1879559 - Text selection in PDFs is barely visible

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: PDF Viewer, defect)

Description

[Calixte Denizet (:calixte)]

Attachment: image.png

STR:

• switch to HCM
• open a pdf with some text
• select some text

A way to fix this bug is to draw the rectangles in a svg element in order to be able to apply a filter to have the correct colors for the background and the foreground.
That said it makes the highlighting feature hard to use in HCM.

Comment 1

[❌ Anna Yeddi [:ayeddi] ❌ On leave until 2027-01-04]

We probably want to use the system color SelectedItem for the background and SelectedItemText for the foreground to communicate the selected state of the text and ensure the expected by the user color combination is respected too. Just in case, the reference in Figma (SSO login needed)

Comment 2

[BMO Github Automation]

Attachment: [mozilla/pdf.js] Make text selection more visible (bug 1879559) (#20981)

Comment 3

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Rewording the title because this is not only about HCM.

Comment 4

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: Vastly improved visual indication of selected text on PDFs, matching the behavior Firefox has on web pages.
[Affects Firefox for Android]: Yes.
[Suggested wording]: Text selected in PDFs is now highlighted clearly like in normal web pages. The selection color also follows OS settings like high-contrast mode.
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]: N/A

Comment 5

[Pascal Chevrel (relman team) -> :pascalc]

Note added to our 153 nightly release notes in the Changed section with this wording:

Text selected in PDFs is now highlighted clearly like in normal web pages. The selection color also follows OS settings like high-contrast mode.

I am keeping the relnote-firefox? flag set until we include this note in our final 153 release notes, thanks.

Comment 6

[Pascal Chevrel (relman team) -> :pascalc]

I am keeping the relnote-firefox? flag set until we include this note in our final 153 release notes, thanks.

(Change of internal process)

Comment 7

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Attachment: winvmachighlight.png

Issue is reproducible on Firefox 152.0 on Windows 10.

Verified as fixed on Firefox Nightly 154.0a1 and Firefox 153.0b1 - with both HCM enabled/disabled -on Windows 10 and Ubuntu 22.

However, on macOS, the highlight is more subtle and the text is harder to read compared to Windows/Ubuntu, as seen in the attached screenshot.

Should we file a bug for macOS for this particular scenario ?

Comment 8

[Calixte Denizet (:calixte)]

Should we file a bug for macOS for this particular scenario ?

:oardelean, yes please.

Comment 9

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Thank you!

I have logged bug 2048531 as a follow-up for macOS.

Marking the bug as verified based on Comment 7.

Comment 10

[Pascal Chevrel (relman team) -> :pascalc]

Deactivated in 153.0b13, new target is 154.