Temporary KColorScheme change - hard-code some state colors

[Luciano Montanaro]

Il Sunday 16 September 2007 12:52:03 Jos Poortvliet ha scritto:
> On 9/15/07, Luciano Montanaro <mikelima at gmail.com> 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?
> >
> > What's wrong is that large parts of the screen have to be redrawn for no
> > real good reason...
> >
> > That means that
> > - Laptops will use more power
> > - Network sessions will be even more sluggish
> > - Slower machines will perform badly
> >
> > In the end, it would give substance to the bloated KDE meme.
>
> Do you have any idea how substantial this is? I mean, Mac OS X does
> it, is that the reason Mac OS X is so slow? 

Mac OS X Windowing system is quite different, the needed operations are 
properly accelerated, and in fact, the effect is quite different, I think.
The entire window text is probably affected. With Qt, the effect is applied 
even to some of the widgets in the same window, probably because they 
gain/lose keyboard focus. 

Did you actually try some applications using the new palette-changing code?

I can see the color propagating through widget groups...

> In many cases, not much 
> would change, nothing if you go from one full-screen window to
> another, and if you have several visible, only the one you switch from
> to another will change (and the one becoming active, of course).

Not really. See above. That may be what the intended effect is, but it's not 
what happens in reality.

The problem is that it happens regardless of the theme in use, so people 
cannot just switch theme to be able to ignore the problem.

> If 
> this helps usability (and that's the reason we do this), I'd say it's
> a small price to pay.

But does it help usability? Are usability experts reviewed the design for 
pitfall or usability problems?

The problem is that I see a great emphasis on the look, but technical hurdles 
or usability problems seem of no concern to the style developers. I hope I'm 
wrong.

Luciano