Phrase-Editor has no typing cursor when using Gnome3 dark themes

[Lonnie Lee Best]

Autokey-gtk's phrase editor does not show a typing-cursor when you're running Ubuntu 19.10 with a dark theme. The script editor shows a typing cursor as expected, but you do not see a typing cursor when editing a "phrase".

Steps to reproduce:
1) Launch GNOME-TWEAKs:
sudo apt install gnome-tweaks ; gnome-tweaks &

2) Click "Appearance".

3) Under Themes > Applications, change it to "Adwaita-dark" or any other dark theme.

4) Launch Autokey-gtk
sudo apt install autokey-gtk ; autokey-gtk

5) In the left pane of Autokey-gtk, select any phrase (or create a new phrase) and then left-click your mouse at any point within the text.

Expected Result: You should see a typing cursor that allows you to use your arrow keys to navigate to any location within the text shown in the editor.

Actual Result: The typing cursor is completely invisible.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: autokey-gtk 0.90.4-1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-19.20-generic 5.3.1
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Oct 26 15:28:37 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-10-19 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: autokey
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

The reason I've submitted this as an Autokey-GTK bug, is because this behavior doesn't happen in any other application I use upon using dark themes, except autokey-gtk.

Any suggestions for a work-around that would still allow me to use a dark theme? I see no configuration to address this.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Today, I can see the cursor again (for the first time since installing Ubuntu 19.10 and using a dark theme). I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but (right at this moment), it is working.

I don't expect this to last. If I stop seeing the cursor again, I'll try to think deeply about what changed. One thing that comes to mind, is that today I have a freshly rebooted computer, while often times I "suspend" my computer instead of just turning it off. Maybe the issue occurs after powering up from a suspended state; I've seen other graphical artifacts in the past from doing this.

I'll report back soon with a comment to let you know if this lasts.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

This is still an issue.

There seems to be no issue with the script-editor in autokey; script editors shows a typing cursor as expected while using a dark theme.

However, the issue is with the phrase editor; it does NOT show a typing cursor while using a GNOME 3 dark theme.

Yesterday, I was mistaken. I edited a script and saw a typing cursor, but I didn't edit any phrases yesterday.

Today, as I edit phrases, I confirm that the issue remains. I will edit the issue to reflect this discovery.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I'm looking for a work-around here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185289/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Ultimately, this remains a bug, because Autokey-GTK's phrase-editor does not inherit a dark background from dark themes, yet it does inherit cursor-color from dark themes.

Compare this to Autokey's script editor, it inherits both background-color and caret-color from dark themes.

Autokey-GTK's phrase-editor keeps a white background no matter what the theme says to do. Yet it complies with the caret-color specified by the themes.

Since the dark theme calls for a white cursor, white on white makes the caret-cursor invisible.

I was given a work-around here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185289/

The work-around was to change the dark theme's caret color to a color that would show up on both light and dark backgrounds.

Since I'm using the Yaru-dark theme now, I changed the cursor color to red by appending the following text to the file /usr/share/themes/Yaru-dark/gtk-3.20/.gtk-dark.css :

*
{
        padding: 0;
        -GtkToolButton-icon-spacing: 4;
        -GtkTextView-error-underline-color: #cc0000;
        -GtkScrolledWindow-scrollbar-spacing: 0;
        -GtkToolItemGroup-expander-size: 11;
        -GtkWidget-text-handle-width: 20;
        -GtkWidget-text-handle-height: 24;
        -GtkDialog-button-spacing: 4;
        -GtkDialog-action-area-border: 0;
        outline-color: alpha(currentColor,0.3);
        outline-style: dashed; outline-offset: -3px;
        outline-width: 1px;
        -gtk-outline-radius: 3px;
        -gtk-secondary-caret-color: #456789;
        caret-color: red;
}

The key line above is
caret-color: red;

A similar work-around could be applied to the "Adwaita-dark" theme.

This work-around is not ideal, because all applications have to have this red caret-color, just so I can get Autokey-gtk to work with a dark theme.

Perhaps someone can modify the autokey-gtk code so that its phrase-editor acts like its script-editor with respect to inheriting both background-color AND caret-color from the GNOME 3 themes.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

A more concise work-around has been updated here:
https://askubuntu.com/a/1185312/256054