What designates a color file as a dark theme?

Akovia · February 12, 2025, 8:59pm

I updated my Arch installation a few days back, and now my OS is signaling to my apps and browsers that I want a dark theme. I tracked down that if I select a different color scheme through the setting app that I can select a light scheme again. What I don’t understand is how the theme I’ve been using since moving the KDE is now considered a dark theme instead of light.

I’m using LuckyEyes, and it certainly looks like a light theme in the preview, but if I filter the color schemes by light and dark, it shows up in dark.

So I’ve located and opened the .local/share/color-schemes/101360-LuckyEyes.colors file and compared it to a light scheme, but I can’t see anything that would signal light vs dark that the OS would pick up on.

Could someone enlighten me on what actually triggers the OS (or even the setting scheme filter), to be light or dark, and whyt this changed in a recent update?

Thanks!

[ColorEffects:Disabled]
Color=112,111,110
ColorAmount=0
ColorEffect=0
ContrastAmount=0.5
ContrastEffect=1
IntensityAmount=0.05
IntensityEffect=2

[ColorEffects:Inactive]
Color=112,111,110
ColorAmount=0.05
ColorEffect=2
ContrastAmount=0.2
ContrastEffect=2
Enable=false
IntensityAmount=0
IntensityEffect=0

[Colors:Button]
BackgroundAlternate=224,223,222
BackgroundNormal=181,182,190
DecorationFocus=0,20,80
DecorationHover=30,30,40
ForegroundActive=0,81,140
ForegroundInactive=0,60,100
ForegroundLink=0,87,174
ForegroundNegative=191,3,3
ForegroundNeutral=176,128,0
ForegroundNormal=0,0,60
ForegroundPositive=0,110,40
ForegroundVisited=100,74,155

[Colors:Selection]
BackgroundAlternate=62,138,204
BackgroundNormal=65,143,212
DecorationFocus=0,20,80
DecorationHover=30,30,40
ForegroundActive=0,81,140
ForegroundInactive=0,80,115
ForegroundLink=0,49,110
ForegroundNegative=156,14,14
ForegroundNeutral=255,221,0
ForegroundNormal=245,245,245
ForegroundPositive=128,255,128
ForegroundVisited=69,40,134

[Colors:Tooltip]
BackgroundAlternate=196,224,255
BackgroundNormal=220,220,220
DecorationFocus=0,20,80
DecorationHover=30,30,40
ForegroundActive=0,81,140
ForegroundInactive=0,60,100
ForegroundLink=0,87,174
ForegroundNegative=191,3,3
ForegroundNeutral=176,128,0
ForegroundNormal=20,19,18
ForegroundPositive=0,110,40
ForegroundVisited=100,74,155

[Colors:View]
BackgroundAlternate=248,247,246
BackgroundNormal=240,240,240
DecorationFocus=0,20,80
DecorationHover=30,30,40
ForegroundActive=0,81,140
ForegroundInactive=0,60,100
ForegroundLink=0,87,174
ForegroundNegative=191,3,3
ForegroundNeutral=176,128,0
ForegroundNormal=20,19,18
ForegroundPositive=0,110,40
ForegroundVisited=100,74,155

[Colors:Window]
BackgroundAlternate=218,217,216
BackgroundNormal=182,185,190
DecorationFocus=0,20,80
DecorationHover=30,30,40
ForegroundActive=0,81,140
ForegroundInactive=0,60,100
ForegroundLink=0,87,174
ForegroundNegative=191,3,3
ForegroundNeutral=176,128,0
ForegroundNormal=30,30,40
ForegroundPositive=0,110,40
ForegroundVisited=100,74,155

[General]
Name=LuckyEyes
shadeSortColumn=true

[KDE]
contrast=7

[WM]
activeBackground=80,80,100
activeForeground=250,250,250
inactiveBackground=140,142,152
inactiveForeground=220,220,220

dzon · February 12, 2025, 9:24pm

Yeah, it’s a borderline dark one. But um…there’s something off with that scheme. Can’t put my finger on it but it’s one of the weirdest ones I’ve ever tried. For one, I can’t change the colors, it creates a duplicate if I do. I’ll get back to this. On a sidenote, it’s a really old one.
I even renamed the stuff but to no avail.

dzon · February 12, 2025, 9:34pm

Ok, I added a line ( ColorScheme=BreezeLight) in General to make it stick. Still, it seems there’s a very thin line in what is considered dark or light.
Default breeze stuff:

Akovia · February 12, 2025, 9:42pm

So it needs a base theme to work from, or it does some sort of color value averaging?

Was just curious what changed in a recent update that drove it dark. No matter anyway. Your fix worked and is most appreciated!

dzon · February 12, 2025, 9:47pm

Those colorschemes can be picky at times. At least, the very old ones that is. In order to make it a more…um…updated file I guess you could simply use all the colors and make a new one based on, say, breeze light. That way you’re sure the colorscheme has all the required lines. This file is 16 years old you know.

Akovia · February 12, 2025, 10:26pm

Yeah, when I find something I like. I don’t see a reason to change it.

So I realized that it didn’t fix it, but I guess that’s a sign to just move on. I’ll find something close and live with it.

Thanks anyway!

ben2talk · February 13, 2025, 1:53am

For changing colour schemes (a messy Plasma thing - won’t update your editors or terminals…) you have a couple of options (as ‘save current as new Global Theme’ isn’t readily available…) and the one I use is konsave.

So I can save ‘Perfect’ as ‘01 Perfect’, tweak it and then save ‘01 Perfect-dark’, 01 Perfect-light and then (for mid contrast, like Lucky-eyes maybe) 01 Perfect-dim.

Archie · February 13, 2025, 5:38am

A user would be so lucky if they find a perfect color scheme but for others most of the time we modify a color theme close enough to our liking and saving them as a modified .color.

Like for example, the distro I’m running comes with its own color scheme. I saved it as another -dark-modded.color and I am quite OK with the modded version.

Akovia · February 13, 2025, 12:38pm

@ben2talk I actually have some old konsave profiles from before I moved to kde from xfce. I had forgot about it but might try to load and old profile and see how it does. Thanks for tip!

@Archie I was trying to do exactly that to force my LuckyEyes scheme back to a light theme. Something in a recent update changed how it parses the color files and now designates that scheme as dark.

I tried @dzon’s suggestion and added the ColorScheme=BreezeLight line and thought it fixed it, but forgot to actually refresh my browser before saying it fixed it.

I have manually forced my programs, browsers, and webpages to light where I can, but I feel like I should be able to set a flag somewhere to turn off dark mode. I might build it from scratch as @dzon suggested when I feel up to it, but will just work around it for now.

Akovia · February 13, 2025, 2:46pm

So I decided to figure it out with process of elimination with values from a light theme.

In the section [Colors:Window]

I replaced the existing value of
BackgroundNormal=182,185,190
with
BackgroundNormal=198,198,198

This single value seems to determine light/dark.

I’m not going to poke any further, but it seems to me that it’s summing the rgb values to determine light/dark. If that’s the case, the threshold value is between 557 & 594. I don’t know what code was changed recently, but this was a direct result of it.

Thanks for the nudges!

dzon · February 13, 2025, 3:15pm

Myeah, I prefer just naming something and make a switch for it ( color scheme, icons, plasma…in one go) then to change a colorscheme to be defined dark or light. But that’s just me.

Akovia · February 13, 2025, 4:38pm

I feel like I missed something. How are you defining dark or light?

dzon · February 13, 2025, 4:52pm

I just make predefined “themes”. By themes I mean a color, icon …whatever you want in that layout. On 5-ish one such exec in the desktop application would be: plasma-apply-colorscheme whatever && /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/plasma-changeicons whatever.

Dark or light is just a name I give to the action.

[Desktop Action Light]
Exec=plasma-apply-colorscheme whatever && /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/plasma-changeicons whatever
Icon=folder-yellow
Name=whatever ( for the sake of it, let’s call it Light)

I don’t have to add a plasma theme command cause the one(s) I use are all adaptive. Neither do I need some konsole thing cause I always use the same. I rarely use more than three overall color styles so…Clicking the app opens the wallpaper directory, rightclick the settings. In short, a bit like that konsave thing but in desktop app format so to speak. Click click…done.

Akovia · February 14, 2025, 12:41pm

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I misunderstood what you were saying.
As you can tell by my 16 year old file, I don’t change up too often.

Appreciate the tips!

ben2talk · February 14, 2025, 1:04pm

We aren’t - but generally, if you open the colours dialog there’s a search bar at the top - and on the right you can filter all/Dark/Light schemes.

Though I never used that, it’s interesting to note that Lucky Eyes, Primary Greys stand out (as being a fair bit brighter than the other thumnails on view), and Krita neutral/kv blender appear as being delicately in the balance between dark/light.

It’s all a bit arbritrary, however, as it’s very easy to rename/number 12 to appear at first opening of the dialog - and I can’t see many people needing more than 12 readily available options to switch.

Akovia · February 14, 2025, 5:16pm

Yeah, I mentioned in the opening post that it was being filtered as dark. This whole thing was due to an update that triggered this theme that used to be classified as light to dark. They keep moving the goal posts.

I wish there was a user flag to announce light or dark. Not some dev controlled threshold that’s buried. This would allow much more customization and give the user more power over their system. Especially these themes that seem to sit on the edge and could be classified as either, depending on who you ask.

dzon · February 14, 2025, 6:38pm

Like I mentioned before, the treshold on this one is very small. If you take up the brightness of the hex just a little it’s under light. Personally, I couldn’t care less if it’s under light or dark. I make my own scheme and name it bazoowannloolasaturn-god-of-darkness…LIGHT for all I care. Maybe the guy that “moved the goal post” is visually impaired colorwise. Don’t know.

ben2talk · February 15, 2025, 1:51am

Perhaps there IS an issue here, in that ‘LIGHT’ themes should basically mean ‘NOT DARK’.

In my colours list, I refer to ‘Light - Dim - Light’. LuckyEyes would be classed as ‘Dim’ neither Light or Dark.

Akovia · February 15, 2025, 12:38pm

I agree wholeheartedly! I was just pointing out that it was suddenly classified as dark, where it wasn’t before.

The problem is that the OS picks up on this, and then all of my programs, browsers, even web pages that use this signal to apply light and dark themes went dark. Even this very website went dark after that update, along with youtube, my email, etc…

When I opened my spreadsheet that morning, this is what I was greeted with.

So it was either dig through the settings to manually force light mode everywhere, change to a different “light” theme, or fix my preferred theme. I am thrilled I was able to track down the actual value that determines its classification.

dzon · February 15, 2025, 6:27pm

I see. I don’t have that prob. Cause like I said, I don’t care if something should, by definition, be light or dark, black or white.