A design fault in Compose themeing/coloring :think...

# compose

[darkmoon_uk]

A design fault in Compose themeing/coloring 🤔 ?

Why does LocalContentColor always default to black, and this default is not overridden by a MaterialTheme block?
This means that even in Dark themes, the text colour inside a TextField , for example, is also black, leaving it hard to read.
The API comments talk about this being 'typically' set to MaterialTheme.onSurface - but don't say whether this is the direct responsibility of the developer, or how to do it.
This feels like something I shouldn't be handling directly - why do other Material elements adjust well to dark/light scheme, but the text inside a TextField does not? Either I'm missing something or this is inconsistent/broken?

Edit: Straw-man solution 👉 🧵

[darkmoon_uk]

I 'fixed' this issue in the Android Studio Compose template project (in which it's confirmed present), by editing the MyMaterialTheme class like so:

@Composable
fun MyApplicationTheme(darkTheme: Boolean = isSystemInDarkTheme(), content: @Composable() () -> Unit) {
    val colors = if (darkTheme) {
        DarkColorPalette
    } else {
        LightColorPalette
    }

    MaterialTheme(
        colors = colors,
        typography = Typography,
        shapes = Shapes
    ) {
        CompositionLocalProvider(LocalContentColor provides MaterialTheme.colors.onSurface) {
            content()
        }
    }
}

[darkmoon_uk]

...specifically by adding the block beginning:
CompositionLocalProvider(LocalContentColor provides MaterialTheme.colors.onSurface) { ...

[darkmoon_uk]

This sets the default content color to be the 'on surface' color of the theme. Which seems to me like what the default should always be.

[Kefas]

Why don't you use Surface?

[Ian Lake]

See the previous thread on why the default template always includes a Surface (/or get one for free by using Scaffold): https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1628359360407100