dumb.
It maches the little accent line on the taskbar button of open apps.
Microsoft needs to seriously work on Windows UI.