macOS determine appearance and highlight color

[printf]

i need a way to determine two things.

first, the choice of color for the appearance, which on tiger (not sure about more recent os versions) seems to be one of two choices, blue or graphite. i'm not necessarily looking for the rgb value itself (although, in addition that would be nice), but rather the users choice.

the second, however, i would like to determine the rgb value of the highlight color.

how can these be accomplished? i poked around the appearance manager documentation, but didn't see these things specifically..

 

[kainjow]

Try GetThemeBrushAsColor() with kThemeBrushPrimaryHighlightColor

 

[printf]

sweet, it worked! any idea about the general appearance? again, just need to know whether it's graphite or blue? and i'm just assuming there's no way for users to change it to any other colors besides those two... right?

 

[kainjow]

Looks like you can use CopyThemeIdentifier() which returns kThemeAppearanceAquaBlue or kThemeAppearanceAquaGraphite.