Change button background color or text color

[clarkw]

I can't find a place to change the background color or the text color for the buttons in a requestor pop-up. The black-on-blue is just unreadable: see attachment
I'm not trying to change the page color as that is pretty simple. It is the button color on the requestors.
Please tell me there is a way to make the text light grey or the background something other than dark-blue.

Any assistance is appreciated TIA,
ClarkW

[FJCC]

I am shooting in the dark on this, having never seen such a thing. Try going to the menu OpenOffice.org -> Preferences, expand the OpenOffice list on the left and select Appearance. What does the Scheme at the top say? Are there any alternatives listed to the selected scheme? The rest of that dialog has several options for changing the colors of specific features, but I don't see anything that affects the buttons on dialogs.
Also, see Q15 in this tutorial. I don't understand what is being adjusted there, but the word "colors" is in the text.

[UnklDonald418]

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect what you refer to as "a requestor pop-up" is what is called a Dialog in OpenOffice.
Use Tools>Macros>Organize Dialogs to open the OpenOffice Basic Macro Organizer. On the Dialogs tab Navigate to the dialog you want to change and select Edit.
In the Dialog editor window, first select a button so the green handles appear around it. Right click and select Properties to open a Properties: Command Button dialog.
On the General tab scroll down to the Background Color property and use the list box to select a new color.
Or, select the ellipsis to the right of Font to open a Character dialog.
On the Font Effects tab you can select a Font Color.

[clarkw]

The scheme is "OpenOffice" and it is the only scheme listed. I have been through those options several times (in hope or desperation or both) but none affect the presentation of buttons. AOO is almost impossible to navigate with this scheme. Are there other schemes? How do I get those? I'll do another search. This is one of those things that developers look at and ask themselves "didn't anyone RUN this thing before release?" I say this with no disrespect intended to those developers who put together AOO and especially the macOS version. It is powerful and effective but little quirks are difficult not to shale one's head at.

Thanks for the suggestions though.
ClarkW

[clarkw]

UnklDonald418
Thanks for the reply...Yess any "dialog" looks like the one attached. Dark blue button with black text. Hard for these old eyes to read that stuff. I tried what you said to do and got theTools dialog editor. When I click on the button to get the selection green handles I right click and only get copy/paste not a properties entry.

ClarkW

[FJCC]

You could also try resetting your user profile as explained in Q02 of the tutorial I linked previously. I agree those blue buttons with black text are tough to read, I just have no idea how to achieve that. All of my dialogs have always had grey buttons.

[UnklDonald418]

When I click on the button to get the selection green handles I right click and only get copy/paste not a properties entry.

I get that result when the dialog is stored in OpenOffice Dialogs library folder or a (read only) document.

[Bill]

I don't use a Mac. I found an old topic about this problem using Google. See if anything posted there about changing the Mac settings helps.

[Solved] Dialog Boxes are dark blue, cannot read.

[clarkw]

Everything in all of these posts has been extremely helpful. I appreciate the links and the threads.

The problem seems to be two fold.

• macOS has had for quite sometime (10.8) two modes that are generally used to display the desktop: These are found in the system Preferences under the General tab Appearance option. The two options are: Blue and Graphite. A developer is supposed to start from these and then design the app around one of these two desktop presentations. The Apple HIG (human interface guide) describes this. If you create a native InterfaceBuilder (IB) button it should then look like the attachment when Blue is selected. If Graphite is selected it has a slightly metallic look.

• Multiple schemes appear not to have been implemented in AOO and if anyone ran AOO on the Mac they didn't notice the look of some of the dialogs. The blue is being added by the AOO app itself. Many of the dialogs in AOO are not editable. Some are but there a fair number that are not. If the Apple default mode were used and the button color is dark blue the text should be presented as white (see the default combo-box arrows on the IB combo box widget).

In short there is no way around the problem currently.

There has been some finger pointing between Apple and AOO regarding this problem. Bottom line is Apple describes how this should be done for Apple's macOS in the HIG and AOO's default display should follow that lead. If AOO wants to invent universal schemes (skins) or editors for dialogs that is perfectly okay but the default presentation should be readable on a default installation regardless of platform. Whose right? Whose wrong? WHO CARES. The macOS AOO app needs to use the macOS defaults.

BTW changing to Graphite is no better the dialogs just become a dark gray with black text and are still difficult to read. If you customize your presentation on the macOS side so that AOO is readable all other apps you run will suddenly be rather difficult to look at or read and other AOO dialogs become unreadable instead.

I tried a lot of things here: ripped out the ~/Library entries (User and root) completely reinstalled on default macOS after rebuilding the system disk etceteras.

So thanks for everyones assistance; those of us with macOS will just have to wait for AOO to decide if the effort is worth it on the macOS version I think.
macOS version 10.13.6 High Siera
ClarkW

[UnklDonald418]

Have you tried Libre Office?
Very similar to AOO and I hear that that it may work better with Apple products.

[clarkw]

Thank you for the suggestion.
I don't like WEB based apps.
I especially don't like that I can't use them unless I'm connected.
I spend a lot of time unconnected; I think I'll just have to wait.
ClarkW

[UnklDonald418]

LibreOffice is not web based. They offer 2 differently numbered versions, one that has proven to be stable and another that hasn't been as fully tested.
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/
LibreOffice has the same modules and uses the same files as OpenOffice, and most of the answers to questions on this forum apply to both. The icons are different and a few menus have been rearranged but it is not difficult to make the switch. I have both installed on my Windows 10 system, and can open/edit any file with one that was created with the other.
LibreOffice is more actively developed and bug fixes occur more quickly.
LibreOffice offers both 32 and 64 bit versions while OpenOffice is only available in 32 bit.

[lgusaas]

LibreOffice is more actively developed and bug fixes occur more quickly.

And less stable

LibreOffice offers both 32 and 64 bit versions while OpenOffice is only available in 32 bit.

Apache OpenOffice for macOS is 64 bit only. macOS is a 64 bit only system.(Note that this is a Mac forum)
Linux versions are available in 32 bit 64 bit versions.

[Zizi64]

LibreOffice is not web based. They offer 2 differently numbered versions, one that has proven to be stable and another that hasn't been as fully tested.

There are web based versions today, but the main (original) version is a locally installed (normal) software.

Web based verions:

- LibreOffice Online
- Collabora Online
- CODE
https://www.collaboraoffice.com/communi ... ra-online/


Fresh and Still versions for normal (local) installation:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/