FileZilla 3.70.6 - dark-mode fork

This repository is a fork of the FileZilla 3.70.6 source distribution with these additions:

1. Native Windows dark mode - a "Color theme" dropdown in Settings > Interface > Appearance (Follow system setting / Dark / Light). In rev6, clicking OK applies the theme to open windows without a restart.
2. A port to wxWidgets 3.3 - upstream 3.70.6 targets wxWidgets 3.2.x; dark mode uses the Windows appearance support in wxWidgets 3.3.
3. Dark-mode rendering fixes - fixes for wxWidgets 3.3 dark-mode bugs that affected this build: owner-drawn checkbox/radio labels rendering blank or mislabeled in dialogs, file-list rows flickering on mouse hover, group box titles painted black with wxWidgets 3.3.3, the file list going blank behind the shell's delete dialog, and a "wxWidgets Debug Alert" at startup when the message log is shown as a tab in the transfer queue pane.

It is the FileZilla source tree only. The build dependencies (wxWidgets, libfilezilla, fzssh, etc.) are not vendored here - they are external build requirements, listed below.

Repository: https://github.com/Pharaoh2k/FileZilla-Themed-For-Windows

License

FileZilla is licensed under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later version. See LICENSE for the full GPLv3 text. The changes in this fork are likewise GPLv3-or-later.

What changed (the fork)

Git history makes this explicit:

• Commit 1 - "Import pristine FileZilla 3.70.6 source" - the unmodified upstream tarball.
• Commit 2 - "Fork: add Windows dark mode + port to wxWidgets 3.3" - the entire diff (12 files).

See CHANGES.fork.md for the per-file list required by the GPL.

Dark mode

• New option OPTION_APPEARANCE_MODE (0 = follow system, 1 = dark, 2 = light).
• CFileZillaApp::ApplyAppearanceMode() applies the saved theme at startup and applies changes after OK in Settings. Cancel leaves the theme unchanged.
• Open windows are updated in place. Connections, transfer queues, and pane selections are retained. Follow system setting also responds when the Windows app colour preference changes.
• Stock wxWidgets 3.3.3 handles Windows system-theme changes, but its public SetAppearance() still rejects manual changes after windows exist. The bundled wx333-runtime-appearance.patch enables the same update mechanism for the Light/Dark/System selector; rebuilding requires both wx patches. See the upstream discussion.

wxWidgets 3.3 port fixes

• configure / configure.ac: relax the hard "must use wxWidgets 3.2.x" gate.
• aui_notebook_ex.cpp: GetTabSize override wxDC& -> wxReadOnlyDC&; and for wxWidgets 3.3.2, drop the base wxAuiNotebook::OnTabDragMotion(evt) call (3.3.2 made tab-drag handling internal and runs the default before posting the event, so chaining to the old base handler no longer compiles).
• fileexistsdlg.cpp: wxIcon SetHandle/SetSize -> InitFromHICON.
• LocalTreeView.cpp, sitemanager_controls.cpp, settings/optionspage_filetype.cpp: explicit wide-char/string literals (wxWidgets 3.3 removed wxString's implicit narrow conversions).
• file_utils.cpp: CallSHFileOperation used to hide the helper window it creates over the file list or tree (to run the shell's delete/rename/copy dialog in a modal event loop) with wxTRANSPARENT_WINDOW. That style is a no-op since wxWidgets 3.3, so the helper became an opaque child window painted in the window background colour and the list or tree went blank as soon as the confirmation dialog appeared. The helper is now created hidden and size-less, which works with every wxWidgets version.
• Mainfrm.cpp: with the message log positioned as a tab in the transfer queue pane, the status view was created as a child of a splitter and then passed to wxAuiNotebook::AddPage, relying on wxWidgets to reparent it. wxWidgets 3.3.3 stopped doing that and asserts "page must be a child of the notebook" instead, which showed a "wxWidgets Debug Alert" at startup and left the Message log tab missing. The status view is now created as a child of the queue notebook (and reparented to it when the position is changed at run time).

Dark-mode rendering fixes

• src/interface/filelistctrl.cpp: don't force wxBG_STYLE_SYSTEM in dark mode (it overrode the double-buffered wxBG_STYLE_PAINT wxWidgets uses), which fixes file-list rows flickering on mouse hover.

• src/interface/FileZilla.cpp: enable wxWidgets' own static box painting (msw.staticbox.optimized-paint) from startup in both themes. This keeps group-box headings readable when an existing window changes to dark mode.

• Runtime changes also refresh Windows popup-menu caches and cached transfer progress bitmaps, and preserve the colours of tinted tabs.

• Colour-change handlers let wxWidgets update native controls before reapplying file-list colours, site tints, and message-log colours.

• A wxWidgets patch (applied to the wxWidgets 3.3.3 source - not vendored here - see patches/ and BUILD.md) fixes owner-drawn checkboxes/radio buttons rendering blank in dark dialogs (e.g. File > Export settings, the Settings dialog):

  • src/msw/window.cpp: route WM_DRAWITEM to the control by its HWND instead of by id. FileZilla creates many controls with the same id (nullID = wxID_HIGHEST), so the id-based lookup returned the wrong control (often a non-owner-drawn static text), leaving the real checkbox unpainted.

  This is really a consequence of reusing one id across controls, which wxWidgets does not expect; the HWND lookup just makes it robust against that. An equally valid fix would be to give those controls unique ids on the FileZilla side.

Known issues

The rev1-rev5 themed packages omitted the Explorer shell extension, preventing remote files and folders from being dragged onto the Windows desktop or into Explorer on systems without a registered extension. Rev6 restores the DLLs and adds a checked Shell Extension installer component. Installation and remote drag-and-drop were verified on the test machine. Extracting the portable ZIP alone does not register the extension. See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Rev6 adds live theme switching with a bundled wxWidgets patch. It refreshes cached popup-menu and transfer-row colours and open filter/search dialog backgrounds. The final build passed maintainer testing after a regression sweep covering menus, Settings pages, major dialogs, and FTP/FTPS/SFTP transfers.

Build requirements

Built and verified on Windows with an MSYS2 mingw64 toolchain (gcc 16.1).

• wxWidgets 3.3.3 (built from source; >= 3.3 is required for dark mode,

  = 3.3.2 for aui_notebook_ex.cpp; apply both wxWidgets patches in patches/ before building - see BUILD.md)

• libfilezilla 0.56.1 (>= 0.56.1)
• fzssh 1.3.0 / libfzssh-client (>= 1.3.0)
• Boost (Boost.Regex >= 1.76), nettle, gnutls, gmp, argon2, sqlite3, gettext, libidn2
• pkgconf, meson, ninja
• For the 32-bit Explorer shell extension: a 32-bit (i686) mingw gcc

Building (Windows / MSYS2)

See BUILD.md for the complete, verified from-scratch recipe - dependency build order (libfilezilla, fzssh, wxWidgets 3.3.3), the wx-config wrapper, the Explorer shell extension, translation catalogs, and the environment workarounds, plus the why behind each one.

The essentials:

# Out-of-tree build dir (kept out of the repo via .gitignore)
mkdir -p compile && cd compile

export PATH=/c/Users/Pharaoh/Downloads/fzbuild/bin:/c/msys64/mingw64/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/c/msys64/mingw64/lib/pkgconfig
export TMP='C:/Users/Pharaoh/AppData/Local/Temp' TEMP='C:/Users/Pharaoh/AppData/Local/Temp'

../configure --prefix=C:/msys64/mingw64 --disable-static \
  --disable-manualupdatecheck --disable-dependency-tracking MAKE=mingw32-make \
  --with-wx-config=/c/Users/Pharaoh/Downloads/fzbuild/bin/wx-config \
  --with-pugixml=builtin

mingw32-make -j$(nproc) SHELL='C:/PROGRA~1/Git/usr/bin/sh.exe' \
  CXXFLAGS="-g -O2 -pipe" CFLAGS="-g -O2 -pipe"
mingw32-make install SHELL='C:/PROGRA~1/Git/usr/bin/sh.exe'

The four workarounds (why they are needed is in the build notes):

1. Build with native mingw32-make, not the MSYS make.
2. Set the recipe SHELL to Git's healthy sh via an 8.3 short path: SHELL='C:/PROGRA~1/Git/usr/bin/sh.exe'.
3. Use -pipe and Windows-form TMP/TEMP (avoids a non-writable C:\WINDOWS temp fallback).
4. Use the wx-config wrapper that forces the wxWidgets 3.3 prefix.

Resulting binary: C:/msys64/mingw64/bin/filezilla.exe; resources under share/filezilla/; config in %APPDATA%\FileZilla.

Upstream

FileZilla - https://filezilla-project.org/ - Copyright (C) Tim Kosse and contributors. See AUTHORS.