plasma, panels, colours

[Nuno Pinheiro]

A Friday 07 November 2008 02:39:40, Aaron J. Seigo escreveu:
> On Thursday 06 November 2008, Nuno Pinheiro wrote:
> > A Friday 07 November 2008 00:22:24, Aaron J. Seigo escreveu:
> > > 	http://plasma.kde.org/media/light_coloured_panel.png
> >
> > i will prefer just to make active more diferent and maybe make the bg
> > more trasnparent... that will work..
>
> that's really just avoiding the issue (which i'll describe more clearly
> below)
>
> > > it's really a lot more appealing with a non-black background. it could
> > > still even be a dark colour, but i really don't know how many distros
> > > are going to keep with the default theme when the default is, well,
> > > rather bleak.
> >
> > The more I look at distros the more I'm positive they have no idea...
> > mandriva simply sucked... and  opensuse didnt look any beter...
>
> i agree; but what they were doing was looking at the default, deciding that
> wouldn't work with their audience (and i agree with them there) and
> replacing it. unfortunately, they aren't really qualified to make those
> replacements and so instead came up with something that is overall worse.
>
> and yet, here's the interesting thing, people in general respond better to
> those choices that the defaults. sort of an odd situation, but i'll talk
> about that below as well.
>
> > > i was hoping of putting this off until 4.3, but i'm increasingly
> > > thinking that waiting is not only unnecessary but also problematic.
> >
> > I think 4.3 is a good date to a major revamp to the style.
>
> sure. but i'm not asking for a major revamp. i just don't want
> white-on-black- on-black or black-on-grey-on-black ... why? again, see
> below.
>
> > IM not sure I undrstod what you ment by seting up a set of colors  by
> > code that would be applied to the theme? If so i tend to think its a bad
> > idea...
>
> those colours that would be accessible by code would be used exactly where
> they are right now: for text that is drawn on top of the SVGs, for things
> like the colour hintings on the pager, etc. we can already sort of tint
> SVGs as well, but that's a completely different topic.
>
> now, HOW we get those colours to tint text and coded highlights is
> currently overly simplistic and would make things such as a
> dark-elements-on-cream-base theme really hard or even infeasible.
>
> the current colour system does not really take a broad, all-encompassing
> approach to colour needs based on context such as "this text will get
> painted on that svg over there"
>
> > here are a couple of alternatives please have a look.
> >
> > http://www.nuno-icons.com/images/test/
>
> so, all of these pictures, while pretty in their own right, all really miss
> my concern, which falls into two parts:
>
> a) black as the foundational colour is not what i want to communicate to
> people. for those not familiar with colour psychology:
>
> 	 http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_black.htm
>
> black is a sexy and sophisticated colour, but when *everything* is black
> (or shades thereof) you instead get "ominous", "scary", "sad", "broken".
> there's a reason goth kids wander about in black-on-black-on-black, after
> all. it communicates a very specific message that is highly charged due to
> millions of years of evolving where night is dark and big scary things come
> out of that dark and eat you.
>
> black, however, can be sexy. when it's used as a highlight, as an anchor or
> on a feature piece. but as the everything colour ... not really. there are
> specific situations where that *can* work, a working desktop is really not
> one of them.
>
In the design book "color harmony" by Tina Sutton and Bride M.Whelam
"Graphic
The color combination of black and white, is clasical and dramatic at the same 
time- think newspaper headlines, piano keys and tuxedoes, in decoration black 
and white tiles add a touch of elegance to an hallyay, while in fashion 
nothing is more cosmopolitan than basic black with perls"....

I see a cultural thing, here in portugal the most sold car color is Black, 
virtualy all car dashboards are black.

the psicology of color is somthing that interests me alot... and basacly we 
can use only 3/4 colors :) white black grey and blue.... or anything that is 
unotaceble as a color....
reson? people have way way diferent opnions about color, some hate a color 
others love and i meen real hate as in "I cant stand that".... so basacly in 
computer desugn for the desktop the colors use are mainly the ones i stated,
and blue is not comon to see as bg, off ui elements, mostly couse of contrast 
issues i think...

>
> * contrast, so as to be able to see the elements! one can also phrase this
> as "less subtlety".
>
> as it is, i really, really like the black buttons of the taskbar and
> systray and pager and what not. and they look really, really nice when
> there is enough contrast to be able to actualy notice them.

arron we can give a hint of color with the icons and make a smoth transition 
using a gloss look on the bg like in base.png, but if we paint the bg of the 
panell with a difrent color other than black or white it will clash with the 
overal theming....
working with black is prety simple, use alot of it contrast with mainly white 
then but a small precentage of bright strong colors to live it up...
 




> remember that people will be using this on LCDs that don't have art quality
> crispness, in well lit situations (which tends to drown out subtleness) and
> with eyes that may not be well tuned to such things. this only makes the
> situation worse.
>
I test my stuf in 3 very difrent screens couse of that, a good one , a glosy 
one and a crapy crapy one
>
> i base all this one two things: human psychology on the one hand (which is
> pure theory, though well understood and "proven") and market feedback.
>
> thankfully, i do not think it requires a full redo of the theme, it just
> requires a non-black-block as the panel background.

think somthing like base.png  http://www.nuno-icons.com/images/test/base.png 
does that without major clash agaist the remaing of the style.
it uses alot of transparency so its mostly color rich depending on your 
wallpapper

> the replace needs to go well with the rest of the elements, certainly, and
> necessarily does not need to be bright, light or lacking saturation. it
> could be a deep, dark, rich colouring.
>
> here are some of the '09 luxury car dashboards:
>
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=90MBGI2L.jpg&WIDTH=425
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=90AUGIC2.jpg&WIDTH=425
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=90AUGID1.jpg&WIDTH=425
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=CAB70JAC101C0304.jpg&WIDTH=425
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=90BMGIJ1.jpg&WIDTH=425
> http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/1229/v134/imageonthefly.autodatadirect.com/i
>mages/?IMG=90LEGIH2.jpg&WIDTH=425
>
> in nearly all of those cars, the dashes use black in very significant ways.
> but the entire dash is not black.

the most comon color in top of the line cars is black.

> i also understand, and accept, that there will be people who love an
> all-black approach. i hope that others can understand that our current
> default is not working out at the moment, if only because our downstreams
> are rejecting it outright (and replacing it with horrific results).

Well if it was just this i would agrea with you... but from what  I have seen 
(not much) its horrific, brobably you arron will notece mostly the pannel, but 
its all over they chage mostly everything so they can brand themselfs a bit, 
example ,,, mandriva uses an mostly all black wallpaper with some rather tacky
decorations, then a qt theme that is somthing that looks like keramic for gtk, 
in shades of palle corporative mandriva blue. then coisethey madea a mish mash 
of color they use aya couse "its fits the windeco" result, uter mess.

But i do think thre is a reason for this one that Riccardo stated earlier, a 
big visuial clash betwin a full screnn window and the pannel... has he said I 
normaly dont use that, so it might have totaly missed my radar...
to fix that using color in the pannel wont help any bit--- we need to make 
some sort of nice transition betwin the full mostly white/grey app and the 
black pannel.... 

again i think base.pn can do that.... base png as only one major flaw... "its 
vistish" not that vista invented this look its been around for aeons...  
  
  
-- 
Oxygen coordinator