4 ms·

There were lots of requests to have form controls "look native", which is why they were changed to use the desktop theme... One problem with that, as you note,

There were lots of requests to have form controls "look native", which is why they were changed to use the desktop theme... One problem with that, as you note, is web pages that are setting a color but not a background color on elements, which is a web development 101 mistake. But there's just no way to win here: either you can use the OS theme for widgets and things fail when sites make this mistake, or the widgets don't look "native".

jcranmer 8y ago
But... but... I want to have my cake and eat it too!
hannasanarion 8y ago
> One problem with that, as you note, is web pages that are setting a color but not a background color on elements, which is a web development 101 mistake. If it works correctly for 99.9% of users (those who aren't running linux, with firefox, with a dark GTK theme), than it isn't a mistake on the part of the website, it's a bug on the part of the browser. User theming is not about to sweep over the web. It didn't happen in 2000 when this bug was first opened. The web has changed a lot since then, we've seen web 2.0 and the dawn of the social internet. But there are zero signs of a user-defined theme revolution. AFAIK themes still don't exist in Windows and OSX. It is absurd to continue to insist that the issue is about to fix itself, as maintainers have done on the bug report I linked.
- bzbarsky 8y ago
  > AFAIK themes still don't exist in Windows and OSX. They exist just fine on Windows. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13768/desktop-themes-featured https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13768/desktop-theme... for example, and there's a number of themes that ship with Windows by default, including several "dark" themes. On Mac I am not aware of themes per se, but there are accessibility options that have similar effects. Again, what is your specific proposed solution? Stop using the current theme entirely when painting controls? You can sort of test what that looks like by putting "-moz-appearance: none" on some controls; then tell me whether that's what people using a non-dark GTK theme actually want. Or do you have some other concrete proposal?
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    > Again, what is your specific proposed solution? Why do you need a proposal from me? What's wrong with this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/8 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/44 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 Or this one? https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 And those are only the proposals that are linked from the original 18-year old bug, there are probably dozens of others that were opened independently. Granted, some of them are dumb (the patch that hard-codes "Adwaita-dark" as a trigger seems particularly bad) but there is no excuse for this to still be around, 18 years later, despite all of the proposals and patches that have been sent to fix it. There are multiple firefox extensions out there that fix the bug, and they are very popular, with thousands of users each. In what crazy world is it considered good design practice to force thousands of your users to install 3rd party extensions to be able to read text on the internet?
    - bzbarsky 8y ago
      > What's wrong with this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 Like the comment says: it makes things better with some themes but worse with others. Incidentally, the author of that patch is a senior engineer at Mozilla now; if he actually thought this patch made things better, it would be in the tree. Note, by the way, that this bug report is about the Firefox UI itself, not about web pages. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 That comment comes down to "stop doing native theming", no? > Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/8 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... That's the same as your first link. > Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/44 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Amusingly enough, that comment was written by me. There's nothing wrong with it. It's from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437366 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437366 which was a superficially similar, but not at all the same issue, and which I fixed back in 2009. (And yes, I have thought about this problem space quite a bit in the past, though not necessarily the Linux-specific bits.) > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 That says "stop doing native theming". > Or this one? https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix That's a set of CSS rules that disables native theming. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 This comment is about the Firefox UI, not web pages. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 This one is actually useful, thank you. Following the links from there lands me at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283086#c13 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283086#c13 from one of the RedHat folks who have been active in this stuff. Note that this comment says that Firefox tries to avoid using dark themes for form controls, but some dark themes fail to properly flag themselves as dark themes. Which makes it hard to avoid them. Also, can you stop pretending like no one has worked on this? Given https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353147 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353147 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158076 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158076 it sure looks like people have been active here. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 Karl is an engineer on Firefox, working on GTK integration. If he felt that his comment were the right fix, it would be in the tree. > In what crazy world is it considered good design practice to force thousands of your users to install 3rd party extensions to be able to read text on the internet? In a world where all the proposals for fixing that so far make millions of users unhappy?
anoncake 8y ago
Actually, there are two ways to win here: Follow the OS theme or follow the website CSS. But don't mix them, that's just stupid.

jcranmer 8y ago

But... but... I want to have my cake and eat it too!

hannasanarion 8y ago

> One problem with that, as you note, is web pages that are setting a color but not a background color on elements, which is a web development 101 mistake. If it works correctly for 99.9% of users (those who aren't running linux, with firefox, with a dark GTK theme), than it isn't a mistake on the part of the website, it's a bug on the part of the browser. User theming is not about to sweep over the web. It didn't happen in 2000 when this bug was first opened. The web has changed a lot since then, we've seen web 2.0 and the dawn of the social internet. But there are zero signs of a user-defined theme revolution. AFAIK themes still don't exist in Windows and OSX. It is absurd to continue to insist that the issue is about to fix itself, as maintainers have done on the bug report I linked.

bzbarsky 8y ago
> AFAIK themes still don't exist in Windows and OSX. They exist just fine on Windows. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13768/desktop-themes-featured https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13768/desktop-theme... for example, and there's a number of themes that ship with Windows by default, including several "dark" themes. On Mac I am not aware of themes per se, but there are accessibility options that have similar effects. Again, what is your specific proposed solution? Stop using the current theme entirely when painting controls? You can sort of test what that looks like by putting "-moz-appearance: none" on some controls; then tell me whether that's what people using a non-dark GTK theme actually want. Or do you have some other concrete proposal?
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  > Again, what is your specific proposed solution? Why do you need a proposal from me? What's wrong with this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/8 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/44 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 Or this one? https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 And those are only the proposals that are linked from the original 18-year old bug, there are probably dozens of others that were opened independently. Granted, some of them are dumb (the patch that hard-codes "Adwaita-dark" as a trigger seems particularly bad) but there is no excuse for this to still be around, 18 years later, despite all of the proposals and patches that have been sent to fix it. There are multiple firefox extensions out there that fix the bug, and they are very popular, with thousands of users each. In what crazy world is it considered good design practice to force thousands of your users to install 3rd party extensions to be able to read text on the internet?
  - bzbarsky 8y ago
    > What's wrong with this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c8 Like the comment says: it makes things better with some themes but worse with others. Incidentally, the author of that patch is a senior engineer at Mozilla now; if he actually thought this patch made things better, it would be in the tree. Note, by the way, that this bug report is about the Firefox UI itself, not about web pages. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c12 That comment comes down to "stop doing native theming", no? > Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/8 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... That's the same as your first link. > Or this one? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/220263/comments/44 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22026... Amusingly enough, that comment was written by me. There's nothing wrong with it. It's from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437366 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437366 which was a superficially similar, but not at all the same issue, and which I fixed back in 2009. (And yes, I have thought about this problem space quite a bit in the past, though not necessarily the Linux-specific bits.) > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c36 That says "stop doing native theming". > Or this one? https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix https://github.com/lightradius/firefox-dark-theme-fix That's a set of CSS rules that disables native theming. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c45 This comment is about the Firefox UI, not web pages. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70315#c46 This one is actually useful, thank you. Following the links from there lands me at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283086#c13 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283086#c13 from one of the RedHat folks who have been active in this stuff. Note that this comment says that Firefox tries to avoid using dark themes for form controls, but some dark themes fail to properly flag themselves as dark themes. Which makes it hard to avoid them. Also, can you stop pretending like no one has worked on this? Given https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353147 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353147 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158076 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158076 it sure looks like people have been active here. > Or this one? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461538#c9 Karl is an engineer on Firefox, working on GTK integration. If he felt that his comment were the right fix, it would be in the tree. > In what crazy world is it considered good design practice to force thousands of your users to install 3rd party extensions to be able to read text on the internet? In a world where all the proposals for fixing that so far make millions of users unhappy?

anoncake 8y ago

Actually, there are two ways to win here: Follow the OS theme or follow the website CSS. But don't mix them, that's just stupid.