Fix invisible tooltip text with Windows High Contrast Black (Inversed, white text on black background)

(using Win 8.1/Inkscape 0.92.4, no Inkscape theme, relying on Inkscape applying system theme)

I had this issue for many versions of software that uses gtk.  You don't want to know how much time I have used Inkscape & Gimp without tooltips.  Using Windows High Contrast can be a real headache-- it actually prevented me from completing the forum registration because Windows & FireFox's High Contrast stripped out the colors in the second question of the process and I couldn't see the colors to answer it.

What worked for me:

1) Close Inkscape.

2) With File Explorer, go to C: > Program Files > Inkscape > Share > Themes > MS-Windows > gtk-2.0 (if Inkscape is installed on the C Drive, it's the same path if its on another drive though)

3) In that folder, there's a file named “gtkrc”, rename it (F2 key) to “gtkrcoriginal”.  a pop up warning will ask if you are sure, tell it "to make it so"

4) Right click on "gtkrcoriginal”, choose "Open with" and from the programs listed, choose "Notepad"

5) With the "gtkrcoriginal" file open in Notepad (or other text editor), paste the following at the end of the file:

###########################################################

style "hiconinverse-tooltips-style" = "gimp-dark-default-style"
{
  xthickness = 7
  ythickness = 4

  bg[NORMAL] = "#000000"   #ffffff original value
  bg[SELECTED] = "#000000"   #unknown function not changed
  fg[NORMAL] =  "#ffffff"   #000000 original value
}

widget "gtk-tooltip*" style "hiconinverse-tooltips-style"

###############################################################

6) CRITICAL PART: tell Notepad  (or other text editor) to save the file using the SAVE AS command and save the file as "gtkrc” (not "gtkrcoriginal" don't include the double quote marks).  If your text editor insists upon adding ".txt" to the filename, no worries-- see next step.  Also make sure its saving the file to the folder it came form (the Inkscape > Share > Themes > MS-Windows > gtk-2.0 folder).

7) Close Notepad and go back to File Explorer, it should be still at C: > Program Files > Inkscape > Share > Themes > MS-Windows > gtk-2.0.  If "gtkrc” is named "gtk.txt", rename it (using F2 key) to “gtkrc".  The pop up warning will again ask if you are sure, tell it "to make it so".

8) Close File Explorer and start Inkscape and you should have white text on black backgrounds.  This also works with Gimp 2.8 which is gtk 2 so it should work for older Inkscape versions.

Welcome Innominate_Null !

Thanks for sharing  🙂

Glad to be of help-- there's not much on the Web about fixing the invisible tooltip text issue so I figured I should post what I found to work.

An addition to the initial post

FOOTER:

TROUBLESHOOTING:

A) If you make a mistake with Step (6) saving your edited file

1) didn't change the file name to gtkrc but overwrote gtkrcoriginal

a) Inkscape will start but will have default white theme, Windows system theme won't be applied.
b) Reopen gtkrcoriginal, delete the section you pasted into the gtkrccoriginal file in Step (5) and save file.
c) and using the gtkrcoriginal file you have open in a text editor, repeat Step 6's instruction-- save the file using the SAVE AS command and save the file as "gtkrc” (not "gtkrcoriginal" don't include the double quote marks). Follow the rest of Step 6, 7 & 8 again.

2) If things don't work as advertised or you wish to return to the default gtkrc, you can simply delete the edited gtkrc and rename gtkrcoriginal to gtkrc or delete the section you pasted into the gtkrc file in Step (5).

a) if you change Windows system theme at a future date, you will probably need to remove this fix and restore the gtkrc to the default gtkrc (saved as gtkrcoriginal) so it doesn't interfere with the new system theme.