Brave-browser: dark theme mismatch for some UI items on older OSes

[LaurenWags]

Description

On older OS such as High Sierra, Chromium items (web ui, menus) do not go dark to match selected theme but Brave specific items (shields, toolbar) do.

Newer OSes (such as Mojave) do not have this problem.

Test plan / Steps to Reproduce

1. On a machine with an older OS, such as High Sierra, change theme to dark in settings.
2. Toolbar becomes dark as expected.
3. Visit a page and open shields. Verify shields are dark as well.
4. Open hamburger menu. It is not dark.
5. Visit a page like brave://bookmarks, history, etc.
6. Page is not dark but toolbar is.

Actual result:

Hamburger menu and page backgrounds do not match dark theme.

Expected result:

Hamburger menu and page backgrounds should match dark theme as shields and toolbar do.

Reproduces how often:

easily

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave | 0.65.113 Chromium: 75.0.3770.38 (Official Build) beta(64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 3860105745f2b12537da9e9f048f14c3f52ba970-refs/branch-heads/3770@{#618}
OS | Mac OS X

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the dev channel? yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? yes

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields? n/a
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards? n/a
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? per discussion with @petemill Chrome doesn't have dark theme for older OSes

Miscellaneous Information:

Some screenshots of how Mojave behaves can be found here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/3965#issuecomment-497002643

[simonhong]

I think this wouldn't be fixed because upstream chromium only support dark mode to native ui(ex menu) or webui for Mojave.

[bsclifton]

Given what @simonhong mentioned, I tagged with a waiting upstream label (as it doesn't make sense to go against Chromium for this). If it never gets addressed, we can likely close with wontfix

[LaurenWags]

Thanks @bsclifton @simonhong

A user noted this also happens on their Linux machine - https://community.brave.com/t/different-background-color-in-the-settings-page-on-different-platform/63243

[simonhong]

@LaurenWags Yup, this is expected behavior for current upstream implementation.
Dark mode is disabled by default on linux platform like old MacOS version.
I think we should support if user explicitly choose light or dark instead of Same as XXX.

[simonhong]

@LaurenWags I think this also can be happened on older Windows like Win7 and Win8 because they don't support dark mode. Can you check this on Win7 and Win8 also?

[LaurenWags]

@simonhong I don't have Win 8, but I can confirm this also happens for Win 7.

Brave 0.64.77 Chromium: 74.0.3729.169 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Revision 78e4f8db3ce38f6c26cf56eed7ae9b331fc67ada-refs/branch-heads/3729@{#1013}
OS Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Build 7601.24334

[Brave-Matt]

I can reproduce this on Win10 in both Nightly and Release builds. I have another user here confirming Laurens initial report:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/bxk3by/release_channel_update_v065118_is_live/eq8gxno?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2xhttps://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/bxk3by/release_channel_update_v065118_is_live/eq8gxno?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

[simonhong]

@Brave-Matt Thanks for checking this on Nightly on Windows.

In C75 (75.0.3770.80), dark mode support on Windows is disabled. (It was supported latest C74 by field trial).
and latest chromium enabled it. There is no kDarkMode feature in https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/ui/base/ui_base_features.h

#if defined(OS_MACOSX)
const base::Feature kDarkMode = {"DarkMode", base::FEATURE_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT};
#else
const base::Feature kDarkMode = {"DarkMode", base::FEATURE_DISABLED_BY_DEFAULT};
#endif

I assume(not sure) that chrome team internally picked https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1597930 because chrome 75 stable support dark mode on Win10. -> It was enabled by field trial.

@bbondy @bsclifton @mkarolin @rebron Should we also pick that?
If not, we don't have Same as Windows mode in Win10 with current Nightly(0.68).

Sorry for the noise. Nightly is different thing with this issue. Will create new issue.

[btlechowski]

Dark mode works awesome! Great work!

Verification passed on

Brave | 0.69.117 Chromium: 76.0.3809.100 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | ed9d447d30203dc5069e540f05079e493fc1c132-refs/branch-heads/3809@{#990}
OS | Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Verified steps from the description.
Also verified Light mode.

Verified passed with

Brave | 0.69.119 Chromium: 76.0.3809.132 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | fd1acc410994a7a68ac25bc77513d443f3130860-refs/branch-heads/3809@{#1035}
OS | Mac OS X

• Verified STR from description
• Encountered https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5423
• Also verified Light theme displayed as expected for hamburger menu and brave://settings, history, bookmarks, downloads
  
  
  

Verification passed on

Brave | 0.69.119 Chromium: 76.0.3809.132 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | fd1acc410994a7a68ac25bc77513d443f3130860-refs/branch-heads/3809@{#1035}
OS | Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601.24494)

Verified steps from the description.
Also verified Light mode.