A recent update in the past few months makes it very difficult to read some of the text, which is now very dark grey text on a black background.



I opened meld using `kdesudo`, and it looks fine (although the theme wasn't quite so pretty).


I think meld uses GTK3, so I fiddled with System Settings > Common Appearance and Behaviour > Application Appearance > GTK > Select a GTK3 Theme. This change was reflected in meld, but none of the three options I selected changed the text. (The available options were Default, Emacs, and oxygen-gtk, which is shown in the screenshot above.)

Arch Linux
KDE 4.14.2
meld 3.12.1
gtk3 3.14.5

I also see a dark grey text on a black background when I highlight text in Libreoffice. However, I have `libreoffice-still-kde4` installed, which I think means that it uses qt?

The Libreoffice KDE 4 package only provides some theming to Libreoffice - it still uses it's own underlying toolkit which isn't Qt.
Have you tried checking the contents of the various gtk rc files in your ~/?

bcooksley wrote:The Libreoffice KDE 4 package only provides some theming to Libreoffice - it still uses it's own underlying toolkit which isn't Qt.
Have you tried checking the contents of the various gtk rc files in your ~/?

I had a look around and could find the following files:

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~/.gtkrc-2.0
~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4
~/.config/gtk-2.0
~/.config/gtk-3.0
~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc
~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0


I tried `kdesudo meld a b` and the window below was shown. It's not as pretty as meld has been in the past, but it's better than the blackness above.



Interestingly, there is nothing with `gtk` in its name in `/root`. Hence, I tried deleting some of the ~ files, to see if I could get the same effect for my user. I presume all the `gtkrc-2.0` files are irrelevant to meld.

Firstly, I deleted `~/.config/gtk-3.0`, but this had no effect, and was recreated when I opened meld.

The only other option appeared to be `~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc`, so deleted this and started meld, which was unaffected. However, the file was not recreated, and it contains some possibly pertinent lines (e.g. `text[ACTIVE] = { 1.000, 1.000, 1.000 }`). I'm unsure if the (missing) file was loaded at all. I tried `kbuildsycoca4 ; kquitapp plasma-desktop ; sleep 2 ; kstart plasma-desktop`, but this had no effect. Do I need to manually reload the gtkrc? And why is this file not being affected by the system settings?

The file at ~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc was probably created by the Gtk KCM at some point in the past - but it is no longer necessary.
Can you try removing ~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 as well?

bcooksley wrote:Can you try removing ~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 as well?

I removed `~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4`, which was actually a symlink to `~/.gtkrc-2.0`, and I also removed the target itself, but that didn't help. Again, I didn't reload gtk (I'm not sure if this is necessary, or possible), and the files weren't re-created when I tried running meld again.

I remember several threads on OpenOffice forums about problems with dark themes.

Try uninstalling LibO's KDE4 "integration" package completely: possibly, you'll have better "integration" using the GTK interface (just select an appropriate theme on the GTK module under KDE config settings).

Okay, if the usual files are now cleaned we might need to check to see if other files are being considered (through environment variables).
Can you grep the output of "export" for anything related to Gtk?

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export | grep -i gtk

RGB wrote:I remember several threads on OpenOffice forums about problems with dark themes.

I had a skim, but couldn't really see anything related.

RGB wrote:Try uninstalling LibO's KDE4 "integration" package completely: possibly, you'll have better "integration" using the GTK interface (just select an appropriate theme on the GTK module under KDE config settings).

I removed `libreoffice-still-kde4`, started Libreoffice Writer again, and the black selection issue had disappeared. However, I decided to test if it really were due to the removal of this package. I reinstalled it, and restarted Writer, and it was still fixed! I'm not sure what might have made the difference.

bcooksley wrote:Can you grep the output of "export" for anything related to Gtk?

Code: Select all

export | grep -i gtk

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declare -x GTK2_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:/home/sparhawk/.gtkrc-2.0:/home/sparhawk/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0"
declare -x GTK_IM_MODULE="xim"
declare -x GTK_MODULES="canberra-gtk-module"
declare -x GTK_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/home/sparhawk/.gtkrc:/home/sparhawk/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc"

Can you confirm that the two files /home/sparhawk/.gtkrc-2.0 and /home/sparhawk/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0 have been removed and no longer exist? You will need to restart Gtk applications after doing this.

bcooksley wrote:Can you confirm that the two files /home/sparhawk/.gtkrc-2.0 and /home/sparhawk/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0 have been removed and no longer exist? You will need to restart Gtk applications after doing this.

I quit meld, moved these files, restarted meld, and the problems were still present. However, doesn't meld use gtk3, not gtk2? I tested this earlier by changing GTK3 system settings, which were reflected in meld. Also (in Arch), meld depends on gtksourceview3, which depends on gtk3.

That would explain why removing those files had no effect

Then you need to look for and remove the Gtk3 versions of those files in that case.
They should be called gtkrc-3.0 - and found in the same locations.

bcooksley wrote:That would explain why removing those files had no effect

Then you need to look for and remove the Gtk3 versions of those files in that case.
They should be called gtkrc-3.0 - and found in the same locations.

I think I must have been unclear before. I had already found all the files within my home directory with "gtk" in it, as listed in this previous post. These files are as follows.

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~/.gtkrc-2.0
~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4
~/.config/gtk-2.0
~/.config/gtk-3.0
~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc
~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0

Previously, I deleted both ~/.config/gtk-3.0 and ~/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc and that made no difference.

I'll bump this once, but I get the feeling that we've exhausted all avenues of investigation…

I discovered that this was a regression introduced in 3.12.1. I emailed the devs, and was told that it was fixed in 3.12.3 (out a few days ago). Arch has since updated to this, and it's all fine now. Apparently there were a few bugs introduced by the GTK+ 3 port. Thanks for all your help!