Footnote contrast is too low

[mara004]

Problem

The contrast of footnote texts clearly is too low, making them hard to read (light grey on white). However, they should not be too invisible, since footnotes sometimes contain important information.
Low contrast is annoying for everyone, but it is particularly bad for visually impaired people and reduces accessibility.

Reproducible Project

This is a text with an interesting footnote [1]_

.. [1] When compiling the documentation, the contrast of this text will be way too low

Expected Results

Consider using the normal black text colour for footnotes, or at least take a darker grey.

Environment Info

• Python Version: 3.8.5
• Sphinx Version: 4.0.2
• RTD Theme Version: 0.5.2

[mara004]

I think this got fixed with v1.1.0 - thanks!

[benjaoming]

Hi! Thanks for getting back to this issue!

I'm not sure how much contrast is desirable - but does the new footnote representation look good enough for you?

https://sphinx-rtd-theme.readthedocs.io/en/stable/demo/demo.html#footnotes

Otherwise, please feel free to reopen and weigh in! I think using a darker grey is a good option, but using the same color as the remaining text will make footnote blocks harder to decode or slightly less elegant if that term seems meaningful :)

[mara004]

Hmm, on my local documentation build that looked different:

(Note: The black background is because I'm using Chromium's auto dark mode - this is the RTD theme indeed)

The demo still shows the low contrast I initially reported, so I'll re-open the issue.

[mara004]

Ah, turns out I had a mismatched version of docutils installed (0.18.1 but sphinx-rtd-theme currently needs <0.18).
Once I corrected that, it's the low-contrast style again:

However, I have to admit I kind of preferred the other rendering even though it seems to have been a bug.

[benjaoming]

We are making changes to the footnote rendering with docutils 0.18 👍

We can solve this issue in #1351

[mara004]

@benjaoming Thanks for clarifying!