GTK themes show incorrect color when shade is used

[Brandon Williams]

The Shiki-Brave GTK theme in the latest Karmic displays pink as the selected_fg_color in some cases where it should display blue (e.g. backgrounds of items in the XFCE IconBox, backgrounds of buttons in the Gnome taskbar, and backgrounds of the selected item in the menu).

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu karmic (development branch)
Release: 9.10

$ apt-cache policy shiki-brave-theme
shiki-brave-theme:
  Installed: 4.6-1
  Candidate: 4.6-1
  Version table:
 *** 4.6-1 0
        500 http://ports.ubuntu.com karmic/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[perfectska04 (perfectska04-deactivatedaccount)]

Can you attach screenshots of said behavior? I can't imagine a reason for actual pink to be used, unless the "Illustrious" package is also installed and selected as default theme.

[Brandon Williams (opensource-subakutty)]

I should have indicated that the problem color is selected_bg_color, not selected_fg_color.

[Brandon Williams (opensource-subakutty)]

The problem appears to be the result of using "shade" to darken selected_bg_color. If I change the value of bg[SELECTED] in the "murrine-menu-item" style block, removing the shade setting, the highlighting shows up in blue again.

style "murrine-menu-item" = "murrine-wider"
{
        bg[SELECTED] = @selected_bg_color
        <other settings removed since they are unchanged>
}

[perfectska04 (perfectska04-deactivatedaccount)]

I'd say that if removing "shade" fixes the color, there is a bug in another package that is causing this particular issue. I personally tried reproducing this in the latest daily Karmic build, to no avail. However, shade options are not only used heavily in shiki, they're also present in most GTK's so if it's broken for the one theme - it might be broken for others.

I'll test with a daily Xubuntu image as well, to see if I can reproduce it. In the meantime, you can perhaps try to completely remove the package (as well as any conflicting or equally named theme there may be, as sometimes a folder with the same name in .themes or with the same name in their index.theme can cause unexpected theming) and reinstalling to see if the problem disappears.

[Brandon Williams (opensource-subakutty)]

The problem was seen with the daily alternate install image from 10/17/2009.

After seeing that the problem appears to be related to the use of shade, I then looked for themes installed on my system that use this functionality. I found Industrial, Mist, Albatross, Crux, and Clearlooks. It's hard for me to know for sure, because I haven't used any of those themes on a different system, but they all appear to have the same problem. With Albatross, the menu selection shows up in pink. With Clearlooks, Crux, and Mist, the selected item in a combobox shows up in pink when the window is not selected. With Industrial, the same is true, but not for all comboxes ... only for those, like update manager, where some items have colored backgrounds.

Shiki-Brave is the one theme that uses this functionality very extensively, so there are a lot of elements impacted. However, the fact that a handful of other themes are also displaying incorrectly indicates that it is not a problem with the Shiki-Brave theme itself. I'm just not sure which package to assign the bug to instead.

Any suggestion?

[perfectska04 (perfectska04-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for confirming that the issue does not originate from Shiki-Brave.

I'm not sure which package deals exclusively with the rendering itself, I'd say the murrine engine - but you have tried different themes that use various unique engines so that's not the case.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I can't think of which package is responsible. Perhaps trying out the latest live cd can help? It's also possible that the behavior started happening after a specific upgrade, or that it is something driver related/specific to your PC. In which case, comparing with the latest daily can be informative.

[Brandon Williams (opensource-subakutty)]

Unfortunately, I am using the lpia build, for which there is no live CD available. I might try out the live CD as a way to test whether this problem is present in an i386 build, but if it is not present in that case, I still won't have a clear indication of whether the problem is related to the lpia build or a specific package in the daily build that I installed from.

[perfectska04 (perfectska04-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks, that would be helpful. As far as I know, the GTK theme packages are for all architectures, so their package and contents is the same all across and suitable for comparison. However, if the issue does appear only in lpia and not in i386, maybe the issue can be linked to the lpia builds of the gtk engines or other.

[Brandon Williams (opensource-subakutty)]

I upgraded to from jaunty to karmic on a different laptop. The problem is not present there.

Two distinct differences between the two machines are:
    1) the second machine runs the i386 architecture, not lpia
    2) the second machine has nvidia graphics, not intel

I still need to test i386 on my lpia laptop.

[perfectska04 (perfectska04-deactivatedaccount)]

I'm not sure if it can serve as confirmation, as the overall hardware configuration may differ - but I have:
1. An intel+i386 netbook (Karmic).
2. An nvidia+i386 laptop (Karmic).
3. An nvidia+amd64 desktop (Karmic).

The issue is not present in any of these setups. Granted, I haven't tested lpia in either.

Is there any daily live lpia build? I could try it in both my mobiles and at least discard whether or not intel drivers are the ones causing this.

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

This is specific to the LPIA versions. I am using clearlooks as my theme of choice, and:

- generic architecture with intel graphics (desktop) = no problem
- LPIA architecture with intel graphics (netbook) = OMG PINK PONIES!!!