Confirmation dialog unusable in latest LM XFCE

[flyingrhino]

I recently replaced (full reinstall) my LM 19.3 xfce with LM 21.1 xfce .

The confirmation dialog boxes are barely noticeable in a default LM xfce install (the cancel button is selected but you barely know that by looking):

And when I changed the appearance to Mint-X-Red , icons to Mint-X-Blue and WM theme to Daloa - the selected button has no marking at all:

Is there a fix for this? Older xfce worked fine. New xfce is breaking usability and the most important reason we choose xfce - because we want a classic and NON CHANGING EXPERIENCE.

I bet I'm not the only xfce user who wants the old school xfce behavior back.

[billyswong]

Your problem is not limited to Xfce. Somebody has filed a bug report a couple months ago for the experience in Cinnamon.
https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-themes/issues/422

You may add your Xfce experience there.

[michael-hi]

I agree this seems to be poor design. One would expect dialog boxes to show at a glance which of the buttons will be activated if you simply press the Enter key.

And then there is the weird red button in the third picture above. You would think this is the focused button, but the link in billyswong's post above shows another example which indicates this isn't necessarily so. It just seems to be a design choice to colour the most positive of the options.

What you could do is use some simple css code to highlight the focused button. For instance, add the following to
~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css (create this file if it does not already exist and note that .config is a hidden folder - begins with a dot - so will only be visible if Show Hidden Files is selected in the file manager):

Code: Select all

button:focus {
   background: none;
   background-color: pink;
}

Change the colour shown to suit your preference. As usual, if you want a precise shade, you can use the six-digit hex code for that colour, preceded by a # symbol.

Alternatively, you could give more emphasis to the border of the focused button, eg:

Code: Select all

button:focus {
   border-color: green;
   border-width: 3px;
}

Log out and back in again to see the effect. It might not work on everything. If you tab within a dialog box, it may highlight all sorts of focused buttons including drop-downs and whatever, but that shouldn't matter.

[flyingrhino]

Thanks for the css tips. I'll make a snapshot first , then play with it - in case I break anything.
This is a task for later next week though, meanwhile I'll need to use the mouse.

I also wonder if this would break upgradeability or conflict with whatever fix they eventually make.

[michael-hi]

Yes, good idea to test it carefully in case there are unintended consequences.

There won't be any effect on the actual installed theme though. The added wording is in a separate text file within your home folder and just acts as your own personal override to that particular aspect of the installed Gtk theme. The original theme itself won't be altered and would get any upgrades.

I suppose if they did ever improve the Mint theme on the point in question, you might not notice - because it would probably still be overridden by your gtk.css file! But if you wished you could temporarily remove the file (eg after a Mint version upgrade) to see if it is still needed.