Spyder: Text-cursor is barely visible

[CorneeldH]

Issue Report Checklist

• [x] Searched the issues page for similar reports
• [x] Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• [x] Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• [x] Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  
  
  
  • [x] Restarted Spyder
  
  
  • [x] Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  
  
  • [x] Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  
  
  • [x] Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
  
  
• [x] Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

The text-cursor is barely visible in Spyder Dark Theme since it is black with a grey lining. I can't seem to find where to change the color of it.

I saw old issue that I was unable to open: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/451, I asked yesterday on SO as well: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52126942/changing-caret-text-cursor-color-in-spyder-dark-theme.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Change syntax coloring to Spyder Dark or any other theme with dark background
2. Open a file
3. Try to find the text-cursor

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I earlier used Sublime and never had this issue. Sublime text-cursor:

Spyder text-cursor

Versions

• Spyder version: 3.3.1
• Python version: 3.5
• Qt version: 5.6.2
• PyQt5 version: 5.6 on Darwin
• Operating System name/version: Mac OS X

[jnsebgosselin]

Thanks for your bug report.

Could you please provide your version of Qt and PyQt please? These are available from Spyder menu in Help > About Spyder

Note that I cannot reproduce this issue with Python 3.6.5 64bits, Qt 5.9.3, PyQt5 5.9.2 on Windows 10 on Master.

[CorneeldH]

Thanks for testing, I added the info.

[jnsebgosselin]

@ccordoba12 I've checked and I do not think this is something that we do in Spyder that is causing this. We let the OS handled the color of the cursor, so I think this is a macOS specific issue. So I do not know if this should be logged as a "bug" or "enhancement".

Also, it seems that it is not a Qt or a Spyder specific issue since other editors are/were also experiencing this problem on macOS:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=275589
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/754
https://github.com/lee-dohm/white-cursor

Sublime seems to be actively setting the color of the cursor, so that is why the cursor color is inverted there.

[adityapatile]

Is there a way to fix this via spyder preferences section ?

[CorneeldH]

I installed the new Mac OS (Mojave) in dark theme, and the problem was solved. I guess the default-mouse cursor colors of that Mac OS are fine in itself.

[jnsebgosselin]

@adityapatile Unfortunately, there is no way to change that in the preferences section. To fix this, we would have to override the default cursor provided by the OS.

@CorneelDragon Thanks for reporting back. This is much appreciated.

@ccordoba12 Is this something that you would like to fix on our end, even though the issue seems to have been fixed in the new Mac OS (Mojave) as reported by @CorneelDragon?

[ccordoba12]

We really don't have time for this, sorry.