Howdy all,

I don't use dark mode, so I never noticed this personally. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before, actually. From a short search, it seems the easiest fix is to tell the system to ignore dark mode for Pd so it will stay "light" but at least everything will be legible:

https://www.techjunkie.com/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos-mojave/

You can try it on your own by running the following in Terminal, then (re)starting the Pd gui:

    defaults write org.puredata.pd-gui NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool true

What's happening is that some elements are being changed to dark mode while others clearly are not. For instance, some of the canvas draw commands pick up the light gray/white from dark mode but are drawn over a white background. This is down to how Tk handles/doesn't handle dark mode and the default colors specified to Tk from Pd.

A proper implementation of this would involve having light and dark color schemes for Pd and possibly the GUI while updating Tk to use the non-color specific tint defaults and handle the color mode change Cocoa events, if it doesn't already do so.

I will add a bug fix PR which sets this automatically when you start the GUI, as with a couple of other settings which Pd needs by default. I honestly do not have the time to dig any further into this, ie. full dark mode support.

On Aug 13, 2020, at 12:00 PM, pd-list-request@lists.iem.at wrote:

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2020 18:43:05 -0300
From: Alexandre Torres Porres <porres@gmail.com>
To: "Scott R. Looney" <scottrlooney@gmail.com>, Pd-List
<pd-list@lists.iem.at>
Subject: Re: [PD] 0.51-1-test1 issues
Message-ID:
<CAEAsFmiJv-JYDZw4XX47gL8J0_RZWxinXw_4vuZJ2pwXzv_WiA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hi, I think we should address this in the pd list, I mean it as a request
for the feature to be available out of the box ;) hence I'm replying and
bringing this back to the list.

Anyway, here's Scott's message

Em qua., 12 de ago. de 2020 às 18:33, Scott R. Looney <
scottrlooney@gmail.com> escreveu:

hey Alex saw your comment on dark mode - regarding dark mode as far as i
know it's a pretty easy fix to change the default Tcl/Tk BG color . hit up
Mike (Fress Prench) on Discord for details. here's the relevant info from
his post:

*"Add this to the end of your pd-gui.tcl file
(Applications/Pd/Contents/Resources/tcl) option add
*PatchWindow*Canvas.background #ffe5b5"*

best,
scott

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 2:22 PM Alexandre Torres Porres <porres@gmail.com>
wrote:

btw, having dark mode working on macos and other systems would be
wonderful for owls like me who spent the night patching :)

Em qua., 12 de ago. de 2020 às 18:13, ffdd cchh <camarafede@gmail.com>
escreveu:

Hi Alex, et al,

Some comments on colors in macos:
I also see the greyish on the wish app (using Wish Tk 8.6.10 compiled or
from software.html). That is while you have the Light Appearance enabled.
Try switching your mac to Dark Appearance on your System Preferences, and
you'll note that the greyish turns blackish (!). Most concerning: while
cords and object boxes are bright, everything else is almost invisible.

--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com