Simulink colors inconsistent with dark desktop color scheme

I'm using Matlab 2019b on Linux. My desktop color scheme is dark (KDE/Qt), so mostly light text on dark background. Simulink tries to match that for parts of the user interface, which is nice, but it doesn't get it quite right. I get light text on light background and dark text on dark background in some places, which is near unreadable or entirely unreadable (see screenshot, notice the search box, the dropdown menu with search results as well as the navigation bars on top and left of the canvas).

I don't really care too much whether simulink matches my desktop colors or not, but I don't want to change my desktop colors and I would like readable text in Simulink. Simulink appears to have no color scheme settings and is unaffected by color scheme settings in MATLAB.

[Facundo Aguilera]

Have you found a solution?

[Malte Eggers]

No.

2022a has the same issue.

[Loïc Alexandre]

Still the same problem for me with matlab 2023b. Have you found a solution ?

Answer 1

[Franklin Ronald]

Hi.

I'm using environment variables to set a light theme to MATLAB only.

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME
GTK_THEME=Adwaita:light

And Simulink is light but usable.

[Devin]

Hi all,

This fix does work great but if you launch MATLAB through the GUI like I do you can apply this fix permanetly by editing MATLAB's .desktop file.

Find MATLAB’s .desktop file (Usually in /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop or ~/.local/share/applications/matlab.desktop).

Edit it using a text editor:

nano ~/.local/share/applications/matlab.desktop

Find the line starting with Exec= and modify it like this:

Exec=env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME GTK_THEME=Adwaita:light matlab -desktop

depending on how your .desktop is set up it may be the directory to the MATLAB launcher and in that case, put

env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME GTK_THEME=Adwaita:light

before the dierctory like so.

Exec=env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME GTK_THEME=Adwaita:light /usr/local/MATLAB/R2024b/bin/matlab -desktop

Save and exit, then refresh the desktop database:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

Now, MATLAB should always launch with these environment variables, even from the GUI.

[Martino]

Hello, I can confirm that the issue is still present on Fedora 42 (KDE 6.3.5) with MATLAB 2025a.

Forcing the default Gnome GTK theme for MATLAB by adding these environment variables to the .desktop file is still a good workaround

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME GTK_THEME=Adwaita:light

(although we shouldn't still need to use a workaround after 5 years of this issue being reported).