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Poor presentation of Thunderbird Preferences Pages

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System: FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p5 Desktop: xfce4 4.14 w/ Adwaita-Dark theme Thunderbird: 68.8.0

Problem: New install with fresh profile. Preferences pages show blinding white pages with black text. Preferences pages do not respect the current desktop theme or any installed theme package. More painful is that the foreground color from desktop theme is used for entry dialogs/controls resulting in white text on white background.

What needs to be tweaked to resolve this problem.

System: FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p5 Desktop: xfce4 4.14 w/ Adwaita-Dark theme Thunderbird: 68.8.0 Problem: New install with fresh profile. Preferences pages show blinding white pages with black text. Preferences pages do not respect the current desktop theme or any installed theme package. More painful is that the foreground color from desktop theme is used for entry dialogs/controls resulting in white text on white background. What needs to be tweaked to resolve this problem.

Chosen solution

Original post was from _FreeBSD_ (not Linux). However, bug was also applicable to Linux.

Bug report sited was not applicable to this situation.

Thunderbird was "acknowledging" or "recognizing" that dark theme was being used but not acting in accordance.

Since then, TB68.8.1 came out and things appear to have gone back to "normal" or as expected behavior. Be great if the same changes could be applied to FF68.8.0 preferences pages.

And if we can just do something about Mozilla's harshness on imposing a white background on webpages....

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re Adwaita-Dark theme

Sounds like you are using Linux OS ?

I assume you are using Adwaita-Dark theme for desktop, but have you also downloaded and installed Adwaita-Dark theme as an addon theme in Thunderbird?

If you have not downloaded an addon theme into Thunderbird, are you currently using Thunderbird default dark or Light theme ?

It is known that there can be OS desktop settings that seem to influence some settings in Thunderbird default theme.

I've found a bug that might be related. People with issues eg: black text on black background.


Please try this info and report back on results.

set 'ui.systemUsesDarkTheme'=1 when the dark theme is set and 'ui.systemUsesDarkTheme'=0 when the light theme is set (to override a dark system theme).

If you do not see 'ui.systemUsesDarkTheme' then you can create it.

Linux OS:

  • Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General
  • click on 'Config Editor' button and accept risk

If search does not locate 'ui.systemUsesDarkTheme', then create it by right click in the list and * select 'New' > 'Integer'

  • Enter preference name: ui.systemUsesDarkTheme
  • click on OK
  • then set Value as 0 or 1 as appropriate.
  • click on OK

Restart Thunderbird.

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Chosen Solution

Original post was from _FreeBSD_ (not Linux). However, bug was also applicable to Linux.

Bug report sited was not applicable to this situation.

Thunderbird was "acknowledging" or "recognizing" that dark theme was being used but not acting in accordance.

Since then, TB68.8.1 came out and things appear to have gone back to "normal" or as expected behavior. Be great if the same changes could be applied to FF68.8.0 preferences pages.

And if we can just do something about Mozilla's harshness on imposing a white background on webpages....