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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: [PATCH] Striking out finished todos (wish #62430)
From:       "Friedrich W. H.  Kossebau" <Friedrich.W.H () Kossebau ! de>
Date:       2003-08-10 23:37:43
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Bored by an again terribly broken KHexEdit widget (sorry Reinhold, I do my 
best)... :-/

Am Sonntag, 10. August 2003 16:57 schrieb Reinhold Kainhofer:
> Personally, I like the second possibility better (light gray, as
> suggested by danimo). One problem, however, is that in that case we need
> to find a good way to determine a color, which still shows good contrast
> to all background colors. I'm in no way an expert on this, so I'd need
> some help to determine a color that contrasts to both the bg color and
> the alternating bg color of the list view, and still looks less
> important than the text color. In the default color scheme(s), these
> colors are white and very light gray, and black text. But the user is
> free to choose whatever color he likes better...
>
> Another issue with the gray color is that some users might think that
> these todos are disabled.
>
> What do you think?

I think: What should the design give as information to the user? What are the 
traditional ways to do so?

I would go for painting finished Todo item labels green. Why? Symbolic color 
(in my culture, that is), no need to learn it. Colour blind people might not 
favour this, they might have to fall back to the tick mark perhaps. 
As you say, a problem would be strange user system color settings. Perhaps 
those should be punished for that by having to change korganizers settings ;) 
Better might be to extend the system settings to deliver more default values 
for such items. 
Like there is already an alternating background color there could be font 
styles/colors for finished items, problematic items, disabled items (useful 
for KOffice apps, education apps, system apps, ...). Anyone with a good 
pattern of item types?

If you don't like this I would vote for slightly lighted (as in less contrast 
to background) label text.

Against ... because of...:
smaller font, italics: 
Read in a layout design book that too many font styles make a design look bad 
and unfriendly to the eye. This might be true here.
strike out: 
traditionally (well, as I experienced) used to mark no longer valid text. A 
finished todo is IMHO still valid, even though it is finished, in opposition 
to one no longer needed. Further, as remarked, it results in unreadable text 
and adds noise to the overall look (strike out as a long line gets in 
conflict with lines to separate the gui elements)
darker color: 
a darker color stresses something. Usually I expect a Todo list to stress the 
unfinished items as they are more important (to me).

More intrusive proposal: Change the orientation of the progress bar (filling 
upwards, gains horizontal space BTW) and put it in the place of the tick mark 
box. Show the tick mark box only when an item is finished. Much closer visual 
coupling between label and progress, might result in faster scanning of a 
list. The numbered grade of completeness should still be available as a 
column for sorting purposes.

Friedrich

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