Ignored color theme

[jukzi]

Some colors are directly set ignoring the color theme but using the system colors..
Example: AutoSave Preference Page

The pattern used is like
widget.setForeground(display.getSystemColor(SWT.COLOR_WIDGET_FOREGROUND))
There are ~ 500 lines like "display.getSystemColor(" in the code.
What would be a good pattern to replace that with themed colors?
i.e does any method like ~ getThemeColor(SWTCOLOR_constant) exist?

[vogella]

IIRC the CSS engine can also style the SWT color constants so we should "just" style these if my memory is correct.

[vogella]

Reference https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=577912 cc @azoitl

[vogella]

@azoitl on a quick glance I cannot find the code part which sets the SWT color constants. Do you rememeber / can find where we set the SWT color constants in the CSS engine?

[azoitl]

I had to look it up again it happens in Display.initializeSystemColors(). I also recreated the two stack traces when this method is called.

1:
Display.initializeSystemColors() line: 3212 Display.init() line: 3505 Display(Device).<init>(DeviceData) line: 169 Display.<init>(DeviceData) line: 643 Display.<init>() line: 634 Workbench.createDisplay() line: 742 PlatformUI.createDisplay() line: 168 IDEApplication.createDisplay() line: 182 IDEApplication.start(IApplicationContext) line: 125 EclipseAppHandle.run(Object) line: 203 EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(Object) line: 136 EclipseAppLauncher.start(Object) line: 104

2:
Display.initializeSystemColors() line: 3212 Display.runSettings() line: 5179 Display.readAndDispatch() line: 4571 PartRenderingEngine$5.run() line: 1155 Realm.runWithDefault(Realm, Runnable) line: 338 PartRenderingEngine.run(MApplicationElement, IEclipseContext) line: 1046 E4Workbench.createAndRunUI(MApplicationElement) line: 155 Workbench.lambda$3(Display, WorkbenchAdvisor, int[]) line: 644 0x0000000800de3658.run() line: not available Realm.runWithDefault(Realm, Runnable) line: 338 Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Display, WorkbenchAdvisor) line: 551 PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(Display, WorkbenchAdvisor) line: 156 IDEApplication.start(IApplicationContext) line: 152 EclipseAppHandle.run(Object) line: 203 EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(Object) line: 136 EclipseAppLauncher.start(Object) line: 104

[minduch]

I have a similar problem on Eclipse 4.25 M2 under Windows 11 dark theme. It (almost) works fine in Light theme. The colors set using Control.setBackground(color) are ignored in Dark theme (except for ToolBar where it works in Dark but not in Light theme).

Label label=new Label(parent,SWT.NONE);
label.setBackground(Display.getDefault().getSystemColor(SWT.COLOR_WHITE));

This also applies to CLabel, and lots of other components. Funny thing: setting ToolBar (with ToolItem's) background works in Dark theme but NOT in Light theme!

[mickaelistria]

What would be a good pattern to replace that with themed colors?

One good pattern is to reuse the colors from the context (eg parent or sibling controls), or to simply not hardcode such color and let SWT default behavior pick a good one.

[kjsmita6]

Bumping this a bit because I just remembered about it and it is still an issue. We are having the issue specified in https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=577912. The issue specifically is with the GEF3 palette which remains a white background even in dark mode. Yes, I am aware GEF3 is very old and there are better alternatives like GEF5 or Sirius. An upgrade is planned but this is a huge amount of work for us and according to the original bug there are many projects which still depend on it (now called "GEF Classic").

I've occasionally seen it do the correct thing. I think having the system in dark mode and also putting Eclipse in dark mode helps with this.

I am also seeing the bug happen in the help section of TrayDialogs:

[vogella]

@kjsmita6 I would not recommend to switch to GEF5. It appears to me that with the decline of JavaFX the development of GEF5 slowed down and seems that it currently not actively enhanced. GEF Classics on the other hand has been revived. Please report the color issue to https://github.com/eclipse/gef-classic/issues, may you could also help fixing this issue.

[kjsmita6]

@vogella thank you for the info, I opened the issue eclipse-gef/gef-classic#128 to track this.