There is no way to change light / dark theme for sound / brightness progress popups

[cadilluck]

Not an issue – more like feature request:

I don't know if this worked in the app earlier.
For me the problem arrived in macOS Catalina.

Earlier this was easily solved manually by command in terminal (without Gray app):
defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes

Hope it's not too complicated and you'll be able to add this to Gray app.
Will make lots of people happy.

[cadilluck]

Just to explain in details:
when you try to adjust volume or brightness using keyboard buttons,
even if you have dark Dock and top bar (with light theme as default)
– those square popups with progress bars are still in a light theme,
which makes them totally unreadable.
And there is no way to switch them separately to the dark.

[zenangst]

Hey @cadilluck

Sounds doable to me, seeing that the rest of Gray's functionality is based on running terminal commands it should be pretty easy to provide.

[cadilluck]

Great, however the problem is that this exact command doesn't work for volume/brightness anymore, since Catalina. Does incl bar and dock, as earlier though. Seems like they've changed 'handle' / 'linking' or 'placement' of brightness/sound overlays. ;-(

[cadilluck]

any idea how to find the proper code / terminal command to modify these controls' theme?

[zenangst]

Hey @cadilluck, I have yet to figure out which process owns that UI, without knowing which one it is we a really at a standstill I'm afraid. I'm gonna do some more digging, I'll get back to you when I have something new to report.

[cadilluck]

thank you, dig as well, however no success yet knowing the process would save the nerves ;-)

[cadilluck]

no news? too hard? (

[zenangst]

Hey, I still haven't been able to figure this one out, sorry! 💔

[Etheryte]

Following this Apple Stack Exchange discussion it seems the configuration of those popups is /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.OSDUIHelper.plist, however that's a readonly system volume on Catalina and isn't modifiable out of the box.

[zenangst]

@Etheryte Oh, that is interesting. I wonder if we could incorporate that into Gray if the application has full disk permissions. I'll look into it.

[Etheryte]

Adding the flag to the file seems to work partially, as in some of the UI is updated, the rest is in a weird state. However, editing this file can only be done by disabling SIP as far as I can see, so it's out of reasonable reach for most users.

[cadilluck]

glad you found that, sad about negative sides what if there is a copy of that file in /user/library/launch agents – won’t it automatically load for that exact user? in that folder the file will become editable / any rights possible to set or no and no other possible solution?