[LAD] Mouse/knob interaction

[Philipp Überbacher]

Excerpts from Arnold Krille's message of 2010-09-08 22:46:52 +0200:
> On Wednesday 08 September 2010 22:19:50 Philipp Überbacher wrote:
> > Excerpts from Arnold Krille's message of 2010-09-08 22:02:10 +0200:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > On Wednesday 08 September 2010 21:06:29 Philipp Überbacher wrote:
> > > > Excerpts from Arnold Krille's message of 2010-09-08 19:18:54 +0200:
> > > > > On Wednesday 08 September 2010 16:35:31 Andrew Bryant wrote:
> > > > > > Previously:
> > > > > > > That's actually a neat idea, color for immediate visual feedback.
> > > > > > > I imagine the problem is the colors. What would be sane? I guess
> > > > > > > three basic colors and interpolate between them?
> > > > > > > low = blue
> > > > > > > middle = yellow
> > > > > > > high = top
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > It needs to be rather intuitive. I guess the more colors the less
> > > > > > > intuitive it will become. Maybe two are enough.
> > > > > > > I wonder which color would best represent 'low' or 'bottom'.
> > > > > > > Blue, black?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I suggest you keep it simple, i.e. only two colours if possible,
> > > > > > but make them configurable for the benefit of those with visual
> > > > > > disabilities.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Two colors simply isn't enough. You need a color for low, a color for
> > > > > middle and a value for high. And then you haven't even looked at a
> > > > > fourth color for mute/off.
> > > > > And fading from green directly/linear to red gives an ugly brown in
> > > > > the middle. It looks much nicer to go across yellow. And then you
> > > > > can really use that third color to stand for a special step, not
> > > > > just "in the middle of the slider".
> > > > 
> > > > If all you want is 'middle' and that doesn't need to be well defined,
> > > > then two colors will do. I suggested blue because of the ugly brown you
> > > > get between green and red. With blue the middle will likely be some
> > > > kind of purple, which may or may not be optimal. Maybe black to red
> > > > would be nicer, it just gives you an increasingly bright red.
> > > 
> > > I don't want 'a' middle, I want a special middle. Like 0dB between -48dB
> > > and +12dB (the middle doesn't have to be in the geometrical middle). And
> > > I want to know when that special middle value is reached by looking at
> > > the color.
> > > 
> > > > Mute/off, if required, would be the same as the lowest setting.
> > > 
> > > There is a difference between mute/off and the lowest setting. At least
> > > there can be.
> > > Software-mixers might not make that discrete step between off and almost
> > > silent. But some hardware mixers in devices do make that difference. And
> > > there it will make a difference to your ear whether the signal is
> > > attenuated by 36dB or muted.
> > 
> > I was talking about controls in general, which means there might not be
> > any dB or mute or anything like that, it might be anything, and there
> > might be special cases/settings where you want a special color, agreed.
> > 
> > > > > If these colors are taken from the color-scheme the user has chosen,
> > > > > I feel confident, that these are suitable for all kinds of
> > > > > color-blindness (otherwise the color-scheme is chosen wrongly). But
> > > > > I don't know (yet) which color roles to use from the
> > > > > color-schemes...
> > > > 
> > > > To what kind of user chosen color scheme do you refer to?
> > > 
> > > The one the user choose for his desktop. Which is the only real way to
> > > compensate for visually impaired people (if thats the political correct
> > > name). I don't like this every-app-chooses-its-own-colors at all. Though
> > > I do understand that sometimes you need more colors, but that still is
> > > different from "I define my apps colors on my own because I think that
> > > is cool". The later results in apps with black text on dark-gray
> > > background in an otherwise very light desktop-environment => bad. Or in
> > > apps with white window background while the rest of the desktop is
> > > optimized for on-stage-in-the-dark with black background and red
> > > foreground => bad. Or it results with using two collors to "distinguish"
> > > which half visually impaired people can't discriminate => bad.
> > > 
> > > Thats why I really advocate using the systems color-scheme as much as
> > > possible (and a bit more) every time the discussion regarding colors
> > > comes up.
> >
> > I don't know of any way to set a system wide color scheme of any sort. I
> > know of different toolkits using their specific settings, and that's as
> > close to a system color theme as I'm aware of. I did switch to a dark
> > theme and managed to get qt use the GTK theme, but that still leaves a
> > lot of programs out of the equation. Note that Desktop-Environments in
> > the sense of gnome/kde is something I despise, mainly because of their
> > current understanding of 'integration', which in practice means to
> > almost force users to use certain programs and an unbelievable
> > dependency hell. They each create their very specific ecosystem in which
> > they attempt to 'integrate' everything else, which just means to make
> > stuff dependent on more and more of the ecosystems specific subsystems.
> > /rant
> > 
> > Well, I don't know how to achieve anything like a system color scheme in
> > the foreseeable future.
> 
> You don't have to use the desktop-environment to use the toolkit. And the 
> toolkits have become good enough to support/respect each others style and 
> colors. At least here on my kde systems the gtk apps (apart from ardour:) use 
> the system-wide colors I set in kde's systemsettings.

That's still very gtk/qt or even kde/gnome centric. There's a lot more
out there. Those might be the prevalent toolkits but certainly not the
only ones. That's the gnome/kde bubble so many seem to be stuck in and
not being able to see beyond.

> And even if you personally don't use a DE, the users of your app will. And 
> they will a) like it more if it blends in and b) ditch it if its colors/fonts 
> don't respect system-defaults that are set because of visual imperfections.
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> Arnold

I think b) is total bollocks, because there are no system-defaults, only
gnome/kde defaults (and apparently X defaults no one uses) and because
users won't ditch an app just because they don't blend in visually.
There are a lot more and a lot more important reasons to choose one
program over another.

> PS: No, we don't need another ColorSchemeKit and a GlobalFontKit;-)

Agreed.
(Written from a *kit-free system)
-- 
Philipp

--
"Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu
und alle Fragen offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan