2089754 - Explicit color_scheme: "light" is ignored when tab_background_text is a bright color

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Theme, defect)

Description

[CenCerberon]

Attachment: tab_background_text_white.png

Steps to reproduce

1. Install the Tiger Eyes Turquoise theme.
   https://addons.thunderbird.net/de/thunderbird/addon/tiger-eyes-turquoise/
2. The theme explicitly sets the color scheme to light in its manifest:
   "color_scheme": "light"
3. The theme sets tab_background_text to a bright color (white):
   "tab_background_text": "rgb(255, 255, 255)"
   Alternatively, use a bright yellow color:
   "tab_background_text": "rgb(235, 255, 100)"
4. Apply the theme and observe the appearance of the Thunderbird UI.

Tested versions:

• Thunderbird ESR 153.6.0esr (64-Bit)
• Thunderbird 159.0 (64-Bit)

Actual results

Despite explicitly setting "color_scheme": "light", Thunderbird renders various UI areas using dark-mode styling.

This behavior occurs when tab_background_text is set to a bright font color, such as white or bright yellow.

The specified tab_background_text color is applied correctly to the tab text. However, other UI areas are unexpectedly rendered in dark mode, even though they do not use this color property for their text.

Their font color remains white, regardless of whether tab_background_text is set to white or bright yellow. This demonstrates that these areas do not use the configured tab_background_text value, despite the fact that changing this value coincides with them switching to dark-mode styling.

Expected results

The explicitly defined "color_scheme": "light" should determine the overall color scheme of the Thunderbird UI.

The tab_background_text property should only control the text color of the tab bar and should not implicitly override the explicitly configured color scheme.

I expect to be able to use a light color scheme while independently customizing the tab text color.

An explicit light color-scheme setting should take precedence over any automatic color-scheme detection based on individual theme colors.

Changing tab_background_text should not cause unrelated UI areas to switch to dark-mode styling.

Comment 1

[CenCerberon]

Attachment: tab_background_text_yellow.png

Comment 2

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: Bug 2089754 - Use light dark on more places and adapt some colors to better work with themes. r=#thunderbird-front-end-reviewers

Comment 3

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: tiger-richi.xpi

I fixed the colors to match the changes in the patch (use toolbar variables for toolbars instead window colors).

CenCerberon, you can adapt your theme with my changes as you want.

Comment 4

[CenCerberon]

(In reply to Richard Marti (:Paenglab) from comment #3)

Created attachment 9677659 [details]
tiger-richi.xpi

I fixed the colors to match the changes in the patch (use toolbar variables for toolbars instead window colors).

CenCerberon, you can adapt your theme with my changes as you want.

Thank you very much for your work and especially for your help!
I will adapt my theme and try your changes in Nightly once your patch has landed.

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/e3815561c584
Use light dark on more places and adapt some colors to better work with themes. r=aleca

Comment 6

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/c79e624f28e8
follow-up, fix linting. rs=lint