On downloading 25.2.1 (from 24.8.4) I was shocked to find the appearance of documents and spreadsheets suddenly changed completely with NO warning. When I found the Appearance option which was set to System (where I have a dark theme set) I tried to set a Light theme, but I found that the menu bar (File, Edit, etc.) was white on white, and thus illegible. I find that charts now would print with a black background instead of a white one - fundamentally altering the design and using copious ink. I am now told that I must remove 25.2.1 if I wish to downgrade back to 24.8.5, but I am fearful that I will lose a bunch of settings in the process. This has been a truly shocking experience. The change should NOT have been hidden away as inconsequential with no proper explanation somewhere down the bottom of the release notes. There should have been an automatic presumption that the user wanted to maintain the previous appearance of documents, spreadsheets and charts etc., with the new version configured to achieve that. Changes should be at user discretion. There should be no assumption that a user has installed a non default theme. You have rendered my work unusable, with no workaround offered.
"found the Appearance option which was set to System (where I have a dark theme set) I tried to set a Light theme" Its in the release notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/25.2#User_Interface Apply the 'Light Application Colors' .oxt Appearance theme extension. Leave the "default" "Automatic" mode set to 'System' *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 164392 ***
USER INTERFACE The list of recently used files has now a checkbox “[x] Current Module Only” that allows to filter the list. Object boundaries are now toggled independently of Formatting Marks. The colour of non-printing characters and the background colour of comments can be customised. Default items for unordered lists (also known as bullets) have been updated. Significant improvements to application themes. https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/02/06/libreoffice-25-2/ It's certainly not there - it's a HUGE CHANGE for the worse with NO USER WARNING. Application Theming The application theme can be customized independent of the system/desktop-environment theme. Customization options are available in Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Appearance tab, (blog post) (Sahil Gautam, allotropia) tdf#163620 Appearance options specify whether to use light or dark theme colors. If Light/Dark is selected, then the application uses light/dark theme colors respectively. If System is selected, then the application follows the DE (desktop environment), meaning if the DE is in dark mode, then the application uses dark theme colors, and vice versa. Appearance options Appearance options Automatic color scheme is now readonly. To customize appearance, create a new scheme by clicking on the New button. The preferred way of customizing appearance is via theme extension. To install a theme extension, click on the more themes button next to the theme drop-down in LibreOffice Themes section. Once installed, the theme should appear in the schemes list. Adding themes Adding themes Customizations section allows customization of individual theme colors. We can also use image background instead of color, although it's only available for Application Background at the moment. Nor is it there. THERE SHOULD BE A WARNNING AND AN EXLICIT EXPLANATION WITH LINKS OT THE RECOMMENDED >oxt IF IT IS NOT INSTALLED AUTOAMTICALLY - WHICH IT SHOULD BE IF THERE IS NO OTHER THEME ALREADY SET. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/25.2 When I found the Appearance option which was set to System (where I have a dark theme set) I tried to set a Light theme, but I found that the menu bar (File, Edit, etc.) was white on white, and thus illegible. I find that charts now would print with a black background instead of a white one - fundamentally altering the design and using copious ink. You have not addressed these points at all: white on white appearance SHOULD NOT HAPPEN: IT IS A BUG. Trying to ignore this is BAD BEHAVIOUR.
You have made many comments, but I haven't seen you mention your operating system. Is it macOS by any chance?
(In reply to Libomark from comment #2) > ... When I found the Appearance option which was set to System (where I have a dark theme set) I tried to set a Light theme, but I found that the menu bar (File, Edit, etc.) was white on white, and thus illegible. > ... >You have not addressed these points at all: white on white appearance SHOULD NOT >HAPPEN: IT IS A BUG. Exactly the issue of bug 164392, or bug 165266 if you are on a macOS build. This is a dupe of know issues but also lacking sufficient os/DE detail to be actionable. When filing in BZ please post the content of the Help -> About dialog. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 164392 ***
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #3) > You have made many comments, but I haven't seen you mention your operating > system. Is it macOS by any chance? No, it's WIN 11 24H2. Version: 25.2.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: d3abf4aee5fd705e4a92bba33a32f40bc4e56f49 CPU threads: 12; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win Locale: en-GB (en_GB); UI: en-US Calc: CL threaded
Please refrain from changing the status. It seems like the fix for bug 165438 will help with this, 8a1b353e7f0ccaeb7fe179863f27b473f83ca2cb tdf#165438 for user created (raw) themes, use default document colors It is possible that the release of 25.2.2 will be expedited. Here is the schedule at the moment: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/25.2#25.2.2_release An easy way to test is to install an unreleased build, Win-x86_64@tb77-TDF from https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/master/current.html
At present the 25.2 updates are not the mainstream upgrades: users on 24.8 are still directed towards the latest version of that. Those who opt to try 25.2 are going to be more tech savvy, and maybe will find out how to live with the current problems and circumnavigate them. However, when upgrades point to 25.2 there will be large numbers of users who share the experience I had on upgrading and who will not know where to look to try to fix it, because they are not tech savvy enough. They will instead conclude that the software is broken, and they need to find a different suite. That is why this is a CRITICAL issue. If it cannot be properly solved and included in 25.2, then the feature needs to be rolled back until it is ready for prime time. It is not good enough to say it will be fixed in 6 months or so and ignore it. The presentation of it should leave work as it was unless a user opts to change it. There should be PROMINENT GUIDANCE on the consequences of doing so, and how to restore the original appearance. Finding out that your printer ink gets used at 20x the rate is not the way to go. As it is, there is completely inadequate explanation of what happens e.g. When work is shared between users who have different theme or system settings When printing or exporting as pdf, png etc. When opened in a different programme e.g. Microsoft Office, Google Sheets, etc. - or even an earlier version of LO that doesn't offer this "feature". There is no real clarity on the purpose of this feature - it should not leave users with an unexpected fundamental change in the presentation of their work, perhaps necessitating many hours of reformatting. It might make sense to offer a feature designed to assist those who have OLED screens to reduce their burn-in risk, but that should be on a toggle, and not affect standard output. It would be really burdensome if users are going to have to consider that other users may have a totally different experience of their work, and need to check its appearance and tweak accordingly, or even create different versions for different UI themes. Of course, if someone wants to set yellow polka dots as a personal background I can't control that ultimately, and I won't care - but if it is something as fundamental and system driven as dark themes that is very different. Most parts of LO include templates as a feature to customise appearance of presentations, drawings, texts and spreadsheets. The one really important omission is charts, already the subject of a long running change request going back to 2013 that has received little attention (along with many other long standing chart bugs and change requests - chart seem to be the poor relation with most work going on new features for Writer, although there now appear to be some signs of movement). https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62925
What could be clearer guidance at 25.2 than being advised that due to the new Appearance theme color scheme framework you need to apply an Appearance theme? And to avoid setting the default "Automatic" theme to 'Light' or 'Dark'. The framework is *in*, with ESC approval, and with ongoing work that did not make it into the 25.2 release. This is normal! And critical patches are being developed and distributed with the incremental patches to 25.2 There is no expectation that a new/substantial feature like the Theming framework would be 100% on roll out. That is not how timed release builds work. Stay on 24.8 if you like. Otherwise constructively work with 25.2/25.8 to identify legitimate issue with the Appearance theme feature. But this laundry list of complaints is not helpful to the project nor are such generalized complaints making it a valid BZ issue. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 164392 ***