Open Bug 683139 Opened 13 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Using the 'High Contrast Black' 'Accessibility Option' in Win XP results in the screen colours being printed.

Categories

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Layout
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: mike, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: access) 

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/6.0
Build ID: 20110811165603

Steps to reproduce:

In the Windows XP (SP3) Control Panel select Accessibility Options, then select Display tab, then click  Settings button, then select 'High Contrast Black' from the drop-down box, click OK button, then select 'Use High Contrast'.


Actual results:

Upon printing an email from Thunderbird the screen colours are printed, i.e. a black background but with black text (therfore unreadable) with hyperlinks printed in blue.
This is with 'Print Background (colours & images)' de-selected in 'Page Setup'.

Selecting 'Print Background (colours & images)' cause the text to print as white but still a black background.


Expected results:

The Acceesibility Options should be ignored and email should print as black text an a white background, as it does in MS Outlook.
This is still the same in v7 and completely prevents the ability to print when using High Contrast.

Another reason (besides LDAP) that I'll never be able to convince my corporate bosses to swithch from Outlook.
Component: Disability Access → Printing: Output
Product: Thunderbird → Core
QA Contact: disability-access → printing
Version: 6 → Trunk
Mike, do you see a similar issue in Firefox while printing?  Or is this Thunderbird-specific?
Boris, Firefox behaves a little better (or at least almost as I would expect) in that the content (for example this bug page) prints black text on a whitebackground. However, the surrounding area (ie outside the frames) is unfortunately printed in solid black. There maybe a Firefox setting or two that can change this?

Internet Explorer prints only the content in the manner I would expect with no black surrounding area.

I can provide a link to view screenshots if it's helpful.
OK.  I wonder why the Thunderbird behavior is different....
I(In reply to Boris Zbarsky (:bz) from comment #5)
> OK.  I wonder why the Thunderbird behavior is different....

It's linked in part to what is actually being displayed at the time, whether or not it accepts input. As I type this reply, if I switch to High Contrast this textbox will be completely black, all text obscured. All other 'input' boxes (text, combo etc) are also affected. The page and it's boxes display correctly in IE.

Going back to Thunderbird, the area surrounding an email, ie those bits that are not editable print correctly but the text area of the email prints solid black.
Aha!  This is limited to text input areas?

That sounds vaguely like bug 437366, but that shouldn't be an issue here.

I wonder what the values of the field and fieldtext system colors come out to in this theme...
(In reply to Boris Zbarsky (:bz) from comment #7)
> Aha!  This is limited to text input areas?
> 
> That sounds vaguely like bug 437366, but that shouldn't be an issue here.

Choosing high contrast theme does implicitly flip the use-document-colors pref, due to:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/a896a9e237a0/layout/base/nsPresContext.cpp#l631
Yes; my point was that bug 437366 is: (1) fixed and (2) dealing with an interaction between document styles and the native theming that should hopefully not be an issue when printing mail messages....

Mike, do you see the problem in this testcase:

  data:text/html,<input>

if you just type that string into the url bar and hit enter?
(In reply to Boris Zbarsky (:bz) from comment #9)
>
> Mike, do you see the problem in this testcase:
> 
>   data:text/html,<input>

Yes, the problem exists within Firefox and Thunderbird using the above testcase.
OK.  What about this testcase:

  data:text/html,<span style="color: -moz-FieldText; background: -moz-Field">text</span>

What color and background do you see in the high contrast theme?
(In reply to Boris Zbarsky (:bz) from comment #11)
> OK.  What about this testcase:
> 
>   data:text/html,<span style="color: -moz-FieldText; background:
> -moz-Field">text</span>
> 
> What color and background do you see in the high contrast theme?

The result is the same for both Thunderbird & Firefox, i.e. if I first use the testcase and then swithch to 'Use High Contrast' it results in black text on a white background. If I swithch to 'Use High Contrast' first and then use the testcase I get the opposite, white text on a black background.
OK, hold on.  There may be an effect here where changing the OS theme preference while a page is loading does not take effect correctly.

If you switch to the high contrast theme while Firefox is not running, then start Firefox, do you see the text on textfields on this page as white on black?  If you then print this page, what prints?
Starting with 'Use High Contrast' selected and the opening up Thunderbird and/or Firefox displays everything as I would hope. That is, black backgrounds and white texts.

Printing however is the problem;

From thunderbird the header area is correctly printed (black text on white) the email content area on the other hand is printed solid black, except any hyper links which are blue.

From Firefox, most content is printed correctly except for the input boxes which are solid black, no visible text. Additionally, any unused area of the page is printed solid black.

Switching to or from 'Use High Contrast' whilst either app is loaded leaves the input boxes/areas in their previous state.
Oh, hmm.  Does checking the "Print background colors" checkbox in your print settings change what happens here?
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
(In reply to Boris Zbarsky (:bz) from comment #15)
> Oh, hmm.  Does checking the "Print background colors" checkbox in your print
> settings change what happens here?

Yes it does but not as one would like. As mentioned in my original report, it still prints a black page but you get to see the text.
Ah, so you did.

Ok, then the behavior makes total sense...

The issue is that we use system colors even when printing, basically.  Maybe we shouldn't....
As a person with low vision, I have used Firefox and Thunderbird with the 'High Contrast Black' as my default Windows setting for many years now. I haven't printed anything from Thunderbird in many years but I can confirm this issue from both Windows XP (SP3) and Windows 7.

Printing from Firefox using the 'High Contrast Black' setting has been an issue since v4 on xp, vista, and 7. Because of this I have always bad to return to Firefox v3.

I last tested this with a new laptop runnind windows 7 and clean new install of Firefox v7. Going to my personal webpage at http://www.dixonvision.com will print the black background when in 'High Contrast Black' but will print normal it set in normal windows color settings. 



'High Contrast



r Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/6.0
Build ID: 20110811165603

Steps to reproduc

In the Windows XP (SP3) Control Panel select Accessibility Options, then select Display tab, then click  Settings button, then select 'High Contrast Black' from the drop-down box, click OK button, then select 'Use High Contrast'.


Actual results:

Upon printing an email from Thunderbird the screen colours are printed, i.e. a black background but with black text (therfore unreadable) with hyperlinks printed in blue.
This is with 'Print Background (colours & images)' de-selected in 'Page Setup'.

Selecting 'Print Background (colours & images)' cause the text to print as white but still a black background.


Expected results:

The Acceesibility Options should be ignored and email should print as black text an a white background, as it does in MS Outlook.

Comment 1
Should we just have a separate set of prefs for the default colors when printing, set them to the same defaults we use for screen (white/black/blue/purple), and then have no UI for changing them and no hookup to system colors?  Or perhaps we could have this separate set of prefs but use them only if the screen background color is not white?  Would that be a reasonable solution?
The solution I'd prefer: a Page Setup checkbox "Print email as text".  Printing as text would eliminate the issue of colors, plus print faster than graphical output does.  If that's not practical to implement, my next choice would be a separate set of user-adjustable prefs for printing colors.
(In reply to steveo.rep from comment #21)
> The solution I'd prefer: a Page Setup checkbox "Print email as text". 
> Printing as text would eliminate the issue of colors, plus print faster than
> graphical output does.  If that's not practical to implement, my next choice
> would be a separate set of user-adjustable prefs for printing colors.

Speaking from a laymans point of view, "Print email as text" sounds ideal, in fact it sounds pretty obvious. Why, when printing an 'email', would you want anything else?
That wouldn't help (by default) since we print text files the same way, and it also would only fix a small part of this bug, which exists in Firefox and Thunderbird.
(In reply to David Baron [:dbaron] from comment #23)
> That wouldn't help (by default) since we print text files the same way, and
> it also would only fix a small part of this bug, which exists in Firefox and
> Thunderbird.

How do you mean, you print text files the same way? The same way as what? As graphics? If so why? From a very simplistic point of view, the printing of text (the contents of an email in this scenario) from a terminal is pretty simple. If within the 'mozilla' design concept you (not you personally) have chosen to make it so complicated that simple text can't be printed on a white background then that is VERY unfortunate.

Simple things like this, attention to small detail, are the reasons why mozilla apps (TB & FF) cannot cut it with the MS competition which is a shame as they (TB & FF) are much much better. Less attention to bells and whistles and more attention to detail is what is required (IMHO) but don't let my little rant upset you as you all are doing a great job. My frustration is born from trying to convince the corporates that Mozilla is the way to go and having things like black print outs thrown in my face!
Here I am trying to discuss with other developers how to fix *this* bug, and you're arguing with me that I should fix a different bug and making it impossible have a useful discussion on how to fix this one.

Please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
As just a normal low vision user, I look at this issue a bet different I guess. The background color that I set my desktop or the background color I set Firefox or Thunderbird should never be printed. The background color should only be printed when 'Print Backgound (colors & images)' is checked in Print Setup is checked. If this is checked what should be printed is the background set by the webpage or email and not what color our desktop, Firefox, or Thunderbird backgound color setting are. 

As a low vison user and knowing many like myself we use all of the 'High Contrast' settings that all Windows version offer. But when we have a need to print we want black or colored print on the plain white paper. This bug has been a very large issue for us since version 4 of Firefox. Not sure when it also becaem an issue in Thunderbird but I know is is one in its version 7
Keywords: access
(In reply to David Baron [:dbaron] from comment #25)
> Here I am trying to discuss with other developers how to fix *this* bug, and
> you're arguing with me that I should fix a different bug and making it
> impossible have a useful discussion on how to fix this one.
> 
> Please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

I wasn't arguing with you (apologies if that's how it sounded) I was just trying to make the point that what appears 'simple' to a user (or a Corporate boss), i.e. printing an email as normal black or coloured text on a white background, is proving to be beyond Thunderbird's capabilities and as such, prevents people like myself convincing said Corporates that it really is a better product than Outlook.

I have, unfortunately, had to concede defeat and MS Outlook rules supreme (at here at work) which is a massive shame.

Like 'bigcrawdaddy' all we want is 'black or colored print on the plain white paper' when using MS Windows' accessibility options.

Keep up the good work.
Is there a fix for this yet? Is it being worked on? The version of Firfox I'm having to stay with will soon be not supported any longer. Help, Please, Thanks
No fix.  If there were, it would be in this bug.

No one working on it at the moment.  It's not quite clear how to actually fix this, for one thing. The one discussion that started on that topic sort of got hijacked...

David, I think not hooking up printing to system colors, at least for the default background and color, would make a lot of sense.  ccing roc too, to see what he thinks.
To layout, where someone might even see this....
Component: Printing: Output → Layout
Severity: normal → S3
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.