487013 - Does not use correct font styles as defined in GTK theme in menu bar and some dialogs

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Theme, defect)

Description

[drsjlazar]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090405 Minefield/3.6a1pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090405 Minefield/3.6a1pre

Firefox does not use the correct GTK theme font style for the menu bar and dialogs such as 'Add Bookmarks' and 'List all tabs'.

1. Menu Bar: Instead of using the fg[NORMAL] style of the class "*MenuBar*", it uses the  fg[NORMAL] style of the class "GtkMenuItem"
2. Dialogs: Instead of using the fg[NORMAL] style of the widget_class "*MenuItem.*", it uses the theme default fg[NORMAL] style or the fg[NORMAL] style of some other class (which I haven't figured out).

This use of wrong styles is not noticeable when using an all light font on dark background or dark font on light background theme. However they make themes that use a combination of light and dark interfaces unusable with Firefox as the correct font styles are not used on their respective backgrounds.

Other GTK applications do not exhibit this problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install a GTK theme that exposes these problems. e.g. Murrine-Dark-Mint ( http://www.linuxmint-art.org/content/show.php?content=102250 ) or Elfin2-mintfb ( http://www.linuxmint-art.org/content/show.php/Elfin2-mintfb?content=102248 )
2. Start Firefox and any other GTK application
3. Observe the different fonts in the menu bar and the Add Bookmark dialog and the List all tabs dialog.
Actual Results:  
1. The font in the menu bar in Firefox is gray (same as the fonts in the menu) while in a compliant GTK application, it is black.

2. The font in the Add Bookmark dialog and List all tabs dialog is black (same as the fonts in the default foreground font) instead of gray, making them illegible.

Expected Results:  
1. Firefox menu bar fonts should be black as in other GTK applications.

2. The fonts in the dialogs should be gray as in a non highlighted menu item.

This bug is present in the current stable version of Firefox as well.

Comment 1

[drsjlazar]

Attachment: Screenshot displaying the problem

This is a screenshot with Firefox and other GTK applications showing the gray fonts in the Firefox menu bar when they should be black and the illegible fonts in the Add Bookmarks dialog.

Comment 2

[Kenyon Ralph]

This bug may be the same as Bug 519763 or Bug 532164.

Comment 3

[drsjlazar]

They seem very similar at the least... One thing that is sure is that Firefox does not use the right color styles in some places as defined by the GTK theme. Addressing this basic error should take care of this for _all_ GTK themes.

I would do this myself if I were a programmer. But at the time I did read up on GTK theming quite a bit and found where at least one of errors were... with the hope that someone else would take it from there. After doing all I could, the Ubuntu devs pointed at upstream (here) and the Mozilla devs told me (on IRC) to use custom css... which is no solution if you ever change GTK themes.

Eventually, I gave up on ever seeing a fix. Glad that this is bugging someone else as well.