Active Selection: Text Color

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salv0
Posts: 7
Joined: 2016-02-04 20:00:38

Active Selection: Text Color

Post by salv0 »

I have NWP on two Macs. When I select text on my MacPro, the text color remains the same (my preferred behavior). On my MacMini, when I select the text, that text changes to white, no matter what color that text was when it was not selected. I remember pulling my hair out getting the MacPro to behave as desired way back when -- unfortunately, I failed to note my discovery, and regret that very much. Please point me in the right direction so that I can adjust the MacMini to behave the same way. This feature is far from intuitive.
MacMini(Late2014) & MacPro(Late2013):
NWP 3.0.4
OSX 10.14.6
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Active Selection: Text Color

Post by adryan »

G’day, salv0 et al

Have you looked here?

Preferences > Appearance > Colors > Selection > Active Selection, then set the color.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
salv0
Posts: 7
Joined: 2016-02-04 20:00:38

Re: Active Selection: Text Color

Post by salv0 »

Thank you for following up, Martin. Yes I have. No matter how dark or light I set the color, selected text consistently switches from black to white. Setting opacity high or low still leaves me with white text selections. Of course, setting the color to white visually makes selected text disappear. Changing the page color from white to grey did not alter the selected text from white.

Could this behavior, that differs between my two Macs, be influenced by some OSX setting?
MacMini(Late2014) & MacPro(Late2013):
NWP 3.0.4
OSX 10.14.6
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martin
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Re: Active Selection: Text Color

Post by martin »

That sounds very strange! But just to confirm, you are saying that merely selecting text will change the text's color, as if you had chosen the menu Format > Text Color > White. Is that correct? If so then there's certainly no setting to control it, as it's a totally crazy behavior that indicates some kind of bug or problem. A few questions:

1. Have you customized the default color of your text? I'm not referring to the selection color, but rather the default text color in various views. For example, in the Appearance preferences there are settings to control the "Draft text" color, the "Full screen text" color, etc.

2. When the problem occurs, what happens if you use the menu Format > Text Color > Remove Text Color Formatting? Does that restore the text's default black coloring?
salv0
Posts: 7
Joined: 2016-02-04 20:00:38

Re: Active Selection: Text Color

Post by salv0 »

Your comparative description is correct, martin.

Regarding Appearance preferences, Draft text, Full screen text, and Navigator text are all set to black.

When the problem occurs, Format > Text Color > Remove Text Color Formatting is disabled. In the menu, Black is checked.

My wife and I have separate profiles on each host. I found that my wife's profile, on the "troubled" MacMini, does not have this issue in NWP. So this issue is unique only to my profile on the MacMini. Her profile on this MacMini is really just a backup for her (virtually unused); her Mac activities are restricted to the MacPro. I, on the other hand bounce back and forth between each host. We acquired the MacMini on July 2017 and the MacPro on April 2019; the MacMini probably started with NWP v2 and the MacPro started with NWP v3.

For what it's worth, TextEdit exhibits the same strange behavior in my profile, yet behaves correctly in my wife's profile. In System Preferences > General > Appearance, switching from Dark (our everyday setting) to Light causes TextEdit to toggle the background from black to white, and the text from white to black; selecting the text makes it go white. When switching to Dark, TextEdit toggles the background to black, and the text to white; selecting the text keeps it at white. NWP remains the same either way -- white background, black text and white text when selected. Interesting that System Preferences search field also has this odd behavior of presenting text as white, whether in Dark or Light mode; the MacPro does not do this (selected text color is always preserved), nor does my wifes profile on the MacMini. I cannot help but think that this is an OSX issue at the profile level.
MacMini(Late2014) & MacPro(Late2013):
NWP 3.0.4
OSX 10.14.6
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martin
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Re: Active Selection: Text Color

Post by martin »

Thanks for the additional information. Since you said TextEdit shows the same incorrect behavior, we can assume this is a system problem. Either that, or a problem with some software you installed.

Unfortunately I don't have any good advice as to why your Mac exhibits the problem, nor how to diagnose this. If you learn anything more (perhaps from Apple) I'd be curious to know how you resolve this problem. Good luck!
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