Issue Summary

In Jira Data Center, the “Drop-down menu item – text color” setting under Administration → System → User interface → Look and Feel is intended to style the text of items in dropdown menus only.

In Jira 10.3.x this behaves as expected:

• The configured color applies to dropdown menu items (e.g. Issues menu).

• The Manage Filters page sidebar (“Favorite”, “My”, “Popular”, “Search”) keeps its standard text color and is not affected.

In Jira 11.3.3, the same setting now also changes the text color of the Manage Filters sidebar links. This causes the sidebar to inherit the dropdown text color, which can severely reduce readability (for example, when a light dropdown color is chosen on a light theme) and represents a regression in behavior between 10.3.x and 11.3.3.

This appears related to previous regressions where the dropdown text color leaked into non-dropdown UI components, but specifically affects the Manage Filters sidebar in 11.3.3.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start a Jira Data Center 11.3.3 instance.
2. As a system administrator, go to Administration → System → User interface → Look and Feel.
3. Under Colors, set Drop-down menu item – text color to a distinctive color (e.g. bright green #00FF00).
4. Save the Look and Feel changes.
5. In the top navigation bar, open the Issues dropdown and confirm that its menu items now use the configured color.
6. Navigate to Issues → Manage filters (/secure/ManageFilters.jspa).
7. Observe the left-hand sidebar entries: Favorite, My, Popular, Search.

Expected Results

• The Drop-down menu item – text color should affect only text in actual dropdown menus (e.g. Issues dropdown, Tools/Export dropdowns), consistent with behavior in Jira 10.3.x.

• The Manage Filters left sidebar links (“Favorite”, “My”, “Popular”, “Search”) should retain the standard navigation text color defined by the theme, and should not inherit the dropdown text color configuration.

Actual Results

• In Jira 11.3.3, after changing Drop-down menu item – text color, the Manage Filters left sidebar links (“Favorite”, “My”, “Popular”, “Search”) also adopt this color.

• This is a behavior change compared to Jira 10.3.x, where the same setting did not affect the Manage Filters sidebar.

• Depending on the chosen dropdown color and theme, this can significantly reduce contrast and readability of the Manage Filters navigation. (see attached screen captures)

Workaround

We can add an announcement banner to override the color to #172B4D

<script type="text/javascript">
  AJS.toInit(function () {
    try {
      // Only run on Manage Filters page
      var path = window.location.pathname.toLowerCase();
      if (path.indexOf("managefilters.jspa") === -1) {
        return;
      }
      // Inject CSS overriding sidebar link color on Manage Filters only
      var css = `
        /* Manage Filters left sidebar nav */
        /* Adjust selectors if customer HTML differs */
        .managefilters-sidebar a,
        .managefilters-sidebar a:link,
        .managefilters-sidebar a:visited,
        ul.vertical.tabs li a,
        ul.vertical.tabs li a:link,
        ul.vertical.tabs li a:visited {
          color: #172B4D !important; /* standard Jira text-like color */
        }
        /* Active tab styling (optional) */
        ul.vertical.tabs li.active a {
          color: #172B4D !important;
          font-weight: 600;
        }
      `;
      var styleEl = document.createElement('style');
      styleEl.type = 'text/css';
      styleEl.appendChild(document.createTextNode(css));
      document.head.appendChild(styleEl);
    } catch (e) {
      // Failsafe: don't break the page
      if (window.console && console.error) {
        console.error("Manage Filters sidebar color override failed", e);
      }
    }
  });
</script>