MATE theming problem - very light text not readable

Yesterday at 20:10:39

Fresh install of Artix, MATE desktop. I'm using a customized theme, but the customizations are limited to what I can do from the MATE settings application.

In the 'Appearance' dialog, selected:
- Controls: YaruGreen
- Window Border: Green-Submarine-border
- Icons: MATE
- Pointer: MATE

Here is the resultant theme file:

Code: [Select]

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Sorta OK Green
Type=X-GNOME-Metatheme
Comment=

[X-GNOME-Metatheme]
GtkTheme=YaruGreen
MetacityTheme=Green-Submarine-border
IconTheme=mate
GtkColorScheme=base_color:#2B2B2C,fg_color:#e3e3e3,tooltip_fg_color:#eaeaea,selected_bg_color:#4080fb,selected_fg_color:#eaeaea,text_color:#e3e3e3,bg_color:#323131,insensitive_bg_color:#434446,tooltip_bg_color:#343434,link_color:#4080fb
CursorTheme=mate
CursorSize=32

I realize the issue of theming, especially with Gtk2,3,4 and Qt5,6 all being involved, gets really nasty. (Huge problem with the Linux DE, in my opinion.) Also, I've bookmarked some pages about it, for further reading, particularly in re. Qt apps. For now, I'll be happy to fix the Gtk problem here. I think this is a real bug, but I'm not sure where I'd report it.

I have unreadable text in both panel menu items, and in at least one config dialog.

I haven't messed with any other ~/.config css or ini files, nor any environment variables such as QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME.

I can probably figure out what's broken, eventually, but I'm hoping someone has already run across this, or has a lot more knowledge than I regarding how themes operate. (BTW, I'm familiar with CSS, though not a big expert.)

Related, and helpful - there used to be a GTK Inspector, which got replaced by 'Looking Glass', which seems to not exist any longer, or at least isn't in the repos/AUR. Some tool like that which would function like the Firefox DOM inspector, so I could see what CSS selectors were used by the offending menu and dialog items, would be a big help. Otherwise, I'm just guessing as to what color attribute to change.

I should mention that my Artix project is a weekend-only thing, for now. So I might not see later replies until next Saturday. Thanks for any help / suggestions.

Re: MATE theming problem - very light text not readable

Reply #1 – Today at 01:06:10

I just play around with the appearance menu until I get something that works, there are also selectable fonts which might help, and some apps have their own config methods. But with me a lot of the themes are nothing like what you would expect, wrong colors, or unusable due to some text being unreadable and so forth. Results can vary due to HW, graphics card etc, there can be issues with driver support, not just the theme itself. There are other themes you can install from the repos and more in the AUR, you don't have to stick with the basics. If you can fix any broken theme then great stuff, your efforts are applauded.

Re: MATE theming problem - very light text not readable

Reply #2 – Today at 01:32:06

I'm quite particular about this, and maybe I should give up on that. I've spent way too much time paging through themes, not just for Gtk, but for Firefox and Thunderbird as well. IMHO, this is a terrible way to handle desktop appearance. Gtk 1.4 was much better in this regard, and Gtk 2 was OK. I can get wanting to get away from all the theme engines, as that was a complication. But what we have now is, IMHO, just awful. It's kind of like systemd, vs SystemV.

Re: MATE theming problem - very light text not readable

Reply #3 – Today at 17:43:39

Quote from: just_jed – on Yesterday at 20:10:39

I realize the issue of theming, especially with Gtk2,3,4 and Qt5,6 all being involved, gets really nasty. (Huge problem with the Linux DE, in my opinion.) Thanks for any help / suggestions.

Everything you need is in this wiki article.