There are actually currently discussions about how to fix this in a general manner. You can read up on it in https://invent.kde.org/teams/vdg/issues/-/issues/26 but try to refrain from commenting there unless you have a deep knowledge of the topic because it is already quite busy there.

I'm already following the issue you mention and have already commented there on a separate item there already.

However, I don't feel that this bug falls under its scope. The main topic on that issue is about KDE applications adopting the theme of other DEs, and how they can integrate better into Gnome and similar DEs. I'm not really trying to make Dolphin look like other applications on my desktop or trying to integrate it with any DE in any way. I don't have a strong preference on which theme it uses, or what type of widgets it draws either.

I'm using Dolphin with the default theme (Breeze) with the dark colour preference. Both of these are part of KDE; there's nothing about a different DE involved in this scenario (though I'll clarify I'm also not using KDE; I have a single no-DE setup). The issue at hand is black text on black background, which is simply totally unreadable, and not really a matter of "appearance" (please do check out the screenshot if you haven't).

I expect the outcome of the issue you link to be some mechanism whereby a DE can tell KDE applications to render using a different theme or something alike. I've no interest in this mechanism; the ideal fix for _this_ issue would be that applications render readable out-of-the-box without any such additional customization mechanism.

It's also worth mentioning, Neochat and Tokodon render text white (or is it light gray?) text on black background on this same host and are perfectly readable; this issue is specifically about Dolphin.

Oh, I'm enabling the BreezeDark variant by simply:

    ln -s /usr/share/color-schemes/BreezeDark.colors ~/.config/kdeglobals

Still an issue in dolphin-24.02.0. Dolphin renders black text on black background with the dark Breeze theme.

Sorry for not noticing this sooner, but from the screenshot you added it seems like you aren't actually using the Breeze theme! You can identify this by looking at the slider at the bottom in the status bar. Breeze uses a round slider handle (Here are some images showing this: https://phabricator.kde.org/T13451). The slider handle in your screenshot is a rounded square. You might be using the Fusion theme/style which is a fallback theme which can apply itself if Breeze isn't available for some reason. (Images of Fusion theme: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=qt+fusion+style&atb=v25&iax=images&ia=images)

>I'm using Dolphin with the default theme (Breeze)
>with the dark colour preference. Both of these are part of KDE;
>there's nothing about a different DE involved in this scenario
>(though I'll clarify I'm also not using KDE; I have a single no-DE setup).

>Oh, I'm enabling the BreezeDark variant by simply:
>    ln -s /usr/share/color-schemes/BreezeDark.colors ~/.config/kdeglobals

To me it seems like you might be applying the BreezeDark colours to a Fusion-like theme. At this point in time I cannot tell if this is a bug in Fusion, BreezeDark colours, the way you are applying it, or Dolphin. Sorry that I can't be of more help. The whole theming engine stuff isn't really something I had to dive in yet.

Thanks for your reply. I was unaware on the distinction between theme and color scheme.

I have breeze installed locally on my system, and have configured nothing Qt/KDE related. It was my understanding that Breeze was the default theme, so I assumed this was the currently applied theme.

I don't see any output on stdout from dolphin. I'm not sure that it is failing to apply the default theme and using a fallback.

I can't find any references to Fusion anywhere on my system, so I'm also unsure whether it is installed. I checked some of the paths were breeze includes files,and it's the only one present. E.g.:

```
$ ls /usr/share/color-schemes/
BreezeClassic.colors  BreezeDark.colors     BreezeLight.colors
$ ls /usr/lib/qt5/plugins/styles/
breeze.so
$ ls /usr/share/QtCurve/
Breeze.qtcurve
```

Assuming that the error is in how I am applying the color-scheme, what is the correct approach to tell dolphin to use a dark variant of the current theme? I don't really care much which theme is used, I just don't want a white screen when I switch to it in the middle of the night.

The fusion theme as a fallback is not installed as a standalone thing to make sure it is always available. That's probably why it is difficult or even impossible to find.

>Assuming that the error is in how I am applying the color-scheme,
>what is the correct approach to tell dolphin to use a dark variant
>of the current theme? I don't really care much which theme is used,
>I just don't want a white screen when I switch to it in the middle of the night.

I don't really know to be honest. There are various tips for this online when I search but I wouldn't know which of them is right. This is simply not something I had to deal with in the past. I only ever change themes through the KDE system settings application.

I want to be clear though that there is both a Breeze Light and Breeze Dark global theme as well as a Breeze Light and Breeze Dark colour theme. Normally, changing the global theme also changes the colour scheme, but since you are doing this from the terminal you might need to set both the global theme as well as the colour scheme for the colours to look right. I hope that helps.

Now that I think about it: You might get way better help by asking this on the KDE forum! This might also help pin down if there is a bug here or not: https://discuss.kde.org/c/help/6

From where does Dolphin read the current theme?

Dolphin doesn't read any theme itself. I haven't looked at how any of this works exactly, which is why I pointed you to the forums. AFAIK Qt itself uses the system platform and system styles. So this would be handled in Qt code and the Plasma platform code AFAIK.