Bug 446204

Summary: Widgets without background have fully black text with dark color schemes making them unreadable
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Mircea Kitsune <sonichedgehog_hyperblast00>
Component: generalAssignee: David Edmundson <kde>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: normal CC: nate, plasma-bugs-null, sonichedgehog_hyperblast00
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 5.23.3   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Screenshot

Description Mircea Kitsune 2021-11-28 17:03:16 UTC
Created attachment 144037 [details]
Screenshot

SUMMARY
When using a dark color scheme and widgets without a background, both the text color and text shadow are black. This makes it next to impossible to read the font on such widgets, especially if you're using a dark wallpaper as well.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Set a dark color scheme in the system settings, Breeze Dark for instance. I'm using my own in this case, if for any reason this doesn't reproduce let me know and I'll upload mine for comparison.
2. Make sure you have widgets on the desktop that contain text but have the background turned off.
3. Possibly set a dark wallpaper which makes the text even harder to read.

OBSERVED RESULT
Widget text is fully black thus difficult to read when the background is dark too.

EXPECTED RESULT
The text should be readable. I'm thinking that for a dark font the text shadow should reverse and become white or the complementary color, it might not look beautiful but should solve the readability issue.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.88.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.15.2-2-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor
Memory: 31.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon R9 390 Series

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Same result can be seen with the digital clock in the lock screen, text is black and you can barely tell the hour. In this case a desktop screenshot speaks louder than words: In the attached image you can see how my system monitor and weather widgets can barely be read.
Comment 1 Mircea Kitsune 2021-11-28 22:39:07 UTC
I wonder if this may be a Breeze specific issue to some extent: Noticed that with other themes like Materia the widget text also turns white when using a dark theme, this solves the readability problem albeit I prefer using Breeze. Maybe Breeze shouldn't flip text color when you disable the background of a widget, and instead always use the color specified in the window section of the color scheme? Black text requiring a white shadow remains an issue in either case.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2023-04-27 20:43:20 UTC
In Plasma 5.27, I'm unable to reproduce this issue when using the Breeze Dark Color scheme, Plasma theme, or both. Can you confirm whether it's still happening in Plasma 5.27? Thanks!
Comment 3 Mircea Kitsune 2023-04-27 20:51:34 UTC
This no longer seems to be occurring when using new color schemes based on the Breeze Light / Dark theme, I'd say whatever it was should be fixed and will mark this as resolved.
Comment 4 Nate Graham 2023-04-27 20:56:07 UTC
Great, thanks for confirming!