Temporary KColorScheme change - hard-code some state colors

[Jos Poortvliet]

On 9/15/07, Richard Dale <richard_dale at tipitina.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Saturday 15 September 2007, Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> > I'm not that opposed to what happens in my current build: the text and
> > widgets become more gray, but the background stays the same.
> > - the window doesn't flash
> > - the window is still readable
> > - yet it is clear which window is active and which is not
> >
> > Now, who can tell me what is wrong with that?
> Firstly the technical issue was that this was an experimental feature that was
> being checked into the trunk when we are in the middle of a freeze and close
> to a release. It threatens the stability of the release if made the default
> option, in my opinion and others.

Lets add to that how controversial the feature proved to be earlier...
 Yet I applaud matthew for trying new things. If this is easy to turn
of, it's not a big thing to test it until release. This is the only
way we can really innovate - try. And don't be to hard on those who
do. How about this:
>> punish mediocre successes, reward brilliant failures.

Yeah, that's something, right? But you see, any mediocre success is a
missed opportunity for a new, innovative, brilliant solution. And as
for every 5 things you try, only 1 works (it's actually a lot worse
but whatever), discouraging experimenting because it 'could go wrong'
is foolish and contra-productive.

Of course, there is a middleground between extremes here, but there'll
always be a tension between the safe road and seizing the opportunity.
We can expect discussions like the one we're having now - it's not
bad. We all should try to relax, not take it as too big a thing. I'm
sure Matthew never wanted to force stuff on us all, but merely tried
something. Is his patch really that risky, so close to release? I find
that hard to believe... hush hush.

> Secondly, my non-technical subjective view was that yesterday, I tried running
> konsole and dolphin and flipping between them so the active window changed. I
> didn't like the effect because it seems too 'heavy handed'. All the color of
> everything surrounding the QColumnView in Dolphin changes, the color of both
> the scrollbar and its background in the column view, also changes. It really
> put you off and was tiring, as the when the views changed, you had to adjust
> to the new color scheme.

I think in an even older svn version, the background even changed -
boy, was that annoying ;-)
Hey, I feel you in this, it should be unobtrusive.

> I've just booted Mac OS X Tiger and tried the same test, flipping between a
> Terminal and the Finder. I said yesterday that no windowing system changes
> the contents of a window when it becomes inactive, but I was wrong because it
> does happen on Mac OS X. The blue scroll bar controls become transparent
> grey, and similarly any selected text changes from blue to grey. The window
> title bar on the Terminal becomes a lighter grey, and the red, yellow and
> green window buttons become transparent. The drop shadow becomes less deep
> for the inactive window. All these effects are subtle, and you tend not to
> even notice them unless you were looking for them.

Well, then, it's mostly a subtlety thing, right? I think if we make it
even more subtle, it could be made default... But if it's really that
big, it should be a 4.1 thing. But that should be a technical
decision, then - "It's a huge change, with a big chance of breaking
things - let's delay it". If it's really small, let's find a way to do
it 'the right way' (TM) and get it in ;-)

> -- Richard
>
>