Linux: The tabs text color changes with the theme, while the menu text color is always black.

Question

Hello,
When Firefox theme is changed, it usually changes window appearance, e. g. backgrounds, and sets corresponding text color to contrast with that background. It always used to be like this. For instance, I currently use Sunflower_01 theme which sets blue sky as a background. The tabs text is white, as well as the bookmarks. The white text contrasts very fine with the sky. But the menu items are awfully black, casting dark-gray shadows on the dark-blue sky. The menu remains black regardless of the theme I set.
Of course, it's all fine without any add-ons (light background, dark text), but with a theme enabled, it looks not the way it used to be. I wonder if it can be fixed somehow.
I use Mozilla Firefox 33.0 for Linux Mint (release 13, maya).
Looking forward to your reply.
Regards,
Andrey

Answer 1

Hello,
Did you install from the repositories? I have found the same problem with Ubuntu 14.04, a workaround is to either use a userChrome.css file, or (in my opinion, the easier route) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/ Stylish] extension with a new Style.
See these articles about the userChrome.css file:
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserChrome.css
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css_Element_Names/IDs
If you use the userChrome.css route, you may need to restart Firefox to apply the changes.
See this article for Stylish:
* http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1570945
To add a new style in Stylish, click on the Stylish tool on your toolbar, then "Write New Style", then "Blank style". Or:
* Tools (or [[Image: New Fx Menu]]) > Add-ons > User Styles > Write New Style
Example code for either one method you choose (you can play around with the colours, but I found this worked nicely for my theme):
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
/*change size, color, style of text in Menu Bar */
menubar > menu
{color: darkgray !important}
/* Mouse hovering over menu */
menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"]
{color: white !important;}
/* Active/Open menus */
menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"][open="true"]
{color: black !important;}