My distro of choice currently ships with KDE 4.3.4.

Furthermore I'm a fan of dark themes / colour schemes.

With my current set up this results in a dark background for the messaging window in kmail 4.3.4

Unfortunately this renders some messages almost illegible, for example if the sender has chosen a custom font colour.

I could alter this via the 'system wide' colour scheme settings by changing the "View Backgroud" colour.

However this would spoil (for me) the appearance of my chosen theme / colour scheme, as it would alter every application.

I'm curious, is it possible in kmail 4.4.x to customise the message window background independently?

Cheers

As far as I am aware, this is not possible at this time, unless KMail offers features to set the background colour itself.

There are plenty of colour customisation options in kmail, but I don't think any of them affect the background. I think the only option is to Get Hot New Stuff and see if there is a dark theme there that does what you want.

bcooksley, at present, or at least with the version of kmail 3.4.3 that I have installed the colour customisation options do not include an option for the messaging window.

annew, you are correct in pointing out that many 'dark' themes are available that have a light coloured "View Background" by default. "View background" being the 'element in question'.

However any theme, dark or otherwise can be customised to your hearts content via System Settings / Appearance / Colors / Color [tab]. (note American spelling used in this instance as the UI utilises American spelling).

However this would take effect in every application.

Ok it's a viable and easily accessible option.

However to make a such a 'universal' change to the appearance of a theme for the sake of one application, which at present does not adapt to truly dark themes, makes the choice of a truly dark theme pointless.

It's either that or choose an an email application that does adapt to dark themes, ie Thunderbird.

It's not a show stopper, by any means but would be a really nice touch to an already excellent application.

Korganizer by the way, already has the option to change the calendar background colour independently of the theme chosen.

Perhaps I could put it forward as a potential feature request, or add my support for such a request if one is in effect.

How would I go about doing so?

I understand that as a mostly 'cosmetic' feature it would take a relatively low priority.

Cheers.

A feature request right now might be tricky. KMail2, the akonadi port, is due in 4.5, and since it's a complete re-write, it's likely that all bugs (including wishes) filed under the original KMail will be closed, so that the new version can be maintained. I could be wrong on that, but it's my guess. I'd go for submitting the idea to Brainstorm. If there is sufficient support for the idea it may be possible to find a way to get the attention of the developers to this.

annew wrote:A feature request right now might be tricky. KMail2, the akonadi port, is due in 4.5, and since it's a complete re-write, it's likely that all bugs (including wishes) filed under the original KMail will be closed, so that the new version can be maintained. I could be wrong on that, but it's my guess. I'd go for submitting the idea to Brainstorm. If there is sufficient support for the idea it may be possible to find a way to get the attention of the developers to this.

Thank you once again for getting back to me on this.

As a relative newbie to KDE, and to these forums how do I go about submitting an idea to Brainstorm.

To be honest I'm surprised that it hasn't, been raised before.

As mentioned earlier korganiser, sorry korganizer, has this functionality, as does Openoffice.org to enable them to fit in with dark themes, i.e. it's not a new or original idea / concept.

Cheers.

Brainstorm is just another Forum - except that it has some special features. People can vote your idea up or down, or just comment on it. A shortcut to the forum is brainstorm.forum.kde.org

merlyn wrote:Korganizer by the way, already has the option to change the calendar background colour independently of the theme chosen.

Kate also does. It works great with dark themes, because I can change the background color to white. Currently I can change a lot of the font and link colors, but the background relies on the view setting in system settings and making a good looking dark theme with that white or light enough has alluded me, and I've spent time trying.

It seems important to me that the HTML message window have an independant and adjustable color scheme from the system colors. Can anyone direct me to how and who I can present this need to?