Window background (was: Re: [ANN] LibreOffice 3.6.0.0 beta2 available for testing)

Hi ape, Kendy, (Mirek,)

CC'ing Mirek, since he proposed the look...

>   His eyes involuntarily seek the boundaries between objects: a page, the
> working area or a ruler.
>   If the objects are:
>   a) a very bright or dark;
>   b) have almost the same color and have no boundary lines;
>   c) have too much color contrast
>   lens of the muscles are working constantly. So my eyes tire quickly.
> Therefore, all the Office Suites have The Windows that have color schemes
> are very similar.

Tbh, I am not exactly sure what to take from this description ... I
don't find it eye-straining to work with LibO 3.6. (Then again, for
most actual productivity tasks I use Linux – where I am using the
similarly light Clearlooks theme, though.)

However, I agree that the document background is now a little light –
even the colour "Gray 10%" is darker now than the default window
background on Vista/7.
What bugs me much more than the default being a bit light though is
that the ruler background as well as the Start Center background
colour will stay the same no matter what application background colour
is chosen. IMHO these colours should be the same as the normal window
background, IMHO.


Astron.
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Hi Astron,

On 2012-06-28 at 09:13 +0200, Stefan Knorr (Astron) wrote:

No problem there - just give me the RGB values we should use, and I'll
put it there :-)

> What bugs me much more than the default being a bit light though is
> that the ruler background as well as the Start Center background
> colour will stay the same no matter what application background colour
> is chosen. IMHO these colours should be the same as the normal window
> background, IMHO.

This might be harder - the handling of the color settings is much more
complex than it should be, so not sure if I manage to do it in time for
Beta3, and I am off for vacation after that; let's see.

All the best,
Kendy

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Hi Kendy,

> No problem there - just give me the RGB values we should use, and I'll
> put it there :-)

I experimented with it and thought 213,218,224 looked good. But no
doubt, Mirek has an opinion on that... which we probably best hear
before changing it, too.

> This might be harder - the handling of the color settings is much more
> complex than it should be, so not sure if I manage to do it in time for
> Beta3, and I am off for vacation after that; let's see.

In that case, it might be best to leave the background as is for 3.6 (I
think it's quite alright, so no real urgency to fix it and in
consequence rub the other two problems in the user's face).
Should I file bugs about the ruler bg and the Start Center bg staying
the same, then?

Anyway... I just noticed another sign of breakage that does need to be
fixed: toolbars which are undocked or docked to the side/bottom: these
still use the old-style gradient. I think it would be best to colour
them (solidly) with the colour that's at the bottom of the toolbar.
Else, the gradient from the top would repeat itself – which I don't
think would look very attractive.
(Again, I can file a bug about that.)

Thanks for your quick answer,
Astron.

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Hi Astron, Mirek,

Stefan Knorr píše v Čt 28. 06. 2012 v 14:48 +0200:

> > No problem there - just give me the RGB values we should use, and I'll
> > put it there :-)
>
> I experimented with it and thought 213,218,224 looked good. But no
> doubt, Mirek has an opinion on that... which we probably best hear
> before changing it, too.

Mirek? :-)

> > This might be harder - the handling of the color settings is much more
> > complex than it should be, so not sure if I manage to do it in time for
> > Beta3, and I am off for vacation after that; let's see.
>
> In that case, it might be best to leave the background as is for 3.6 (I
> think it's quite alright, so no real urgency to fix it and in
> consequence rub the other two problems in the user's face).
> Should I file bugs about the ruler bg and the Start Center bg staying
> the same, then?

Yes, please do & give me the bug number.  I'll put there code pointers,
in order to easy-hackize it.

> Anyway... I just noticed another sign of breakage that does need to be
> fixed: toolbars which are undocked or docked to the side/bottom: these
> still use the old-style gradient. I think it would be best to colour
> them (solidly) with the colour that's at the bottom of the toolbar.
> Else, the gradient from the top would repeat itself – which I don't
> think would look very attractive.
> (Again, I can file a bug about that.)

Ah, good point.  What is happening here is that we are still using the
Windows theming for the toolbars that are not at the the top of the
window.  What would help most is if you made me a mockup how they should
look like (realistic one, ie. "it should look like this") for the
horizontal, as well as the vertical toolbars.

[It can be a gradient that spans over all the toolbars together, or
solid color, or whatever.  The only problem is that I need it ~now, in
order to implement it tomorrow; I am leaving for vacation on Saturday.]

Thanks a lot,
Kendy

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Hi Kendy, Astron

 Sorry, but you do not see another feature, which I think is a mistake. The new rulers have no boundary lines in black. Now, the cursor can be on the ruler, and the user does not understand this. (Please look carefully 2nd GIF-file http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n3991801/note_3.gif).

 Thanks a lot, ape

Hi Astron,

Stefan Knorr píše v Pá 29. 06. 2012 v 09:50 +0200:

> sorry, it took so long... I have attached a mock-up of what I'd like. It
> builds on the last screenshot that you made available of the opaque menu
> bars – so hopefully it's current.
> As you can see, the proposal is quite simple...

I've pushed a change to master that (I hope) improves the situation:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=03dbe1a97c0050365ac3820575134bace0908e2b

[for cherry-picking purposes, probably easier to check the
non-whitespace changes version:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=03dbe1a97c0050365ac3820575134bace0908e2b&ignorews=1
]

With this patch, it looks like this:

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/vertical-toolbars-1.png

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/vertical-toolbars-2.png

Unfortunately it is not ideal; as you can see, the vertical toolbars
have no distinction between them and the workspace.  I think it is not
really a problem, just different to what we used to have, but needs
approval from you / UX list.

Your original proposal for comparison:

http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/attachment/3992797/0/toolbars.png 

I am doing some larger changes in master to make it more alike your
proposal, I am just a bit afraid they'll be too big for cherry-picking
to 3.6.x; unfortunately no easy win there :-(

Please let me know what do you prefer from the UX point of view:

1) status quo - 3.6 vertical / floating toolbars use the 'native'
   theming (inconsistent with the new 3.6 look)
2) half-way solution - my screenshots above; more consistent look, but
   no line splitting the vertical toolbars from the workspace
3) complete solution - will take some larger reviewing, as this touches
   look on all platforms; I'll see if I can find a brave reviewer :-)

Would be good to have a decision until the Monday's 3.6.1 RC1 freeze, so
that if we put it in, we are able to revert that in RC2, should it cause
trouble.

Regards,
Kendy

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Hi,

I tend


Jan Holesovsky píše v Pá 10. 08. 2012 v 17:22 +0200:
I tend to push it for rc1. It will be easier to revert to the old code
for rc2 than to push new code for rc2 :-)

You have last chance to stop me ;-)


Best Regards,
Petr

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Hello there,

> I tend to push it for rc1. It will be easier to revert to the old code
> for rc2 than to push new code for rc2 :-)
>
> You have last chance to stop me ;-)

No, sounds good to me. At least the bottom toolbars seem to be fixed now
and this is what most people probably use.

Of course, from my POV, it would be great if we had a full fix in 3.6.2
or so, but if that's too risky, I think we can live with it for half a
year.

Astron.

PS: Thanks Kendy! Sorry for my nagging and sorry for doing it so late.

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Stefan Knorr píše v Út 14. 08. 2012 v 11:26 +0200:
> Hello there,
>
> > I tend to push it for rc1. It will be easier to revert to the old code
> > for rc2 than to push new code for rc2 :-)
> >
> > You have last chance to stop me ;-)
>
> No, sounds good to me. At least the bottom toolbars seem to be fixed now
> and this is what most people probably use.

Exactly, it is a step forward, so I pushed it into 3-6 branch, see
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?h=libreoffice-3-6&id=53f23d99b0f5549ede0b5e868f884c7bce2e9746


> Of course, from my POV, it would be great if we had a full fix in 3.6.2
> or so, but if that's too risky, I think we can live with it for half a
> year.

Let's see what changes are really needed in the end.

Thanks a lot for feedback.


Best Regards,
Petr

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