Bug 444748

Summary: Breeze SDDM theme has a very strong shadow in the clock and date texts and they look weird with lighter backgrounds
Product: [Plasma] Breeze Reporter: Photon <ncqm3qdz>
Component: generalAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL    
Severity: normal CC: nate
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: The current text shadow doesn't play well with lighter backgrounds
Lockscreen text shadow comparison
Breeze and Breeze Fedora
Lockscreen in Neon 5.23
Lock and logout

Description Photon 2021-11-01 04:23:45 UTC
Created attachment 143073 [details]
The current text shadow doesn't play well with lighter backgrounds

SUMMARY
This is a report of the bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436247, as requested by Nate Graham (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436247#c27)

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Use an image with light tones for the the screen lock background or SDDM background
2. Lock the screen or log out

OBSERVED RESULT
The text shadow is too strong.

EXPECTED RESULT
Text shadow with a bit of opacity.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: KDE neon 5.23
KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.87.0
Qt Version: 5.15.3
Kernel Version: 5.11.0-38-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
Memory: 3,8 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: llvmpipe

This also happens in Fedora 34, which uses KDE 5.22.4. One thing to note is that Fedora uses a fork of Breeze SDDM theme called Breeze Fedora.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 Photon 2021-11-01 04:24:51 UTC
Created attachment 143074 [details]
Lockscreen text shadow comparison
Comment 2 Photon 2021-11-01 04:25:18 UTC
Created attachment 143075 [details]
Breeze and Breeze Fedora
Comment 3 Photon 2021-11-01 04:25:54 UTC
Also, if I'm not mistaken, Kubuntu has two SDDM themes too. I think one if a fork of the another.
Comment 4 Photon 2021-11-01 04:27:02 UTC
Created attachment 143076 [details]
Lockscreen in Neon 5.23
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2021-11-01 17:20:02 UTC
This is the intended appearance. Unfortunately there is no way to make the shadow look good for every possible background:

1. If the shadow is hard like this, we get complaints from people with light colored  backgrounds with large areas of a single color
2. If the shadow is softened, we get complaints from people with light-colored backgrounds that are very visually busy

In the end we need to decide who wins, and #2 wins because it's a legibility problem, while #1 is only an aesthetic problem. Better to be always legible but sometimes ugly than sometimes pretty but sometimes hard to read.
Comment 6 Photon 2021-11-02 18:05:23 UTC
So the change was reverted? I remember that for a while the lock screen text appeared with a soft shadow.
Comment 7 Photon 2021-11-02 18:06:19 UTC
And a commit was made [https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/commit/9004b1911ed0e106d95d47e28fe90063071f619c]. But somehow the old shadow is appearing again.
Comment 8 Photon 2021-12-20 05:59:42 UTC
Created attachment 144697 [details]
Lock and logout

I discovered what's going on: the old shadow design appears when you are logged in and lock the session. The new shadow design appears if you logout and leave SDDM idle until the screen turns off (you must activate the screen later of course).