Bug #64013 White Text on White Background when using inverted color theme in Gnome
Submitted: 12 Jan 2012 15:14 Modified: 5 Sep 2012 23:05
Reporter: Tom Kaminski Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Workbench: SQL Editor Severity:S3 (Non-critical)
Version:5.2.37 OS:Linux (Ubuntu 11.10)
Assigned to: CPU Architecture:Any
Tags: gtk, inverted colors, text, theme

[12 Jan 2012 15:14] Tom Kaminski 
Description:
When you choose an inverted color gtk theme in Gnome such as HighContrastInverse or GnomishDark, not all gui controls conform to the theme change causing glitches such as white text on white background, or black text on black background.  This causes the text to be unreadable.

How to repeat:
In Ubuntu, change the GTK theme to HighContrastInverse or GnomishDark.  You can first install Ubuntu Tweak to make it easy to change the theme.  Follow the guide here: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/01/spice-up-your-desktop-with-these-5-cool.html

Once the theme is changed, then start MySQL Workbench.  Alter a table schema, or edit a table row, and click apply.  The list box on the left will contain white text on a white background.

Suggested fix:
If any of the gui controls have hard coded background colors, then the text foreground color should also be hard coded.  Likewise, if the text foreground color is hard coded, then the containing gui control's background color should be hard coded.  Ideally, none of the text or background colors should be hard coded, and should rely on defaults for the gui control so that the theme can properly apply the appropriate colors.
[12 Jan 2012 15:14] Tom Kaminski 
Screenshot of the apply changes window

Attachment: mysql-workbench-invert.png (image/png, text), 71.44 KiB.
[13 Jan 2012 11:24] Valeriy Kravchuk 
Thank you for the bug report.
[5 Sep 2012 23:05] Philip Olson 
Fixed as of the upcoming Workbench 5.2.43, and here's the changelog entry:

 On Linux, the "WB_FORCE_SYSTEM_COLORS" environment variable was 
 added. Enabling this variable (with a value of 1) will disable 
 MySQL Workbench from using its own color scheme. 
 Example usage: "export WB_FORCE_SYSTEM_COLORS=1". 
 This is useful for certain conditions, like when using the 
 HighContrastInverse or GnomishDark system themes. 

Thank you for the report.