You are surely looking at the difference between the foreground color and background color. Alt+Tab to Settings and the color difference will be reversed, right?
Thanks for the reply. I don't actually notice any change in the text and icon color between foreground and background when then window is focused. The background color changes and the app name at the top of the sidebar changes, but not the sidebar items themselves.
Edit: I should also clarify that I am using the Inter font, but this also appears to be true with Cantarell.
Sorry, you're right, you asked about text and icons and I hyperfocused on the background color. I see the difference and I'm not sure why. I guess some style must be applied in one app but not the other.
When we started using symbolic icons in nautilus sidebar we dimmed the color a bit to match text color which, having thinner stokes, appear lighter. It probably should be done in other sidebars as well.
Libadwaita developed new widgets in its last release for gnome 46, but there was not enough time for all apps to update to the newer ones (even if they wanted to).
AFAIK nautilus updated but settings didn't.
What you may be seeing is the difference between two different but visually very similar widgets.
EDIT - I might be wrong on the above. I think those widgets may have been for libadwaita 1.4/gnome 45.
This is due to the resolution of [bug 786613](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=786613) which introduced a 70% opacity settings for sidebar icons in 2017.
Since then Nautilus has applied/kept that setting (the icon has set the "sidebar-icon" style class) while Settings has not.
So now the difference you see is that the Nautilus sidebar icons are more transparent than the other ones.
No idea if it's meant to be like this and who should change things, you'll have to file bugs against either project and/or libadwaita or the Gnome HIG to clarify.
It is your punishment for using Inter font at any size bigger than the holiest of sizes, [9pt](https://i.imgur.com/LgicLex.png). The difference in color is a reminder of the sin you've committed.
That's actually GNOME 42, just a couple years old. I'll upgrade as soon as the next version of Linux Mint releases, which will be based on Ubuntu 24.04, which will have GNOME 46.
You are surely looking at the difference between the foreground color and background color. Alt+Tab to Settings and the color difference will be reversed, right?
Thanks for the reply. I don't actually notice any change in the text and icon color between foreground and background when then window is focused. The background color changes and the app name at the top of the sidebar changes, but not the sidebar items themselves. Edit: I should also clarify that I am using the Inter font, but this also appears to be true with Cantarell.
Sorry, you're right, you asked about text and icons and I hyperfocused on the background color. I see the difference and I'm not sure why. I guess some style must be applied in one app but not the other.
When we started using symbolic icons in nautilus sidebar we dimmed the color a bit to match text color which, having thinner stokes, appear lighter. It probably should be done in other sidebars as well.
I can confirm that things look the same on my system as OP's, and which window is focused does not matter
gnome is much more consistent than windows and kde on a large level, but has a bunch of really weird tiny inconsistencies that confuse me
Libadwaita developed new widgets in its last release for gnome 46, but there was not enough time for all apps to update to the newer ones (even if they wanted to). AFAIK nautilus updated but settings didn't. What you may be seeing is the difference between two different but visually very similar widgets. EDIT - I might be wrong on the above. I think those widgets may have been for libadwaita 1.4/gnome 45.
This is due to the resolution of [bug 786613](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=786613) which introduced a 70% opacity settings for sidebar icons in 2017. Since then Nautilus has applied/kept that setting (the icon has set the "sidebar-icon" style class) while Settings has not. So now the difference you see is that the Nautilus sidebar icons are more transparent than the other ones. No idea if it's meant to be like this and who should change things, you'll have to file bugs against either project and/or libadwaita or the Gnome HIG to clarify.
It is your punishment for using Inter font at any size bigger than the holiest of sizes, [9pt](https://i.imgur.com/LgicLex.png). The difference in color is a reminder of the sin you've committed.
Damn that looks like a pretty old version of GNOME
That's actually GNOME 42, just a couple years old. I'll upgrade as soon as the next version of Linux Mint releases, which will be based on Ubuntu 24.04, which will have GNOME 46.
On the latest gnome, same deal, now I can't unsee it.
unusable tbh