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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Simplified windowing mode (+ colourful idea at bottom)
From:       David Laban <alsuren () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-08-08 12:57:33
Message-ID: 200508081402.18456.alsuren () gmail ! com
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On Sunday 07 August 2005 15:58, Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
> > I think it would be an interesting experiment to let you change the
> > colours of the desktops, so the little desktop preview/pager in the
> > kicker would show different colours, and also windows in focus on the red
> > desktop would be red, and blue on blue and green on green etc. (I would
> > suggest purple as the 4th desktop because yellow doesn't fade to black
> > very gracefully and also it's my favourite colour :P )
>
> Isn't coding with colors only is usability trap?

Why do you say that? I don't see anything wrong with using colours. We use 
colours already to indicate whether a window is active don't we? Sorry if it 
seems like I'm attacking you, but I think colours are under-used in 
computing. 

Another thing I have had in my mind for a while is to have a "fade to" colour 
for selected tick boxes, because it's impossible to tell what's selected and 
what's not (in JuK for example) when they have icons where the tick box is.

On Sunday 07 August 2005 15:49, Christoph Wiesen wrote:
> But really, having the window _decoration_ (not the whole window I'd say)
> have the "desktop's colour" would really be quite obvious even to those who
> haven't worked with Virtual Desktops before.

The window decoration is the only thing you *can* change, because GTK apps 
won't support it unless it's handled by the window manager. I was 
thinking....*opens up control center to check the name* "Active Title Bar" 
should be the one to change (on a slightly related note, someone needs to 
redo that colours menu because it needs to have a preview that's dependant on 
the window theme you're using. In plastik, for example, Active Aitle Blend 
does nothing)

> People will have their 'favourite' desktops (due to colour preferences) and
> will be managing their work based on that... "stupid spread sheet goes to
> the purple desktop.. hah" (kind like that ;))
>
> Anyway if this is implemented it will be important to have a) colours that
> aren't annoying in any way and b) don't make the different desktops look
> radically different, just noticeable. But I think doing this through the
> windeco colur is quite nice.

colour schemes..... I could give a few examples
Red should be a mahogany like #B65433 (or just whatever ubuntu uses)
Green I was thinking #5DB46A maybe? 
The existing blue #418EDC or #3D63CC
and for purple the best I could find was #9A65AB 

Please note that these colours were decided on purely on the basis of whether 
they looked okay when you make the switch from the default blue in KDE3.4

I have noticed that colours look less offensive the darker and less saturated 
they are, but I think choosing colours should be the job of the KDE artists, 
because I suck at this. 

What we should really be doing is asking "in principle, do we like this idea?" 
If the consensus is "yes", I'll go join the artists mailinglist and they can 
come up with some better colours. (If someone could make a little patch or 
something, to give the artists something to play with, that would be most 
excellent. )

If the consensus is "no" then I'll just go cry in the corner somewhere :P
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