settings for font colors

Tue Mar 2 01:33:21 GMT 2010

On Tuesday 02 March 2010 12:02:13 Duncan wrote:
> Rick Miles posted on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:10:15 +1100 as excerpted:
> > I'm new to kde4.4 :^)
> > 
> > Wher is the setting for system tray fonts? All my notifications are
> > black on black.
> > 
> > Wher is the setting for desktop font colors, i.e. the lettering under
> > icons, and also where is the setting for font shadowing for lettering
> > under icons. I seem to remember these being in Advanced where wallpaper
> > was changed. Wallpaper is is now changed under Desktop Activity Settings
> > when I right click on the desktop but there are no settings for fonts
> > and shadowed text and degfault seems to be some sort of white shadow
> > cloud behind the icon text on my desktop.
> 
> The desktop, aka plasma, has its own themes.  However, in a couple places,
> they seem to interact with the normal kde colors as well.  Well either
> that or the themes I run don't have a couple things set too well.  This
> can be bad if like me you have a strong "reverse color scheme" (that is,
> light text on a dark background) preference, as that's uncommon and the
> assumption would be dark text on a light background.
> 
> Unfortunately, unlike kde, where most of the colors are set specifically,
> with plasma one has to choose a theme -- altho individual components (,
> general color scheme, panel background, desktop widget background, analog
> clock, etc) can be set to different themes if desired.  Editing individual
> elements within a component, however, requires editing the text-based
> config files themselves, unfortunately.
> 
> To set a default plasma (aka "workspace") theme, see kcontrol (the
> application formerly known as, now less accurately and way too generically
> known as system settings), look & feel, appearance, style, workspace tab.
> You can even download more from kdelook using the button, if you like.
> 
> If you wish to mix and match components from different themes, that's
> under advanced user settings, desktop theme details.  Select the one that
> you want to use as your base in the top ribbon, thus setting all the
> individual components to it, then change individual components to those of
> other themes as desired.
> 
> But here, I liked a particular theme ("Professional", downloaded from
> kdelook) except for one problem: the lettering on the "cashew" (aka
> toolbox) popup was white (good), but surrounded by white shadow as well
> (bad), thus making it unreadable (very bad).  To fix that I had to edit an
> individual entry in the theme color scheme file.  But there was a trick to
> the entry I had to edit, as plasma was apparently trying to out-smart
> itself.
> 
> It sounds like you may have similar issues but in different areas.  You
> have two choices.  You can either trial and error with themes until you
> find something you like that doesn't have such issues, or, if you're like
> me and have a particular favorite, except for those one or two things, you
> can try editing them yourself, in effect, creating your own theme color
> scheme.
> 
> The file I had to edit was in $KDEHOME (~/.kde as shipped by kde, some
> distributions make it ~/.kde4 or the like, or you can always set and
> export the variable before starting KDE, if you want it elsewhere).
> $KDEHOME/share/apps/desktoptheme/<theme>/colors.  That's probably the file
> you want too, but you may have some work cut out for you figuring out
> which line.
> 
> Here, I had the one theme I liked, but for the one issue, and another
> theme that didn't have the issue.  What I did to find the problem was
> backup the theme I liked, then switch out the files one by one from the
> other theme I didn't like so well, killing and restarting plasma-desktop
> each time, until I found the culprit -- the colors file as mentioned
> above.  Then I restored my backup, and backed up that individual file,
> then used the same technique on sections within that file.  Once I found
> the section, I did the same thing with individual lines of that section.
> 
> It turned out that for me, the problem section was [Colors:Window], with
> the problem line being ForegroundNormal.  Now here's the trick.  The color
> in that line was NOT the problem color, directly!  What plasma was
> apparently doing was believing that color to be the text/font color, when
> the text/font color was actually something else.  But because that color
> was set somewhat dark, and the background was also dark, plasma thought
> there wasn't enough contrast between the two and was whitening the area
> around the text, so it would contrast better with what plasma THOUGHT was
> a dark foreground/font/text color -- except that's not the color that was
> being used for font/foreground/text at all.  The color that was being used
> was actually white or close to it, so rather than fix the problem by
> whitening the background around the text, plasma was actually CREATING the
> problem.  See what I said about being a bit too smart for its own good?
> 
> Now your problem is probably a different line in that same file.  The
> white shadow cloud seems to be the same effect I saw, tho, so be aware
> that the problem line is likely NOT a white or near-white RGB code
> (255,255.255), but rather, something a bit darker, with plasma likely
> trying to out-smart itself and failing, in your case as well.  You'll
> likely need some luck and a lot of patience to find it, at least using the
> trial and error method I used, but it'll work if you're sufficiently
> patient and determined.  If you're not up for that, just try a few more
> plasma themes until you find one at least /almost/ right, and leave it at
> that.
Thanks Duncan,

All hat info gives me a place to start. I use a background for awhile and then 
switch, sometimes needing white lettering sometimes black. Other things I'll have 
to live with and get used to them. It seemed I was able to have a transparent 
panel up until now using either bare naked or naked (dunno which) now I've lost 
that too.

I suppose its still early days and maybe I'll get it sorted out so its all a bit 
less painfull.
-- 
Cheers,

Rick Miles

Written on Sweetmorn, the 61st of Chaos, 3176 
http://turtlespond.net
http://rickmiles.com.au

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