Calc Forms text box background color missing

I’m migrating a spreadsheet from Windows to Ubuntu Linux that has a few forms for data entry. Some of the text boxes and buttons have background colors assigned. The colors show up on Windows, but on Linux the backgrounds are all white. When I go into the design tool on Linux the preview displays the colors, but when the forms are run, the colors are missing. Searching the Internet hasn’t returned much except that there seems to be some interaction on both Windows and Linux between the OS Accessibility high contrast setting and whether the colors are displayed. I do not have this setting enabled. I am having this problem on more than one computer, running different versions of Ubuntu and different versions of LO.

With which version have you created the spreadsheet on Windows?

With which versions cannot you see it properly on Linux (saying “different” is not enough)?

Can you provide a sample to test?

The spreadsheet was created on Windows with LO 5.4.7.2 and works fine there. It fails to display correctly with the follow Linux/LO combinations: Ubuntu 16.04/LO 5.1.6.2, Ubuntu 16.04/LO 5.4.7.2, Ubuntu 16.04/LO 6.0.7.3 on one computer, and Ubuntu 18.04/LO 6.0.7.3 on another computer.

The spreadsheet is too big to easily provide a sample; almost 5 MB because of a large image and many sheets, macros, and forms that it contains. It’s getting late here now, but I will try to find someplace tomorrow to put screen captures from Windows and Linux that I can link from here.

I am new to LO and inherited maintenance of this spreadsheet, but will try to figure out how to create a minimal spreadsheet with just one of the forms to make debugging easier.

Please don’t provide any screen captures - if only to supplement a sample document. If needed, remove unrelated stuff from there; or make it from scratch; or put to a file sharing resource like dropbox. Screen captures don’t give any value by themselves - your description seems to be quite clear. Only test documents could allow to get more useful data.

I haven’t worked with forms yet, but need to learn how for this project. Creating a spreadsheet with just enough to support one of these forms would be a good learning exercise for me. I can share the result on dropbox. This may take me a couple of days.

I finally figured out how to create a small example that exhibits the same problem. Here is a link to it:

This was created on Windows and copied over and run on each of the OS/LO combinations that I listed above. The text box background color displays fine on Windows, but is missing on Ubuntu, although in some cases the background is white and others it is the same color as the overall background color of the dialog box, but never the same as the original Windows version.

However, if on Ubuntu you go into the dialog editor with the ColorTest form, the background color does display, the same as on Windows.

Run the form by going to Tools > Macros > Run Macro, Select FormColorTest.ods/Standard/Module2/StartColorTest and click on Run.

The form and macros don’t do much, but do consistently display the problem.

While waiting for any ideas anyone might have, I’m going to try creating a similar form directly on Ubuntu and see whether the colors are displayed and what happens if I copy from Ubuntu to Windows. Maybe something gets lost when copying the spreadsheet from Windows to Linux, although the color does show up in the dialog editor.

Sorry, this was intended to be a comment, not an answer.

Okay, this looks like a problem with Ubuntu that has nothing to do with copying from Windows.

I just created the same dialog box on Ubuntu LTS 16.04/LO 5.1.6.2 and observed the same problem. The color I specify in the dialog editor does not display when the macro starts the dialog.

Hello,

Have observed a number of problems (especially dealing with color) in dialogs. Have just tested with yours & if you remove the text box border (set to Without Frame) the color appears. Realize this may not be what you want but appears to be a bug.

Changing button colors also has its’ problems. For that you should view this post → How to change background color for button during runtime?

Great! I’ll have to get with the users, but I’m sure they’ll be fine with removing the border frame. The color is more important. Thank you for such a fast response!

Thank you also for the link to the button color issue. That is a problem for us too, but not as critical.

Worked for me too. Thanks