Bug 398317

Summary: Login and lock screen text have no shadows when using software rendering
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Gianni <gianni_2295>
Component: Theme - BreezeAssignee: visual-design
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: minor CC: bhush94, kde, nate, plasma-bugs
Priority: NOR    
Version: master   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: Neon   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In: 5.15.0
Attachments: qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin supportInformation
Comparison of the lock screen when setting plasma renderer to opengl/automatic or software.
screenshot of lock screen featuring outlined text

Description Gianni 2018-09-06 10:02:02 UTC
Created attachment 114807 [details]
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin supportInformation

If setting plasma renderer engine to "software" instead of opengl/automatic the date and time text on the lock screen page are missing the shadow. This harms the readability, especially with white-ish backgrounds.

The issue happens every-time the lock screen appears when plasma renderer is set to software.

sddm login page seems to never have shadows, independently from what setting is active on the "Plasma Renderer" menu.

I am appending qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin supportInformation and an image showing the automatic/opengl version and the software version of the lock screen affected portion.
Comment 1 Gianni 2018-09-06 10:03:21 UTC
Created attachment 114808 [details]
Comparison of the lock screen when setting plasma renderer to opengl/automatic or software.
Comment 2 Kai Uwe Broulik 2018-09-06 10:23:50 UTC
The shadow uses shader effects and this is not possible when using software. This is just an emergency fallback option.
Comment 3 Gianni 2018-09-06 10:50:28 UTC
(In reply to Kai Uwe Broulik from comment #2)
> The shadow uses shader effects and this is not possible when using software.
> This is just an emergency fallback option.

In this case is it possible to provide a simpler alternative to make it readable? Maybe a border?
Comment 4 Kai Uwe Broulik 2018-09-06 10:51:58 UTC
I guess one could set a black outline on the text in that case, you're right. However, this isn't a high priority to do :)
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2019-02-04 18:58:20 UTC
Here's a patch: https://phabricator.kde.org/D18733
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2019-02-04 19:14:45 UTC
Git commit dbb19ba333043670b616bfa586b054685892f531 by Nate Graham.
Committed on 04/02/2019 at 19:14.
Pushed by ngraham into branch 'Plasma/5.15'.

With software rendering, use outlines instead of shadows on login & lock screen

Summary:
QML shadows aren't supported with software rendering, so the white text often has poor readability.

This patch falls back to outlines when using software rendering to ensure adequate readability.
FIXED-IN: 5.15.0

Test Plan:
No visual change with hardware rendering of some sort.

When forcing software rendering, I get outlines instead of shadows

Reviewers: #plasma, davidedmundson

Reviewed By: #plasma, davidedmundson

Subscribers: plasma-devel

Tags: #plasma

Differential Revision: https://phabricator.kde.org/D18733

M  +19   -13   lookandfeel/contents/components/Clock.qml
M  +16   -12   lookandfeel/contents/components/UserDelegate.qml

https://commits.kde.org/plasma-workspace/dbb19ba333043670b616bfa586b054685892f531
Comment 7 Gianni 2019-02-20 00:37:49 UTC
Created attachment 118207 [details]
screenshot of lock screen featuring outlined text

I confirm that the new patch works and provides now clearly visible outlined text. Nice job!
For the sake of giving a complete feedback, I am noticing that the outline is somewhat "cropped" in certain places (eg. bottom part of "mercoledì 20 febbraio 2019").
Comment 8 Christoph Feck 2019-02-20 23:55:53 UTC
Gianni, I suggest to either re-open or report the cropping issue as a new ticket. Closed tickets are rarely revisited by developers.
Comment 9 Nate Graham 2019-02-21 16:38:09 UTC
Can you open a new bug report? That's very odd and I have a sinking feeling it'll be in Qt...
Comment 10 Gianni 2019-02-21 17:29:59 UTC
As kindly suggested, I opened a new bug for the cropped outlined text, it's avaiable here:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404651