cleanup(theme): tokenize hardcoded slider sites (Panadapter / Eq / RadioSetup / FlexControl)

[nigelfenton]

Closes the second half of Pat's "both" answer to (a) the toggle namespace work (landed as #3198) and (b) the hardcoded-hex slider sites called out in #3188's Out of scope section.

Background

#3188 tagged four sites as bypassing the color.slider.* namespace entirely:

Hardcoded-hex slider sites in PanadapterApplet, EqApplet, RadioSetupDialog, FlexControlDialog bypass the theme system entirely. Each needs its local stylesheet dropped in favour of the global QSS + per-applet override path.

Each site used inline setStyleSheet(...) calls full of hardcoded hex values — so the v2 per-applet override path couldn't reach them, and theme switches required an app restart. This PR tokenizes the colours and routes through ThemeManager::applyStyleSheet so:

• the per-applet override cascade lights up automatically once a relevant scope exists (none of the four currently sits under applet/tx|rx|comp, so the immediate effect at root scope is the canonical Wave-blue / accent-success treatment);
• live theme switching (Dark ↔ Light without restart) re-resolves the tokens and repaints, matching the rest of the namespace-aware UI.

Approach — Option A (tokenize colours, preserve sizes)

Site-local slider dimensions are preserved intentionally — the four sites each chose bespoke handle widths / groove heights for the UX context they live in (Panadapter's tiny 8px handle for the CW bar, EqApplet's 10×16 vertical handle for band-column rhythm, RadioSetup's emphasis-sized 14px handle, FlexControl's 16px bordered ring).

Homogenizing them via applyPrimarySliderStyle would have been a more literal interpretation of "drop the local stylesheet" but would have introduced visible regressions across all four sites. Option A (tokenize colours, preserve sizes) achieves Pat's stated goal — sliders honour the theme system — without the visual cost.

Per-site notes

File	Sliders	Token migration
PanadapterApplet.cpp	2 pitch sliders (CW decoder bar)	#1a2a3a groove → {{color.slider.background}} #6a8090 handle → {{color.slider.handle}}
EqApplet.cpp	8 vertical EQ band sliders	#203040 groove → {{color.slider.background}} #00b4d8 handle → {{color.slider.foreground}} (the EQ idiom puts the accent colour on the handle itself — no sub-page rule)
RadioSetupDialog.cpp	3 filter-sharpness sliders (voice / cw / digital)	#1a2a3a groove → {{color.slider.background}} #c8d8e8 handle → {{color.slider.handle}} (lineoutSlider + hpSlider already inherit from the global QSS — no migration needed)
FlexControlDialog.cpp	2 sliders (spin / sensitivity) inside the dialog-wide kFlexControlStyle template	#162437 groove → {{color.slider.background}} #65d379 sub-page → {{color.accent.success}} (preserves FlexControl green identity) #d8e2ef handle → {{color.slider.handle}} #65d379 handle border → {{color.accent.success}} Body widget switched to applyStyleSheet so the tokens resolve + live re-theme registers

Verification

Windows 11 (MSVC + Ninja + Qt 6.10.3) on top of aethersdr/AetherSDR main at 4ee99f78.

Site	Default Dark	Default Light
PanadapterApplet pitch sliders	✓ dark groove + light handle	✓ light groove + dark handle — live re-theme adapts cleanly
EqApplet band sliders	✓ dark groove + accent-cyan handle	✓ handle resolves to light-theme accent (#0088b0)
RadioSetupDialog filter sliders	✓ dark groove + light handle	✓ light groove + dark handle — live re-theme adapts cleanly
FlexControlDialog spin + sensitivity	✓ dark groove + green sub-page + bordered handle	✓ sub-page green preserved (the green is color.accent.success which is green in both bundled themes; gray shades adapt around it)

theme_manager_test: zero new failures. The 4 pre-existing importThemeFromFile-related failures on clean main remain (Windows-vs-CI env issue, not introduced here).

Observed during testing — out of scope for this PR

While verifying in Default Light, two broader migration debt items came to light that go beyond this slider sweep:

• RadioSetupDialog light-theme contrast — kLabelStyle (color: #c8d8e8), kValueStyle (color: #00c8ff), kGroupStyle (border #304050, title #8aa8c0), and kEditStyle (background #1a2a3a) all hardcode dark-theme colours. Labels render as low-contrast pale text against the light-theme #f5f5f8 background, and edit fields look misplaced. Migrating those constants needs the same {{token}} + applyStyleSheet pattern and touches dozens of call sites across the dialog — a separate follow-up PR.
• FlexControlDialog whole-dialog migration debt — the dialog template hardcodes #0b1625 button backgrounds, #31455f borders, #65d379 FlexControl-green accents throughout. The slider rules now adapt to theme; the rest of the dialog stays dark in light theme. A separate "FlexControl light-theme migration" PR would close this; touching it here would have ballooned the slider-cleanup scope.

Both observations were flagged as candidates for the next cleanup sweep that follows this one.

Together with #3198

This PR completes Pat's "both" answer. With #3198 (toggle namespace carve-out) and this PR (slider site cleanup) merged, the four originally-cited problem sites from #3188's Out-of-scope section all become theme-system-aware and the toggle button class joins the slider + knob namespace pattern as a third carved-out widget type.

cc @ten9876 @jensenpat @chibondking

73 Nigel G0JKN

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[aethersdr-agent]

Thanks Nigel — this is a clean, well-scoped follow-on to #3188 / #3198. Reviewed against AetherSDR conventions and the slider/knob namespace work that landed in #3188.

What works well

• Scope matches the title exactly — four call sites, four files, no incidental drive-bys. The intentional decision to preserve site-local sizes (handle widths / groove heights) and tokenize colours only is the right call; the per-site dimensions carry real UX intent.
• All four tokens used (color.slider.background, color.slider.handle, color.slider.foreground, color.accent.success) resolve in both bundled themes — verified against resources/themes/default-dark.json (lines 160-166 for slider namespace, line 44 for accent.success).
• Switching bodyWidget()->setStyleSheet(...) to ThemeManager::applyStyleSheet(...) in FlexControlDialog.cpp:990-997 is the right shape — registers the body widget for live re-theme without changing its lifetime semantics.
• The choice to route FlexControl's green identity through color.accent.success rather than introducing a new color.toggle.success.* token here keeps the slider sweep tightly scoped while still letting a future FlexControl-tribe carve-out retint cleanly.
• Honest scope discipline on the call-outs in "Observed during testing" — flagging RadioSetupDialog label/value/group/edit hardcoded colours and the broader FlexControl dialog migration debt as separate follow-ups rather than scope-creeping this PR is the right call.

Conventions check

• RAII / Qt parent ownership: untouched, all slider widgets retain their existing parenting through layout addition.
• No QSettings / AppSettings interaction in scope.
• No new error paths at system boundaries — applyStyleSheet is the established path and handles missing tokens at the resolver level.
• No null deref risk; bodyWidget() is non-null by the time FlexControlDialog constructor reaches line 990.

One observation, not a request

The EqApplet handle uses {{color.slider.foreground}} rather than {{color.slider.handle}} — your PR description calls this out explicitly ("the EQ slider's visual idiom puts the accent colour on the handle itself"), and the in-file comment (EqApplet.cpp:79-86) documents the why. Worth noting that if EqApplet ever lands under applet/tx / applet/rx / applet/comp scope, the handle would retint to red/green/amber via the existing scope override — that's likely the intended cascade behaviour and matches the rest of the namespace, just flagging that it's a different cascade target than the other three sites in this PR.

Approving the design direction; no blockers from my read. 🟢

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