checkmarks in gtk3 applications suddenly too light, barely visible

[GNUser]

In on Pure64 11.x. In the last week or two, all of a sudden checkmarks in gtk3 applications (e.g., gnumeric and filezilla) became so light that I can hardly see them.

Here is an example (there is a barely-visible white checkmark inside the blue box):


I haven't made any changes to icon themes, etc. but noticed that  gtk3.tcz  was recently upgraded.

Can you please help me make the checkmarks more easily visible?
(I'm sorry for asking such a basic question, but I know very little about GUI stuff.)

P.S.

Code: [Select]

bruno@box:~$ tce-status -i | grep theme
adwaita-icon-theme
hicolor-icon-theme
xcursor-themes


[Juanito]

I've noticed that too - in addition some icons are weirdly deformed.

I just updated adwaita-icon-theme, but that doesn't help - I'll look at librsvg next.

In the meantime, you could try the gtk dark theme?

[GNUser]

Thanks, juanito.
Yes, in the meantime I can use a dark theme:

Code: [Select]

$ GTK_THEME=Adwaita:dark gnumeric # I can see the checkmarks
$ GTK_THEME=Adwaita:dark filezilla # I can see the checkmarks

[Rich]

Hi GNUser
Did you check the settings in your  home  directory:

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:~$ cat .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
[Settings]
gtk-icon-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-cursor-theme-name = Adwaita
tc@E310:~$

[GNUser]

Hi, Rich. This has always been my settings.ini:

Code: [Select]

bruno@box:~$ cat .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
[Settings]
gtk-key-theme-name=Default
If I change it to this:

Code: [Select]

[Settings]
gtk-icon-theme-name=Adwaita
gtk-theme-name=Adwaita
gtk-cursor-theme-name=Adwaita
gtk-key-theme-name=Default
Or this:

Code: [Select]

[Settings]
gtk-icon-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-cursor-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-key-theme-name=Default
It makes no difference with regard to this issue.

[Juanito]

Seems like there's a fix here:

Overview of Changes in GTK+ 3.24.14
===================================

* Fix the opaque region for windows on X11

* theme:
 - Fix flat buttons in backdrop
 - Make popovers look more similar to menus
 - Tweak checkbox & radiobutton appearance

[GNUser]

Oh, good.
I see the Pure64 repo version is currently 3.24.13.
I'd offer to upgrade the extension, but gtk3 is critical infrastructure and I'd rather leave it to the master

[Juanito]

That didn't fix things 

I'll keep looking..

[GNUser]

In  adwaita-icon-theme.tcz  I found /usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/scalable/ui/checkbox-checked-symbolic.svg

It's a black checkbox on a white background. Just to make sure this file is unrelated, I deleted it and tried running some gtk3 applications. There's no change in behavior (I still see a white checkbox on a light background), so indeed this file seems to have nothing to do with the issue.

[GNUser]

I did a little experiment: I removed adwaita-icon-theme.tcz and hicolor-icon-theme.tcz from all .dep files in my optional/ directory.
Then I removed adwaita-icon-theme.tcz and hicolor-icon-theme.tcz themselves from optional/ and rebooted.

Now I'm in a running system without any trace of those two icon themes. Filezilla looks exactly the same including the faint checkmarks.
Gnumeric is missing some icons (has a little terminal screen instead of the expected graphic), but checkmarks are the same faint ones as before.

Conclusions:
In the case of filezilla, icons are built-in to the application and checkmark is handled by gtk3 directly.
In the case of gnumeric, icon theme's icons are being used but the checkmark is handled by gtk3 directly.

I don't know if gtk3 handling the checkmarks directly is due to a bug (where it can't use Adwaita's dark check mark) or intentional. I think if it were intentional, they would have gotten the colors correct.

I know sometimes gtk needs "theme engines" (e.g., murrine) in order to fully use a theme. Maybe gtk3 now needs one of those engines in order to use Adwaita's icons AND ui .svg files?

[Rich]

Hi GNUser
I just did a similar experiment. I have a TC11beta x64 partition that had the TC10 version of GTK3 installed and the checkboxes
were fine. I ran an update on all extensions and the checkboxes were as you described. Copying just the TC10 version of GTK3
back fixed it.

I noticed that the older GTK3 checkboxes had dark gray square outlines. The new GTK3 checkboxes have light blue outline when
checked, and light gray outlines when unchecked. Maybe that's part of the "refresh" attempt mentioned here:
https://blog.gtk.org/2019/01/14/theme-changes-in-gtk-3/

Don't know if this is of any use, but they link to this testing README:
https://download.gnome.org/misc/testing/Adwaita/README

[GNUser]

Thanks for the valuable information, Rich. I can confirm that using  gtk3.tcz  from Pure64 10.x on Pure64 11.x makes the problem go away (i.e., I get a dark checkmark on light background like I'm used to). I deleted gtk3.tcz.md5.txt from optional/ to prevent an accidental "upgrade" of the gtk3 extension.

Deleting /usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/scalable/ui/checkbox-checked-symbolic.svg with the older gtk3 version likewise has no effect (i.e., I get the same dark checkmark on light background). I guess gtk3 has been handling the checkmarks on its own--without using Adwaita's .svg file--for a while.

So the most likely explanation seems to be that gtk developers goofed with the color selections (not enough contrast between checkmark color and background color) when they overhauled things recently.

[curaga]

It would be good to report things like this upstream, if anyone following has the time, and can test a few gtk3 versions (latest git to see if it's fixed, and the couple minor versions to see where exactly it broke).

[Juanito]

Reverting gtk 3.24.13 -> 3.22.30 fixes the check boxes, but it doesn't fix the weirdly distorted icons.

[mocore]

It would be good to report things like this upstream, if anyone following has the time, and can test a few gtk3 versions (latest git to see if it's fixed, and the couple minor versions to see where exactly it broke).

 wrt:where exactly it broke

 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/issues/2493 - Adwaita: active state for radios and checkboxes are bad