[dolphin] [Bug 508294] Focus indicator fails to disable

[skaffi]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=508294

skaffi <skaffi.secluded835 at slmails.com> changed:

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--- Comment #7 from skaffi <skaffi.secluded835 at slmails.com> ---
> The main reason this change was implemented was for accessibility. For instance, it helps folks who have vision issues more easily see which item has focus. You're essentially asking if we could just make things harder for a group of our users.

Accessibility isn't monolithic. What assists one group, can sometimes hinder
another. In such cases, the change should be optional.

For people with ADHD and/or autism, certain visuals can be distracting, or feel
incredibly noisy - uncomfortably so - while certain other visual ques can help
to keep focus, or make it easier to keep your bearings. I can only speak for
myself, but Dolphin has become somewhat less accessible to me with 25.08, as a
result of this change, and the change to the location bar.

While the effect might "objectively" look quite nice, rounded edges and
transparency effects are distracting and unpleasant to me in practice. The
previous effect was themeable, while this one doesn't seem to be (or maybe
application styles or kvantum themes needs to be updated for it, but many
probably never will be). Theming, to be sure, is not just about sensibilities
regarding style. You can achieve real accessibility gains, such as through
managing contrast levels - and with the fine control over colour that was
available to me, I was able to get applications to use one colour for
selections, and a very opposite colour for things in focus, which helps to
bring clarity.

The greatest negative impact, however, comes from what I'll call "dirty, lying
whitespace". Before, there was this very neat, intuitive clarity about the
spatial extents of a file in a folder. It was always exactly equal to what
visually represented it - namely icon and text field. That's completely thrown
out the window now, with a large amount of whitespace now belying its
functionality, since there is now no clear visual border between space that
represents a file, and space that doesn't, until *after* you have already
crossed the threshold into represents-a-file territory, revealing it through
selection or cursor hovering. This part trips my brain up.

Besides how it doesn't jive with my brain, it also just feels too difficult to
select whitespace now, even if I could easily see the extents of the fields
around each file. I never had much trouble selecting files, but now, selecting
whitespace has become difficult enough to make me conscious of it, and I do
fail at it sometimes, especially in a crowded folder.

I welcome this new effect, if it can make a great file manager more accessible
to some, but I will bemoan if it has to come at an accessibility cost to
others. I am only left thinking, "¿Por qué no los dos?".

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