Web browsing with dark KDE themes

fdac · 2009-04-13 13:59:35

I've started using a nice dark KDE4 theme, with dark grey / black buttons and toolbars.

However, when browsing the web, many sites look bad. Dark text boxes / combo boxes, radio buttons etc. are displayed within the (mostly white) web site.

This happens in Opera, Firefox and Konqueror. I primarily use Opera with qt Native skin. The Opera appearance settings don't seem to change things. If I change the skin to Opera Standard, the black backgrounds go away but the light coloured text stays.

The ideal solution for me is this: Maintain the dark theme including menus, toolbars, etc. BUT have all web content display in 'normal' colours (white background, dark text)

Can I achieve this?

Thanks
Francis

jwcxz · 2009-04-13 14:03:49

It has taken me several months, numerous style hacks, and some code modifications in order to get some programs to play nicely with dark themes.

For example, on Opera, I'm using the development snapshot (though I think that 9 would work the same) with the native QT toolkit and a hacked version of the shadowguard theme (to fix some color problems). I also have a custom user stylesheet that fixes a lot of color problems in form widgets.

It's surprising and saddening that support for dark themes is virtually nil on both Firefox and Opera, as well as a ton of other applications (e.g. Mathematica, KVirc, etc.)

hatten · 2009-04-13 16:29:54

I have just gave the native colors of all sites the finger, black background and blue text all the way! (firefox)

fdac · 2009-04-13 22:51:26

jwcxz, sounds like what I thought, it doesn't actually work that well.

Is much involved in setting up the custom stylesheets and themes for Opera?

Cheers
Francis

fdac · 2009-04-14 13:10:02

I found this, looking around on the web:

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/to … ent2905121

This works to make all web text black and backgrounds white, provided 'Opera Standard' skin is selected in the Appearance preferences. Unfortunately it makes Opera's menus and address bar look ugly.

I still wonder - why is it not simple to have dark, KDE-themed menus and 'look' to the application itself whilst forcing a light, black-on-white appearance for web page content?

Last edited by fdac (2009-04-14 13:11:54)

lucke · 2009-04-14 13:24:42

I'm using dark color theme in KDE4 and Opera 10 snapshot with Qt Native/System Color Scheme and background color set to #ffffff in about:config - nothing annoys me in this setup.

Last edited by lucke (2009-04-14 13:34:48)

Rasi · 2009-04-14 14:04:35

lucke wrote:

I'm using dark color theme in KDE4 and Opera 10 snapshot with Qt Native/System Color Scheme and background color set to #ffffff in about:config - nothing annoys me in this setup.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/5772/khkh6.th.png

mind clicking the dropdown menu of the adressbar and screenshot that?

JK3mp · 2009-04-14 14:40:33

Yeah cause somehow setting the input boxes color for your theme effects the default for the color of input boxes in web pages too that don't assign a bg color to an input box. I know if you go to like myspace.com and a few of the bigger sites alot of them don't do that with like there login inputs etc.

lucke · 2009-04-14 14:47:59

Rasi wrote:

mind clicking the dropdown menu of the adressbar and screenshot that?

Hm, if I just open the dropdown menu by clicking, every second entry is gray on white (== unreadable), but things are mostly readable if I input something in the addressbar and dropdown menu shows possible completions.

Rasi · 2009-04-14 15:26:52

lucke wrote:

Rasi wrote:
mind clicking the dropdown menu of the adressbar and screenshot that?
Hm, if I just open the dropdown menu by clicking, every second entry is gray on white (== unreadable), but things are mostly readable if I input something in the addressbar and dropdown menu shows possible completions.

exactly... this is only with some qt-only apps tho, kde apps work fine (e.g. konqueror)

aviynw · 2009-04-16 04:49:48

Well, I posted a related howto on the pclinuxos forums back when I was using that. It explains how to get a dark theme consistent with web pages. It's a matter of overriding the color properties of certain elements to math your theme. For your problem you can instead just override the color properties to not match your theme. It isn't a perfect solution because you override the author's color choices. But, since you will only override settings for input fields button etc. it won't be a problem for %99.9 of sites because those colors are usually left to their defaults anyways.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?opti … ic=45217.0

hope that helps.

fdac · 2009-04-16 12:33:50

Thanks for the input, everybody.

Using lucke's method (although I have Opera 9.64 vanilla, not 10 snapshot) the Opera menus, tabs etc are nicely themed. However some input boxes (e.g. this one on bbs.archlinux.org, Google, Gmail) are black with light text . This is not suitable for many web sites. I think this is similar to lucke's screen shot...

Changing things in opera:config does not appear to do anything, even when closing and reopening Opera.

Using the

opera -bg "#ffffff" -fg "#000000" -noargb

brute force method makes the web page look right, but makes the Opera menus ugly, all white and not themed properly (when using QT native and system color scheme).

Lastly, if I use the 'brute force method' but change the Appearance settings to Opera Standard, the white menus and tabs go away but I get ugly, non-themed grey/white menus and toolbars.

Is the problem that the opera:config colour settings simply don't work? Or are they overridden by KDE?

Still not solved - but getting closer.

Last edited by fdac (2009-04-16 12:41:32)

fdac · 2009-04-18 09:35:38

I've been playing with this a while now and no further progress. Any ideas on the above screenshots ?

Thanks
Francis

jwcxz · 2009-04-18 12:40:09

Here's what I've done with Opera.

I created ~/.opera/styles/user.css with this content:

input, textarea, select {
        color: #000;
        background-color: #fff;
}

That gets rid of the problem of black with light text.

I installed the shdowguard theme. By default, the theme is pretty good. However, I think that I've made some small adjustments to improve problems with rendering black text on a dark background, but I haven't quite finished. If I ever finish, I'll post a patch.

I think I might have edited some of the colors in about:config, but they didn't really do anthing.

It's really unfortunate how inflexible some programs are to color schemes. Web browsers seems to be the worst.

Hopefully those tips help.

OK100 · 2010-05-08 13:22:27

opera --systemstyle

Last edited by OK100 (2010-05-08 15:23:37)

jazzcat · 2012-10-12 11:27:05

Thank you for the user.css script. I have used the stylish plugin to apply this to firefox as detailed here and it has solved my input text field issue.

Last edited by jazzcat (2012-10-12 11:27:50)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-13 13:59:35

Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#2 2009-04-13 14:03:49

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#3 2009-04-13 16:29:54

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#4 2009-04-13 22:51:26

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#5 2009-04-14 13:10:02

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#6 2009-04-14 13:24:42

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#7 2009-04-14 14:04:35

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#8 2009-04-14 14:40:33

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#9 2009-04-14 14:47:59

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#10 2009-04-14 15:26:52

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#11 2009-04-16 04:49:48

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#12 2009-04-16 12:33:50

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#13 2009-04-18 09:35:38

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#14 2009-04-18 12:40:09

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#15 2010-05-08 13:22:27

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

#16 2012-10-12 11:27:05

Re: Web browsing with dark KDE themes

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