theme, transparency and highlighting

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011 18:02:49 Fania Jöck wrote:
> http://share.basyskom.com/contour/UIDesign/highlighting_COntour_1.jpg
> http://share.basyskom.com/contour/UIDesign/highlighting_COntour_2.jpg

hey! you cheated! ;) you used a background with squares: one of my least 
favorite wallpapers we shipped, btw, because of the noisyness of it and the 
similarity of the key component (squares) to that of things like selection 
(sqaures). it isn't just colour that affects the ability to detect selection, 
it's ime also shape (though in the common case, color is likely a stronger 
indicator). in the case of the wallpaper-of-squares, i doubt any square 
selection would jump out.

in any case, if you want to make sure it REALLY stands out, what is likely 
needed is a two-colour approach, with the outline being in contrast to the  
fill. that way when the fill blends into the background, the outline stands 
out and vice versa.

and then we can just as well use the translucent white with a highlight 
coloured outline.

in fact, this is precisely what we do in several places in plasma, e.g. 
outline in the highlight color (default: blue) around buttons (default: 
greyish) and it works nicely on all backgrounds.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/active/attachments/20110719/2baf21ae/attachment.sig