[Solved] FT Deep Dark Theme 5.6 & PM 19.0.1 "About"

[geniusjjf]

Win XP Pro SP3 | PM 19.0.1 | AMD (0x954F), 1024 MB, V. 8.542.0.0 | Quad 9550 | 4 MB Ram

Have been using the FT Deep Dark Theme until my favorite 8 Ultimo is compatible (w/19), which may never happen in my lifetime. Anyway, the FT theme is not a bad substitute and I have been pleased with it on PM.

However, today they issued an update to fix some bugs, boasting a fix for "toolbar" or some such trivia and in the process they hacked the "About Pale Moon" window. Now, the theme turns the lovely PM window black, the PM Logo is gone, and, my eyes are insulted with an ugly red-orange Firefox tradmarked name. Following the "check for updates" button, all the PM moon stats remain as before. BTW, there is no FF logo either, just a blank area to the left of the stats.

Does anyone know how I could hack this theme to restore the PM Identity, i.e., the logo and the name?
I know it's trivial, but I really like to see what I am using in the About Box. Thanks in advance.

[Moonchild]

I'm not entirely sure how the theme you are talking about is constructed, but if they use separate CSS files for different parts of the browser, you could try yanking out "aboutdialog.css" since that is what holds the styling for the about box in Pale Moon and Firefox in the actual browser skin.
If they put it all in different style files, then I'm afraid you'll have to hunt through their CSS to find the appropriate style rules and change them.

FYI, I'll post the contents of the Pale Moon aboutdialog.css source here, so you can look for similar selectors in your theme if needed:

Code: Select all

/* This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
 * License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
 * file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/. */

#aboutDialogContainer {
  background-image: url("chrome://branding/content/about-background.png");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-color: #F7F7F7;
  background-size: cover;
  color: #000020; 
}

#leftBox {
  /* background-image: url("chrome://branding/content/about-logo.png"); */
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  /* min-width and min-height create room for the logo */
  min-width: 210px;
  min-height: 210px;
  margin-top:20px;
  -moz-margin-start: 30px;
}

#rightBox {
  margin-left: 30px;
  margin-right: 30px;
}

#bottomBox {
  padding: 15px 10px 0;
  background-color: rgba(240,240,255,.7);
}   

#updateDeck > hbox > label:not([class="text-link"]) {
  color: #909090;
}

#trademark {
  font-size: xx-small;
  text-align: center;
  color: #999999;
  margin-top: 10px;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
} 

[geniusjjf]

Thank you, moonchild, for your kind attention and reply. However, I was amazed that I could not find "aboutdialog.css" file anywhere on my entire hard drive. I looked in chrome files, thinking it was buried. No joy. I thought for sure I would find it in the default theme, but it is not anywhere to be found. I have built more than a few websites and many dozens of style sheets, so I am very familiar with css.

Anyway, I wrote to the author and asked for help to hack the "about" window and return it to its default formatting. In the mean time, I just wiped out the updated FT DeepDark v5.6 and reinstalled the previous v5.5 and the PM about box returned to its beautiful default.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my query.

[Moonchild]

I'm not familiar with how the theme was packaged - it's probably all packed in a jar and/or put into monolithic files.
aboutdialog.css in Pale Moon is packaged in the browser.jar file, if you need it. This is why I pulled it out for convenience for you here.

[geniusjjf]

For the rare soul who might be interested in a quick and dirty fix to restore the beautiful PM default About Box while using the FT DeepDark theme, I am including the instructions received from the theme author (stefrosselli.com), who was more than gracious and accomodating to my request.

1. go to your \Profiles\xxxx.default\extensions

2. open the theme's package folder with the serial number inside the brackets {}. If you are not sure which folder, just open each one and then open the readme file and it will have the theme name license.

3. open the "chrome.manifest" file in any text editor and delete the line "skin app_version ftdeepdark jar:chrome/ft_deepdark.jar!/app_version/19/ appversion<20.0a2"
save the file and restart PM.

That's it. The hack simply removes the pointer to the css class that styles the PM About Box and it will display its default style.

Thanks again, moonchild

[geniusjjf]

Update on different Dark theme: BlackFox V-2-Blue 2.0.8

Given that I will always and only use dark themes in PM, I can see that the "About" branding and version box is going to be a continual problem. Since one of my favorite themes (8Ultimo)became incompatible with PM 19 and is yet to be updated, I was forced to try another dark theme, i.e. the DeepDark theme that started this thread.

I might also add, when using PM 15.x.x I did not notice the problem with theming the "About" box (maybe it 8Ultimo theme did not include it in the theme structure. At any rate, I certainly am noticing it now in the V19 series.

At any rate, when I installed the BlackFox V-2, I immediately opened the "About" box and...what a mess. This time, it kept the PM BackGround, but it turned the text white (barely readable on the light BG) and it jammed its own BlackFox theme logo in a black box off to the right, apparently adding another css box in the window which stretched the window by about a third longer.

However, when I tried the clever trick posted here that I received from the author of the DeepDark theme, it had absolutely no effect on the ugly mess. Now, I had no choice but to figure out how to fix it, if I wanted to use the BlackFox theme and retain the PM "About" box.

The soultion was to use the css code that moonchild was kind enough to post. In order to use it, I had to unpack the .jar file within the theme folder, whereupon I found the "aboutdialog.css." Rather than trying to modify the theme's style code, I just replaced it with the PM code that moonchild provided, packed the .jar file again using the same file name and repaced the original file in the theme's folder. Success. The PM "About" box lives in all its intended glory, untouched by the theme's styles yet not interfering with the rest of the theme..

Perhaps, this "About" box needs to block themes from altering the original PM style, since it is obviously coded much differently than the firefox equivalent. Just a thought.

Anyway, thanks moonchild for the css code, without which I might have spent the rest of my life trying to fix.

[Moonchild]

Perhaps, this "About" box needs to block themes from altering the original PM style, since it is obviously coded much differently than the firefox equivalent. Just a thought.

It's possible, but a little tricky. Since the About dialog is pretty much standalone, there shouldn't be too much of an issue "locking it down" to prevent changes by themes, but I have to be careful that it won't break other code that refers to named parts of the dialog box.

[geniusjjf]

It's possible, but a little tricky. Since the About dialog is pretty much standalone, there shouldn't be too much of an issue "locking it down" to prevent changes by themes, but I have to be careful that it won't break other code that refers to named parts of the dialog box.

I agree, but as I see it, you are already half way there -- meaning that the PM About dialogue style is already incompatible with the full theme modifications.

Since all the themes we might choose are always designed for FF and since FF About dialogues accept the theme style changes without problem, there doesn't seem to be much of a choice.

The only choice would be to make the PM About dialogue box identicle to the FF style, except, of course, for the branding. But I do not believe that is the way to go. The existing PM dialogue is excellent as is -- it is distinctive in its style and design and should NOT be modified. I am sure you would agree that the existing About Dialogue is a unique branding in and of itself. Hence, a theme should not be allowed to alter that branding style.