Ambiance Combo box - dark highlighted text and scroll arrows

[Dario Ruellan]

To reproduce:
Open files
Right-click on any file or folder and select properties
On permissions, open any combobox

The highlighted item has black text over orange background, but I'm pretty sure should be white over orange.
Also, scroll arrows (when the box reaches the top or bottom of the screen) are black over dark gray, barely visibles.

I'm pretty sure this is not by design, and also could be an usability issue due to the lack of contrast.

Screenshot attached.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.1.2+14.04.20140321-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-19.40-generic 3.13.6
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-19-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.339
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Apr 2 20:33:10 2014
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Beta i386 (20140326)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jared Sot (ravefinity)]

I can confirm this see screenshot! we need to fix before release, I am looking for a fix as well...

This is a real issue with theme, I am not sure if they had to do this becuase it breaks something else otherwise but please show it Andrew Cimi & and Makers of the GTK Theme.

Any Dropdown box in GTK 3 , File Type, Options , Has Black text in the drop down menu.... See Picture.

[Dario Ruellan (druellan)]

Thanks Jared for the confirmation.
I've added the Ubuntu Theme team to the report, but could not find Andrew Cimi to subscribe him.
I'm going to bring attention of the QA team over this, to see if someone can fix it before the release.

[Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)]

Black combobox scrollers are already reported at LP: #1247105.

[Dario Ruellan (druellan)]

Thanks Adolfo. I can see on the screenshots, that text highlight works as expected on 13.10.
Confirmed that black-text highlight is something introduced on 14.4 and not related to other visual bugs as #1247105.

[Jared Sot (ravefinity)]

Guys I am tottally bummed out, I found that this Black Text may be intentinol to fix a bug that will have the opessite effect.

I read in the source code of the theme at Line 1037, It mentioned this is intentinol I Belive.

See:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/light-themes/+bug/949368

This is what I sort of figured GTK Themes are so dang fickle in this respect, GTK 3 has the same issues as GTK2 Theme are messy matter.

[Dario Ruellan (druellan)]

Well, that report is for 12.04, mainly GTK2. I think the problem is that the fix is not compatible with GTK3 (the attribute cascades into the new combos, or an explicit declaration is needed). If Settings are up to date with GTK3, perhaps the fix is no longer needed.

[Dennis Simon (dasimon1214)]

I have confirmed this in the default Ambiance theme, and have included a fix for anybody interested which has been tested thoroughly on my system:

Before doing anything, if you are currently using Ambiance and it is your active theme, please switch to another theme such as default Radiance. Right-click on your desktop & choose "Change Desktop Background" from the menu, then under "Theme" option use the combobox menu to select Radiance; close the window & now we can proceed.

Open a terminal and type: sudo gedit /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk-widgets.css; then input your password at the prompt and the default text editor should open with the defined widget styles for Ambiance ready to be edited. We are going to make a few changes to this file:

(1) You will notice when scrolling through this file it is fairly well organized with widget names for each type of Gtk3 object that is styled. You will want to find the "menu" style heading; in my customized css file it is around line 895. Scroll down just before the"context-menu" style declaration (line 976) and add these lines to fix the arrow button color while scrolling in large menus:

.toolbar .menu.button:hover,
.toolbar .menu.button:active,
.toolbar .menu.button:active:insensitive,
.toolbar .menu.button:insensitive,
.toolbar .menu.button,
GtkComboBox .menu.button:hover,
GtkComboBox .menu.button:active,
GtkComboBox .menu.button:active:insensitive,
GtkComboBox .menu.button:insensitive,
GtkComboBox .menu.button {
    color: @fg_color;
    background-color: shade (@bg_color, 1.08);
    background-image: none;
    border-style: none;
    border-width: 1px;
}

(2) Now go down to the "menuitem" style declarations at line 1018; scroll down a little further and you will see a style fix for lp:949368 identified as a workaround for earlier versions of Gnome. This fix is no longer needed with the default gnome 3.10 libraries included in Ubuntu 14.04; and in fact it is the cause of the problem. Simply comment out that workaround or delete it, it is your choice.

Now save your changes, exit the application, and change your theme back to Ambiance to see the results. I suggest you open Calculator click on the "Degrees" combobox and go down to "currency" and a long menu will open with the proper scroll-arrow buttons to confirm.

[Dario Ruellan (druellan)]

Thanks Dennis. I'll test your solution, but I think it worth the attention of the theme team for approval and merge.