Bug 334180

Summary:	alternate rows using wrong colors in dolphin's tree view with Oxygen theme
Product:	[Plasma] Oxygen	Reporter:	Dave Rove <daver1390>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Hugo Pereira Da Costa <hugo.pereira.da.costa>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	grahamperrin, mwoehlke.floss, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.12.4
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
URL:	http://i.imgur.com/mdmb4oo.jpg
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Dave Rove 2014-05-01 14:07:08 UTC

The inactive window colour settings affect the active windows of many apps, especially Dolphin.
KDE 4.13.0, Kubuntu 14.04

There really isn't enough difference between the default appearance of the active and inactive windows in the Oxygen theme to quickly tell them apart without tweaking the inactive window colours. The big problem with that is that the controls that are intended to affect the inactive window colours make the active windows look bad too.

An attempt to fade the inactive window colour and contrast, for example, creates dark bars and faded text in the active window of dolphin (see example image).

As a fix, I've had to resort to switching on the ghastly blue header bar in the active window instead, which breaks the look and feel of the Oxygen theme.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. settings > app-appearance > colours > options > apply-inactive-window-colours
2. settings > app-appearance >colours > inactive > move colour & contrast sliders to right
3. examine appearance of active windows of e.g. dolphin
Actual Results:  
Active windows affected (see image)

Expected Results:  
Active windows should not be affected

Comment 1 Matthew Woehlke 2014-05-01 14:25:36 UTC

This isn't the color scheme's fault. We're just setting the active / inactive colors; it is up to each application/widget to use them correctly.

That said, there are clearly some pretty serious bugs in dolphin's tree view going on here. The rows using alternate color are not respecting active/inactive states, and worse, are not updating when the system scheme is changed.

Reassigning to kdelibs as my first guess is that the problem is in the tree view class rather than dolphin proper. Please reassign as appropriate.

Comment 2 Frank Reininghaus 2014-05-02 15:22:13 UTC

Thanks for the report!

(In reply to comment #1)
> That said, there are clearly some pretty serious bugs in dolphin's tree view
> going on here. The rows using alternate color are not respecting
> active/inactive states, and worse, are not updating when the system scheme
> is changed.

I think the latter issue should be fixed in 4.13 (see bug 315061), right?

I'm not sure if I understand if anything else needs to be done, but I have to admit that I haven't written any of the relevant code, and I know very little about the handling of colors.

Comment 3 Matthew Woehlke 2014-05-02 15:35:05 UTC

(In reply to comment #2)
> I'm not sure if I understand if anything else needs to be done, but I have
> to admit that I haven't written any of the relevant code, and I know very
> little about the handling of colors.

At least in 4.11.5, the alternate row colors are not respecting the palette active/inactive state either. Has this also been fixed?

The easiest way to check is to turn on inactive window color effects (if not already; options tab in appearance/colors kcm), and set an obnoxiously obvious intensity effect (e.g. a strong shade; inactive tab). Then start dolphin, observe reasonable colors, then select some other window and observe not so reasonable colors as in the original screen shot.

Comment 4 Frank Reininghaus 2014-05-03 08:43:00 UTC

OK, thanks! I can actually reproduce the problem that changing the inactive color settings also changes the alternating row colors in active windows, as shown in Dave's screen shot, so there is apparently at least one bug left.