Windows tray menu text is blurry on HiDPI displays and ignores OS theme

[halr9000]

The Windows tray's context menu text (e.g. "Token Meter", "$0.31 est | 732.8K tokens", "Guidance: ...") renders blurry on a HiDPI display, and stays light-themed regardless of the Windows dark mode setting. (Note: all modern displays are HDPI, so this impacts all Windows users. Unless they are using an old CRT 😁 .)

Screenshot:

Contrast to Windows sound options right-click

And ChatGPT:

scripts/run-tray.ps1 builds the NotifyIcon/ContextMenuStrip (lines 409-470) in a process launched via powershell.exe (Windows PowerShell 5.1 / .NET Framework WinForms) with no DPI-awareness manifest declared. Without one, Windows applies system-DPI bitmap scaling to the whole process, which blurs the menu text. The menu also doesn't read HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize\AppsUseLightTheme, so it can't follow the OS light/dark setting.

Environment

• Windows 11 Pro, build 10.0.26200
• Token Meter revision 0361558 (main, 2026-08-14)

[bhavsarpratik]

Implemented locally on the main working tree (not pushed yet), with the Windows-native visual check still pending on a Windows host.

The tray now:

• requests Per-Monitor V2 DPI awareness before loading WinForms or creating controls;
• falls back to system-DPI awareness on older Windows versions;
• reads AppsUseLightTheme whenever the context menu opens;
• applies coherent light/dark colors recursively to the menu, submenus, separators, selections, checks, and disabled text;
• reports bounded dpi_awareness and theme values from -SmokeTest.

Portable Windows packaging/contracts pass, including ordering and smoke-payload assertions. This macOS host has neither Windows PowerShell nor a Windows GUI, so I am not claiming native sharpness/theme acceptance until the PowerShell parse, tray smoke, and visual comparison run on Windows 11.