Guidelines for application colors (background, buttons, etc.) on Windows?

What are the recommended colors for an application's background, button faces, etc.?

In the past I've just chosen a color scheme but I'd like to be more compatible with the Windows Accessibility Options, etc.

I see that VB6 has System Colors like Application Workspace.

开发者_运维百科Edit: I'd like to find an explanation of all of those colors (like what's the difference between Application Workspace and Window Background?

In my opinion, you should leave the colors as they are if you are using standard controls; they'll get the right color according to che current color scheme by themselves. You need to use the color constants only if you have to draw your own UI elements; in that case, the meaning of those constants is explained briefly in their documentation.

This PDF http://www.johnsmiley.com/cis18/Smiley009.pdf [ explanation of VB6 System Color values ]should help you. It lists all the system color constants and what they mean. For instance vbApplicationWorkspace is the "Background color of multipledocument interface (MDI) applications."

If you're interested in the whole MS Windows UI/UX guidelines, they are available online here and for download here. Page 618 deals with how to "Use theme or system Colors"

It depends on the language and framework you use. .Net for example has an entire SystemColors class full of static properties like SystemColors.Control that are 'changed' to the corresponding system color in runtime.

I think most office applications conform to the system colors, while most graphics intensive applications (e.g. games) use their own color scheme.

It is best if you try to use the colors of the current system (like the .NET SystemColors), that way if the user changes his settings (for example if he uses a high-contrast color scheme or some fancy black theme he likes) your application will adapt those colors and that way conforms to the users preferences/needs.