Tk Source Code

TIP #496 ([11fcd2c708]) added support for placeholder text in Entry widgets. The default -placeholderforeground is currently specified as #b3b3b3 (gray70) for all platforms. However, some platforms already provide a specific system color that should be used for this purpose. On macOS 10.10 and later, this is placeholderTextColor. There may be a similar system color on Windows, however I'm not sure there is a more specific one to use than COLOR_GRAYTEXT.

Merged into trunk.

A few further commits later (to make use of the updated mac color files - thanks Marc!, and to update the documentation), I believe this rfe branch is ready to be merged into trunk.

I will proceed soon, unless new comments gets submitted.

Now done (both the revert and the ttk widgets adaptation). Please see the rfe branch.

Comments? Thanks!

Indeed. I have reworked this, see the rfe branch. I have updated the documentation as well.

I tried to use the same color name on Windows as on macOS. This led to name this color systemPlaceholderTextColor on both platforms, which is slightly inconsistent with how colors are named on Windows (it would rather have been systemPlaceholderText on Win). Not fully sure what is the right thing to do here, I will probably revert to systemPlaceholderText on Win after all.

There is still the ttk::entry widget to deal with.

Sorry for the confusion: I had referred to the system colors as named by platforms' APIs; they need to first be defined in tkWinColor.c, tkMacOSXColor.c, etc., before they're ready to be used in tkWinDefault.h, tkMacOSXDefault.h, etc.

So on Aqua, the color would likely be named "systemPlaceholderTextColor". (This could be safely done for 8.6 though it would be unused.) tkMacOSXColor.c is also where compatibility with older systems would be handled: on 10.9 and earlier there is NSColor grayColor. Or possibly there is another close-enough system color (one that Tk might already be using).

I also do not currently know if there is a better alternative for X11.

Thanks for making this observation. I have committed the change you suggest in [5fc386f85b].

A few remarks/questions:

• I could test on Windows: COLOR_GRAYTEXT is very close (if not identical) to the previous default #b3b3b3 (gray70). Fine.

• I could not test on the mac because my remote access to a mac is currently broken. Can you try perhaps?

• On the mac #b3b3b3 is still used as default for macOS versions before 10.10. Are you aware of a better choice?

• On Linux I made no change and kept #b3b3b3 since I could not find anything relevant on the subject on the internet.