Daniel Simion-Baciu (Customer) asked a question.

December 8, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Change white border around text editor controls on Windows 11

The borders of text editor controls in Windows 11 are displayed in white color and no longer as grey/black. This makes it on Windows 11 hard to visualize the delimitation of the fields.

Is there a way to customize / change this?

 

 

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  • 6 answers
  • 278 views
Carlos Vega, Simion Legian, and 5 others like this.

  • Carlos Vega (ISI Condal)

     

    It's true.

     

    I just tested it on a computer with Progress OpenEdge 12.2.13 and Windows 11 and it looks pretty bad:

     

    white border in textbox 

    The simplest thing you can do is slightly change the background color of the window’s main frame to make it darker and improve the contrast with the border:

     

    improve the contrast wirth the white border 

    You could also try an ActiveX library that allows you to modify the style of the controls. I remember that in the past Progress OpenEdge recommended libraries such as Codejock, which had that capability:

     

    https://codejock.com/products/skinframework/?platform=com

     

     

  • Matt Gilarde (Progress Software)

    I'm looking into this because it will become a bigger issue as more users move to Windows 11. Right now I don't have any suggestions for how to fix it but I'm going to keep investigating.

  • Daniel Simion-Baciu (Customer)

    Thank you for your replies!

     

    As far I know the controls are drown either by OS or by Progresss, depending on the Native toggle.

     

    In case the toggle is set to Native, I don't think it is much that we can do, except to try to change the styles and colors in OS. Maybe increase the contrast as Carols mentioned above. I done some tests and the same white border can be seen surrounding the .net controls in a WinForms application.

     

    I would expect though to have a consistent look and feel when the control is not Native, when it is dawn by Progress. I didn't check the way the controls are displayed during the Progress versions history. I remember only that there was not difference in the way the controls look, back on v7, regardless of Native setting.

    In this regard, I expected that on non Native controls to have the same nice border regardless it is on v7 or v12, and regardless on OS.

     

  • Matt Gilarde (Progress Software)

    We used to draw the border on native fill-ins but for a long time now we've let Windows do it so that it matches the current theme. The problem is that the default theme on Windows 11 makes it hard to see the border.

     

    I'm trying to find a way to make the border stand out more without going back to drawing it ourselves. Drawing it ourselves can cause flashing.

  • Daniel Simion-Baciu (Customer)

    Hi,

    I found a way to go back to Openedge 7 look and feel by removing Windows theme from widgets. The controls will look like this:

     

    image

    1. procedure removeTheme:
    2. define input parameter iphCtrl as handle no-undo.
    4. if iphCtrl:type = "fill-in"
    5. or iphCtrl:type = "combo-box"
    6. or iphCtrl:type = "radio-set"
    7. or iphCtrl:type = "toggle-box"
    8. or iphCtrl:type = "selection-list"
    9. or iphCtrl:type = "editor" then
    10. if iphCtrl:HWND <> ? then do:
    11. RUN SetWindowTheme(iphCtrl:HWND, 0, "", OUTPUT rc).
    12. // force redraw of the control without theme
    13. if iphCtrl:visible then do:
    14. iphCtrl:visible = false.
    15. iphCtrl:visible = true.
    16. end.
    17. end.
    18. end procedure.
    19.  
    20. PROCEDURE SetWindowTheme EXTERNAL "uxtheme.dll":
    21. DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER hWnd AS LONG.
    22. DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER a AS LONG.
    23. DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER b AS CHARACTER.
    24. DEFINE RETURN PARAMETER rc AS LONG.
    25. END PROCEDURE.

    The issue with this approach is that we can't remove the theme until the control is created and we need to hide and show it again to force redrawing it without theme.

    Maybe a solution is to remove theme for application or window or frame before controls are drawn.

     

  • Matt Gilarde (Progress Software)

    I'm aware of that approach but I don't like it because the look of the fill-in doesn't match the rest of the UI. If you don't mind that look for your entire UI you can remove prowin.exe.manifest from the bin directory. Then you don't have to use SetWindowTheme.