Any possibilities for system wide dark theme support on android 9 based builds in future?
Recently as LineageOS moved to android 11 the support for X01BD (Zenfone Max Pro M2) was dropped due to lack of maintenance. Android 9 is only viable option for me as wireless cast feature is hit-or-miss above android 9. As I understand system wide theming is supported from android 10 but as /e/ is revamping the user interface I thought this is high time for including support for theming.
What I am trying to suggest is theming support on apps developed or forked by /e/. Currently Dark Mode on android 9 only supports the system (excluding the notifications) and a couple of AOSP apps like calculator and deskclock. It’ll be great if /e/ can add theming support for notifications and apps like calendar (etar supports theming natively but the version forked by /e/ does not), tasks, dialer, contacts, gallery, music, recorder etc. All of these apps can be themed using substratum but only on pure AOSP versions (e.g. Stock LineageOS) but as /e/ has modified the UI and names of these apps, no substratum theme is able to detect or theme those apps. This is not good.
I don’t know what’s the situation on /e/ builds based on android 10 as I don’t own any devices supported by /e/ Android Q. All I can tell is /e/ should have at least possibility for theming the apps that come preinstalled as third party theming may not be supported by /e/ and also should not rely on rooting the device just to change the bright light of dialer or contacts to dark soothing colors. This is a very basic feature on almost all platforms nowadays including web standards.
Also currently changing system theme to dark from system settings on android 9 makes some texts awkwardly invisible (white text on white background or black text on black background like keyboard suggestions while typing this). File Manager has dark mode everywhere except the header. Calculator is also a weird mix of dark and light themes. I believe this bugs will eventually get ironed out but the lack of integrity on a system basis theming is ugly.
What are your thoughts on this matter? I have not found anyone yet saying anything about theming (and I refuse to believe I am the only user who prefers dark mode).
