1911842 - Line selection/highlighting in sidebar has a gray background, making white text illegible, unlike in popup [Nightly]

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Sidebar, defect, P3)

Description

[Guy]

Attachment: Screenshot of the comparisson

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:131.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/131.0

Steps to reproduce:

Open the sidebar (for example using Ctrl+H for the history), then click on any of the lines or click Tab twice and then press the down arrow to highlight the second line

Actual results:

The selected line gets highlighted with light gray which makes the white text hard to see.

Expected results:

The background should have been blue like in the popup (Ctrl+Shift+H) (see comparison image)

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:sclements, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 2

[Sarah Clements [:sclements]]

We've made a lot of styling changes and the contrast on a selected item should be better now?

Regarding the blue highlighting in the selected text of the popup, I'm assuming you mean for the history library? I don't see that applying universally in the old sidebar panels.

Comment 3

[Guy]

(In reply to Sarah Clements [:sclements] from comment #2)

We've made a lot of styling changes and the contrast on a selected item should be better now?

I'm on the latest Nightly but it seems to be the same.

Regarding the blue highlighting in the selected text of the popup, I'm assuming you mean for the history library? I don't see that applying universally in the old sidebar panels.

Yep, the library. I might be misremembering, but I thought it was previously easier to notice which item was highlighted in the sidebar. If this wasn't actually changed then this issue should be closed

Comment 4

[Sarah Clements [:sclements]]

(In reply to Guy from comment #3)

(In reply to Sarah Clements [:sclements] from comment #2)

We've made a lot of styling changes and the contrast on a selected item should be better now?

I'm on the latest Nightly but it seems to be the same.

Are you using system theme or light theme on windows? It sounds like there's still some work we need to do to make it more readable.

Comment 5

[Guy]

(In reply to Sarah Clements [:sclements] from comment #4)

Are you using system theme or light theme on windows? It sounds like there's still some work we need to do to make it more readable.

I have it on Custom where it's Dark for "Windows" (just for the start menu/taskbar to be the accent color I choose) and Light for "app". But for reference, at least for me, changing it from Custom to Dark doesn't seem to affect Firefox and the sidebar (Firefox does open up in Dark Mode for a brief moment but then changes back to Light Mode)

Comment 6

[Sarah Clements [:sclements]]

What is "custom"? Is it a specific third party theme or based on changes you've made via userchrome.css?

Comment 7

[Guy]

(In reply to Sarah Clements [:sclements] from comment #6)

What is "custom"? Is it a specific third party theme or based on changes you've made via userchrome.css?

In Windows settings in Personalization > Colors there's an option for Custom in "Choose your mode", where you can choose separate modes for Windows and for apps. But generally speaking I'm using light mode, in Firefox as well (the built-in light theme).

Comment 8

[Stuart Colville [:muffinresearch]]

Just to clarify the screenshots are for the old sidebar not the new one currently in development.

I don't appear to be able to reproduce on windows 11, despite trying different Firefox themes and options in Settings => Personalisation => Colours. When I do have a light background the text is darker, so the contrast issue doesn't show up.

It would be good to work out if there's some additional steps needed to reproduce the lack of contrast between the text and the background as per your screenshot and assuming this issue isn't specific to windows 10.

Comment 9

[Guy]

(In reply to Stuart Colville [:muffinresearch] from comment #8)

Just to clarify the screenshots are for the old sidebar not the new one currently in development.

I don't appear to be able to reproduce on windows 11, despite trying different Firefox themes and options in Settings => Personalisation => Colours. When I do have a light background the text is darker, so the contrast issue doesn't show up.

It would be good to work out if there's some additional steps needed to reproduce the lack of contrast between the text and the background as per your screenshot and assuming this issue isn't specific to windows 10.

Ok so it seems that this issue is only on when selecting the "light theme" (in Firefox). When it's on the default "System theme - auto" the background color is blue as usual

Comment 10

[Stuart Colville [:muffinresearch]]

Attachment: windows-light.png

Re-checking on Windows 11 and with the default light theme in Firefox I can't see the same light text on a light background that is being reported here (see screenshot).

Rares, hi are you able to reproduce what's described in this bug on windows 10?

Comment 11

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

I tried to reproduce this issue on our end as well with our latest Release 130.0.1 as well as our latest Nightly build 133.0a1 (2024-10-02) but I cant seem to reproduce the issue.
I also tried switching Windows theme to have them both set to Light but that didnt help either, my Windows theme is Dark and My App theme is Light while Switching between Light, Dark, Alpenglow and Default system Themes in Firefox, but I still cant reproduce the issue.

The only difference I saw from System theme to Light is that the Blue Background color is grey instead of blue, but the text is always black with Light Theme

@Guy have you tried Creating a New Profile and see if the issue still occurs ? maybe its an addon causing it ?
You can find the steps here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=Managing-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager

I will attach a screen recording of how it looks on a Windows 10 machine with Dark Windows mode theme, Light default App mode and Light theme in Firefox.

Comment 12

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Attachment: 2024-10-03_12h29_15.mp4

Comment 13

[Guy]

(In reply to Rares Doghi, Desktop QA from comment #11)

The only difference I saw from System theme to Light is that the Blue Background color is grey instead of blue, but the text is always black with Light Theme

Yes that's the issue I'm referring to. It seems to me that the grey background color isn't noticeable enough. The inconsistency between the Ctrl+H sidebar and the Ctrl+Shift+H popup windows made it seem like a bug, but if it's a intentional design choice then it's fine, especially since it's solved by staying on the default "System theme — auto".

Comment 14

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

The problem here is the White text with the Light theme which I cant seem to reproduce, that should not happen, thats why Im curious if it happens with a fresh new profile and Light theme or it only happens in the older profile. It might have been caused by installing different themes or addons.

Comment 15

[Guy]

(In reply to Rares Doghi, Desktop QA from comment #14)

The problem here is the White text with the Light theme which I cant seem to reproduce, that should not happen, thats why Im curious if it happens with a fresh new profile and Light theme or it only happens in the older profile. It might have been caused by installing different themes or addons.

I totally forgot about the white text issue. It seems to be solved on my end now. I'll mark this as solved

Comment 16

[Stuart Colville [:muffinresearch]]

Thanks both for looking into this further. Glad to hear it's no longer an issue.