[regression] Combobox menus have gray text on gray background

[Eldar Khayrullin]

[Impact]

Regression: After a recent update, combobox menus have gray text on gray background making them almost unreadable.

[Test Case]

1. Open GIMP and start a new file.
2. At the bottom of the window click on the 'px' combo box.
3. Verify the menu that appears has readable text (light grey text on a dark grey background).

[Regression Potential]

Very low. The fix changes the theme for "gtk-combobox-popup-menu" only. So theoretically it should not be possible for the fix to affect anything other than combobox menus.

[Other Info]

The regression happened in updates to 18.04, 17.10 and 16.04 around late 2017 - January 2018.

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

But text in menus is good

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

The same issue in wayland and Xorg

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

The same issue in dialog combo boxes

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

I see the same issue in another program kicadbom2spec (use wxwidgets).
Maybe it is wxwidgets bug

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

Related issue
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=526621

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

Fix:
It is need to comment (with '#') in file /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc the next line:
widget "*.gtk-combobox-popup-menu.*" style "menuitem_text_is_fg_color_workaround"
Restart buggy application.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Eldar Khayrullin (eldar)]

Fix #2 (use light menu in popup):
It is need to change in file /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc the next line:
style "menu" = "dark" {
to
style "menu" = "white" {

Restart buggy application.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug is a simple regression. So you can also work around it by taking one step back. Just install:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/light-themes_14.04+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1_all.deb

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Added a fix for xenial too.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-themes - 16.10+18.04.20180322.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
ubuntu-themes (16.10+18.04.20180322.3-0ubuntu1) bionic; urgency=medium

  [ Daniel van Vugt ]
  * Remove an old workaround which would force combobox menu text (LP:
    #1725921)

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * list, row: set padding, use white bg and hover effect on activatable
    (LP: #1755351, #1757471)
  * Ambiance: add proper theming for horizontal and vertical linked
    items
  * Ambiance, Radiance: use proper border-width for first/last linked
    buttons in rtl
  * Ambiance, Radiance: use default backdrop colors for views and
    progress bars
  * Ambiance, Radiance: implement ambiance-rw inspired darker
    placessidebar
  * debian/control: change dependency from python3-scour to scour

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <[e-mail]> Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:28:08 +0000

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Please make sure to include the SRU-required info in the description [1]. Also, I see this bug has been nominated for artful - could an artful update be published to UNAPPROVED in that case?

Thank you!

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#SRU_Bug_Template

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

This introduced a regression, and now there are light grey items on grey menus which are barely readable. For example this screenshot of virt-manager.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

jibel,

Please log a new bug for that. Also, do you know of any other apps that show it?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

BTW, I think the bug there is that the menu background is light. They are meant to be dark now.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

I filed bug 1758841, and virt-manager is the only application I found with this problem. So it might be something to fix there.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Eldar, or anyone else affected,

Accepted ubuntu-themes into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-themes/14.04+16.04.20180326-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

I have accepted this package to xenial-proposed but could someone check if virt-manager is also affected with bug LP: #1758841 for that series? I would also like some other GTK apps getting tested to make sure they do not regress in xenial. Thanks!

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Verification succeeded in xenial using 14.04+16.04.20180326-0ubuntu1

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I can't comment about bug 1758841 right now but I assume the same will happen to xenial. Any comments about that bug should be made in bug 1758841.

I certainly can't find any such regressions in other apps.

[rduke15 (rduke15)]

Works for me. Thanks!

After I had enabled xenial-proposed, this did it:

    sudo apt install light-themes/xenial-proposed

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for ubuntu-themes has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-themes - 14.04+16.04.20180326-0ubuntu1

---------------
ubuntu-themes (14.04+16.04.20180326-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Remove an old workaround which would force combobox menu text (LP:
    #1725921)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <[e-mail]> Mon, 26 Mar 2018 09:25:21 +0000