theme, transparency and highlighting

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hey,

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011 19:05:44 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> 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.

Was also the first thing to strike me, the wallpaper is just utterly 
unsuitable. (I actually know this wallpaper quite well since I tested it for a 
few weeks for Nuno while we considered it for default in Plasma Desktop. It 
looks very nice at first glance, but becomes annoyingly heavy on the eye after 
a while. The "no way to see spot the selection" on this background is just 
another problem of this wallpaper. I'm also pretty sure blue as highlight 
color won't work here.

Brings up the point that we need a set of suitable wallpapers for Plasma 
Active. If the user chooses a wallpaper with bad contrast, fair enough, that's 
his problem. The default should support legibility and shininess (in that 
order) though.

I find HorosGreen to work pretty well, btw.

> 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.

See here for two examples:

http://wstaw.org/m/2011/07/20/plasma-desktopZO4116.jpg

Cheers,
-- 
sebas

http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9
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