Bug 4380 - Dark theme black text on black background when replying to message
Summary: Dark theme black text on black background when replying to message
Status: RESOLVED INVALID
Alias: None
Product: Claws Mail (GTK 2)
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI/Compose Window (show other bugs)
Version: 3.17.6
Hardware: PC Linux
: P3 trivial
Assignee: users
URL:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2020-09-02 11:47 UTC by Anthony Scott
Modified: 2020-09-02 14:10 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:


Attachments
Visual difference with colors (297.41 KB, image/png)
2020-09-02 12:48 UTC, Anthony Scott
no flags Details

Description Anthony Scott 2020-09-02 11:47:11 UTC
When replying to an email while using a dark theme, text in the To field is black. If adding a recipient it is white as expected. Opening a new compose window also behaves as expected. This seems strictly related to programmatically inserted text in the first To field when wanting to reply.

Here is some extra details about my setup:

uname -a output
Linux gsystem 5.7.17-2-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Aug 22 14:58:17 UTC 2020 x86_64 GNU/Linux

KInfo Center Information
Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.19.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.73.0
Qt Version: 5.15.0
Kernel Version: 5.7.17-2-MANJARO
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 2 × AMD A4-5300B APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
Memory: 7.1 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD ARUBA

KDE Application Style: Breeze
Gnome/GTK2 and GTK2 Style: Adwaita-dark

If any further information is needed please let me know. If there is a setting I might have missed or a work-around I would be happy to apply anything to fix this. I was able to correct the attachment icon issue mentioned in bug 4207 by using a different icon theme. Thank you for your time.
Comment 1 Paul 2020-09-02 12:02:37 UTC
This is everything to do with your gtk2 theme and nothing to do with claws-mail.

Locate your theme's gtkrc file (e.g. /usr/share/themes/Adwaita-dark/gtk-2.0/gtkrc) and edit these values:

gtk-color-scheme = "text_color:#ffffff\nbase_color:#232729"
gtk-color-scheme = "selected_fg_color:#ffffff\nselected_bg_color:#215d9c"

i.e. set text_color and selected+fg_color to white (if white is what you want)
Comment 2 Paul 2020-09-02 12:48:12 UTC
It seems I was a bit premature in attributing this purely to the gtk theme and closing it as invalid.

The problem is not that the text is black, the problem is that the background colour is not also changed. (It should be, by default, changed to a pale yellow, indicating that this field has been automatically populated.)
Comment 3 Anthony Scott 2020-09-02 12:48:47 UTC
Created attachment 2086 [details]
Visual difference with colors

Visual screenshot showing that the suggested action is not a viable solution for me. It demonstrates the bug, highlight color settings, and proper text colors in the new To field.
Comment 4 Paul 2020-09-02 13:03:01 UTC
I'm going to close this again, as the problem is not related to dark themes, but only to Adwaita-dark.

Adwaita-dark forces a black background which seemingly prevents claws-mail from changing the background colour. It does not force the foreground colour. Therefore you see black text on a black background, rather than black text on a pale yelow background.

Adwaita-dark is broken.

For example,  the dark theme graybird-dark works fine.
Comment 5 Anthony Scott 2020-09-02 13:21:54 UTC
Thank you. Using Breath-dark does fix the issue. I don't understand the nature of themes or how they work precisely. I've applied compatibility packages and followed a couple guides for dark themes. I normally use a light theme. Recently I switched away from XFCE to Plasma and wanted something dark. Claws Mail is by far my favorite email client and I use it almost daily.

Is there something close to adwaita-dark that isn't broken? I have yet to install graybird.
Comment 6 Paul 2020-09-02 14:10:20 UTC
I can't advise on any dark themes as I don't use a dark theme. However, greybird-dark seems fairly close in my short estimation.

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