Description: Feature request to use darker background color for dark mode color scheme. Steps to Reproduce: Open Preferences > LibreOfficeDev > Application Colors and Switch to dark scheme. Actual Results: LO dark mode color scheme uses same color ffor background and document background. Expected Results: Should use darker document background color so contrast is increased and readibility improved. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: see screenshots of Pages and LO for inspiration.
Created attachment 171787 [details] LO dark mode
Created attachment 171788 [details] pages dark mode
Darker BG or the current from the new LibreOffice Dark application colors (bug 141986). That 'Pages' white on black is kind of too harsh for me, but I've no 'skin in the game' here; bcz Windows builds of LO don't play well with WDM and UWP theming anyhow--and the HighContrast based themes like GreyEve are no real substitute.
We discussed this idea in the design meeting and recommend to rather use a darker application background color and a slightly lighter document background that has a good contrast with white text. => WF/NAB
Thanks for following up on this. Although the rationale leading to the team decision is unclear to me. How can lighter grey have better contrast than darker grey? I would assume, that thought was, what lead Apple's design choice to make document background darker and use a lighter grey for application background to separate the two. Why go the other way around with suboptimal contrast between document background and content (lighter document darker application background with)?
We have a contrast ratio of 12.63:1, which is above the recommended minimum of 4.5:1. Breeze Dark, the default on Linux/KDE [1], is #31363B (we use #333333) with 12.19:1- almost the same. MacOS uses also some grey color not sure what exactly [2]. High contrast is good for accessibility but not always appealing. Contemporary design goes actually the opposite way and lowers the contrast as much as possible- also not a good idea. [1] https://github.com/KDE/breeze/blob/master/colors/BreezeDark.colors [2] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/visual-design/dark-mode/
Comment 6 is a bad argument and we better wait for users trying the dark mode in production. Or if someone wants to volunteer... officecfg/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/UI.xcu starting at <node oor:name="${PRODUCTNAME} Dark" oor:op="replace"> Using black for the document background requires adjustment to the other colors.
(In reply to steve from comment #5) > Thanks for following up on this. Although the rationale leading to the team > decision is unclear to me. How can lighter grey have better contrast than > darker grey? I would assume, that thought was, what lead Apple's design > choice to make document background darker and use a lighter grey for > application background to separate the two. > > Why go the other way around with suboptimal contrast between document > background and content (lighter document darker application background with)? can you provide examples of good colors that have an good contrast?
We could spent month to find the perfect color theme but we don't have the time. Some color combinations you see fitting for you would help us. But only say you are unsatisfied makes us feel like we never did a good work.
@Heiko, * Let's take a look at current releases of some of the other FOSS projects for inspiration: GIMP Inkscape Krita Scribus except for Scribus they all have multiple project provided UI themeing that can bypass os/DE system theme. They all offer both light and dark modes. GIMP offers three UI modes ('Dark', 'Gray', 'Light') in addtion to os/DE theme controlled 'System'. Coupled with six icon theme modes--'Color', 'Legacy' (to GIMP), 'Symbolic', 'Symbolic-Inverted' (and High-Contrast flavors for both Symbolic sets). Inkscape has a very effective toggle 'Use dark theme' that when combined with 'Use symbolic icons' (the same as our Sifr icon theme) does an excelent job in composing functional UI. Kirta has eight: three Breeze inspired themes ('Breeze Dark', 'Breeze High Contrast', 'Breeze Light'') and five project managed Krita UI themes ('blender', 'bright', 'dark', 'darker', 'neutral'). While Scribus between its Preferences -> User Interface and its Preferences -> Display -> Colors allows individual component controls in addition to os/DE theming notably its 'Page Fill' and 'Scratch Space' is as equally limited as LibreOffice before we added the 'LibreOffice Dark' application color theme. No reason we can't devise themes suitable for multiple os/DE--to optionally bypass os/DE themeing. But what is holding LO back continues to be that not all components of the UI are exposed for control in the Application Colors panel and its .xcu configurations. Both facets--toggle to bypass os/DE "system" theme, completing a framework for UI application colors--will need dev attention.
All valid concerns but what I understand is that this ticket requests to make the document background black instead of Grey 3. And while I personally wouldn't like this hard contrast in dark it's actually what we get in normal/bright mode. So I changed my mind. off-topic: In the long term I imagine a LibreOffice theme consisting of the current (dormant/abandoned) Persona, UI colors (optional with defaults taken from OS/DE), application colors, and icon theme. Users should switch between "High Contrast", as an example with black background for UI and canvas and white font + icons, and "Unicorn" that paints a rainbow over the application.
>what I understand is that this ticket requests to make the document background black instead of Grey 3 Not really - title says darker. Pages screenshots just convey the concept. I don't mind darker or black. What I personally dislike for given reasons is the concept of lighter document background than application background color for dark mode. Also dislike identical colors (status quo), which is why I filed this bug. Can't wait for the unicorn theme :P
>what is holding LO back continues to be that not all components of the UI are exposed for control in the Application Colors panel and its .xcu configurations. Both facets--toggle to bypass os/DE "system" theme, completing a framework for UI application colors--will need dev attention. This is the main issue with dark mode in LO. And it appears there is little to no interest from a developer to tackle this. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/visual-design/dark-mode/ goes to show that in all apps shown the "work area" is always darker than the surrounding background or menus, which seems to be one of the basic concepts of dark mode on macOS. Cannot speak to linux / windows. If this is not useful for other OSs as it is against their design philosophies feel free to close this. I don't think creating additional overhead by maintaining OS specific color themes is worth it, as long as there is real struggle to provide a decent dark mode theme at all due to the lacking exposure of UI elements. So in that case please just close this bug and sorry for the noise.
@Samuel, Tomaž -- relative to comment 10, thoughts on what would be possible to achieve viz-a-viz extending our 'application colors' framework without major refactoring. Though I have to say, the Inkscape project has realy hit the mark with their dark mode toggle mixed with a symbolic icon theme selection--what I've hopped we'd move toward with Sifr and for HiDPI support.
Re-evaluating the EasyHack in 2022 This enhancement is still relevant.
Created attachment 183193 [details] Comparison of proposed fix and the current colors I read through the comments and to fix this bug we could simple invert the colors for "Document Background" and "Application Background". Se attached screenshot to see the proposal: Left-side: proposed new colors: - Document Background: Dark Gray 3 - Application Background: Dark Gray 2 Right-side: the colors we currently use: - Document Background: Dark Gray 2 - Application Background: Dark Gray 3 Let me know if this would suffice to fix the issue.
(In reply to Rafael Lima from comment #16) > Created attachment 183193 [details] > Comparison of proposed fix and the current colors ... > > Let me know if this would suffice to fix the issue. Yes I think so. On a Windows nightly of master I adjusted LibreOffice Dark color theme as proposed (swapping the assigned background colors of document and application). It seems more appealing with increased contrast of text on the document canvas, and nothing jumped out in any of the modules having swapped the background colors. +1
Patch available for review at: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/141850
Rafael Lima committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/a73f3b2df5ccb307609cf15db58251a859495f6e tdf#142172 Use darker document background color It will be available in 7.5.0. The patch should be included in the daily builds available at https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More information about daily builds can be found at: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
verified, thanks Rafael. macOS 13 Version: 7.5.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: f62e6496521af8d1f2b612123c664bcf3223946a CPU threads: 8; OS: Mac OS X 13.0; UI render: default; VCL: osx Locale: de-DE (en_DE.UTF-8); UI: en-US Calc: threaded