Dark mode folder color for "Unread" / "New Unread" is too similar and hard to distinguish
Categories
(Thunderbird :: Theme, defect)
Tracking
(thunderbird_esr78? fixed)
People
(Reporter: juraj.masiar, Assigned: Paenglab)
References
Details
Attachments
(8 files)
Screenshot 2020-12-06 10.55.17.png
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:84.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/84.0
Steps to reproduce:
As you can see in the image, distinguishing between unread and new unread is now pretty hard because it's all blue (one is dark blue, one is light blue).
Before the update the unread was just white bold.
I don't see a reason to put any kind of highlight for the unread emails, you have the number of unread emails at the end so it's clear there are unread emails.
On the other hand you should be able to see where the new emails are, which is now harder to see.
This change was introduced in recent 78.5.1 update, probably regressed by:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678029
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Reporter | |
Updated•3 years ago
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Pleease get this fixed, i believe it's the most inconvenient thing that ever happened to tb, new mail is important, unread mail has just not been done before, so bold is just really fine, imho.
(it's already drivin me crazy, although i got a monitor with superb colour and contrast.)
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Comment 2•3 years ago
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This was an intentional change.
I see no problem with it.
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Comment 4•3 years ago
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Absolutely a problem. I was about to post this as a bug. Maybe make the names of folders with "New Unread" messages a deep red? Or something harmonious with the theme but clearly easily distinguishable. (The new bright yellow stars in message lists next to New Unread messages are super great, by the way. )
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Comment 5•3 years ago
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The light blue and the darker blue are difficult to distinguish!
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Comment 6•3 years ago
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Thanks for the report.
So, this is a typical User A vs. User B situation.
This implementation was done because, in dark mode, some users had difficulties in identifying folders with unread messages as the regular to bold variation is not that obvious with a light text color.
We adopted a light blue color to not introduce another color variable and keep a consistent look with the primary color.
For other users, as reported in this bug, the counter and bold variation is enough and an additional color, especially one that is similar to the primary, is distracting and not helpful.
Both considerations and requests are correct, and I see the point of views of both user types.
The core question is: "How do we improve the visibility of folders with unread messages, but not new, without interfering with folders with new messages?"
We need a little bit of careful visual prototyping to find an optimal solution.
Sorry for the issue.
Side question: juraj.masiar, I see you're using the Favorite Compact View mode.
Is this something you enabled just for this screenshot or is it your preferred mode?
Is the "Compact" variation important to you?
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Comment 7•3 years ago
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Look, for me, folders with simply (not new) unread messages are relatively unimportant. They’re mainly storage. New unread messages are very important, which is probably why they’re now marked in message lists with that bright yellow starburst. I’d be fine with the labels of folders containing new unread messages being shown in bold text in the same yellow color. Or red.
My use case is this: I download (POP) new messages, which are sorted into folders by my filters. Then I scan the folder list to see which folders have new messages in them. When those folders and only those folders were in color, doing that was easy. Now it’s not easy. Folders with new messages in them must be labeled in a readily-distinguishable way.
BTW, for some reason when I first ran this new, release update channel version of TB, the labels of the folders with simply (not new) unread messages were green, not blue. That was jarring, maybe worse.
I’m using 78.5.1 (32-bit). Whose release notes say “[checkmark] FIXED: Highlight color for folders with unread messages wasn't visible in dark theme.” I’m in the camp that had no problem beforehand.
Please, please don’t ignore this. Or at least tell me how I myself can assign colors/font attributes to the three types of folder labels (all messages read; some messages unread but none new, some new messages).
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Reporter | |
Comment 8•3 years ago
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I'm using Favorite Compact View mode. Majority of time I need only these folders so it's easier to have them like this.
If I had this kind of problem in one of my addons, I would simply add color pickers for each state so that each user can choose his color. This is only 3 values so the UI would look still fine (with some live preview next each picker). The only "complication" is that you would have to have another set for the "Light" theme (could be a second tab). Maybe I'm imagining things too simple? :) Is UI in Thunderbird build with some complex framework? I'm using Vue + Vuetify so building UI is now piece of cake.
New unread messages are no longer obvious once that folder has been opened and I do not necessarilly read all the new mail in that folder immediately; I may jump to another folder if an important email has just arrived. I do not store unread emails indefinately. But I like to know clearly if a folder has unread mail because to me it still contains 'new' mail.
Previously, all my unread folders were a blue, but I knew if it has new mail because the folder icon displayed a star. The onus was on the icon not the colour of the folder text. All new mail was passed through a filter to get 'starred' because the yellow star at the begining of 'subject' disappeared if I selected another folder. So I lose the ability to know what is unread and new. This problem is made worse if you start up thunderbird and it auto opens and selects a particular folder with new mail, but you want to check the 'Inbox' first before returning to the originally selected folder. Hence the need to force a 'Starred' status so I know what was a recent new mail.
I've used two tones of blue on folders for New and Unread for awhile with no problems on both Light and Dark themes. It solved the problem of no folder icon showing a star. The posted image showing a folder pane with the two blues is very clear to me, but I'm used to it and have a good graphics card etc.
Red is a bad colour to use anywhere as there are plenty of people who suffer from colour blindness issues and they will see a red as a dark green or even blackish. This is already be an issue in the Write TO field for a bad email address which has a red font on reddish background, which I suppose would indicate if they cannot see it then it is wrong, but hardly the correct approach.
Bold Black for unread is ok in the default Light theme as it is clear.
Bold White in Dark themes is barely discernable, so really it is only the dark theme that presents a real issue.
It would also be worth checking what things look like using a High Contrast theme.
Tonal contrast is important.
re: "Folders with new messages in them must be labeled in a readily-distinguishable way."
I asked for another SVG folder icon that has a star, just like the original folders. It was not considered as necessary at the time.
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Comment 10•3 years ago
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Just for the record.
The right side shows how unread folders were not obvious when white bold on dark theme.
The left side shows folders with new mail as light blue and folders with unread as deeper blue.
It also has the original folders - added back by myself; this is not a different version, so a star on folder is displayed which also helps.
For reference:
The darker blue is using hex colour #2492d1
The lighter blue is using hex colour #7bc3ff
Perhaps I have a greater difference between the two blues, so new stands out, but unread, although clear is more subdued.
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Comment 11•3 years ago
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I might add, that i use "unread" just as a general "marker".
i believe many people do, especially when working on shared imap-accounts. (Yes i also use labels 1-9...)
So there might be 2 types of users: those who treat new and unread messages the same and probably delete or archive, when done (or are just weird masters of chaos) - and those who differentiate between new and unread aka marked.
And the software should serve them both.
While i believe, that bold for unread is just enough and even find that blue quite distracting (since i've always got lot of marked mails in a lot of folders so there's no real meaning here, folderwise), red as indication for new might be a solution, although it seems to be somewhat too heavy. (note: there is also the red label.)
I'd prefer some options on colours or formatting of states, of couse, but my understanding is that there's an aim here to keep things simple and universal.
Better than red might be orange for the Dark theme. As with the formally dark blue for unread, red would be difficult to read, a dark orange fits better to blue (its complementary) and comes with more brightness which ends up into more contrast from the not sooo dark grey background.
(i set orange to my highlightcolour in messageview and it works very conveniently. screenshot following.)
Last thing: i sure can distinguish between the blues (i've got 10 bit colours using display-port), but i don't want to do it actively.
A good UI keeps you off such work, you should be able to see it without looking at it, just out of the corner of your eye. Two (readable) blues can never do that!
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Comment 12•3 years ago
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Comment 13•3 years ago
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Sorry for flooding - last thought:
On the other hand: a monochromatic UI is always better than a lot of colours! ...
But only the added star-icon and the 2 blues that we got right now won't work out of the corner of one's eye :/
(Right now it takes actual brains to detect if there are new messages.)
So in the end, maybe turn the blue for unread veeery bright, just slightly different from white (that should really work together with the boldness*) and add the star-icon for new?
- The dark blue on Anjes screenshot is different to the dark theme default. I think instead of that (harder to read) different dark one the bright one should be brighter, more towards white. now it is even more signaling than the dark blue for new.
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Reporter | |
Comment 14•3 years ago
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I think it was perfect - simple black and white design with bold text, number of unread messages and a blue "notification" color that went away after you clicked it.
Introducing more colors into this design is just gonna make it worse (seriously red and orange?). I really don't understand why this was introduced in a minor update and not as a new theme. It was not fixing any urgent visibility issue. Even if the bold is not visible enough, there is whole number in the parentheses that's clearly visible.
Maybe we should ask some professional designer, someone who studied it and understands it. Maybe someone at Mozilla?
Because I can tell you from my own experience... I'm a good programmer but I suck as a designer.
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Comment 15•3 years ago
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Please understand that users would like the formatting of labels for folders with new unread messages to be readily distinguishable while they are scrolling up and down the folder list in the Folder Pane. For some of us, the whole folder list does not fit on one screen. Things tend to blur a bit during scrolling.
I agree that orange goes well with blue and would be ok.
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Comment 16•3 years ago
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This is with View > Folders > Unread on Ubuntu 18.04.
I'm in the looks okay to me camp, but if the devs want to make new messages purple that would WFM. Unread purple would work too.
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Comment 17•3 years ago
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As I wrote in comment 6, this is a clear example of USER A wanting this and USER B hating this.
This is what happens when we do things with a reactionary approach because a user writes "this is absolutely important to me" without taking the time to prototype and consider the bigger picture.
I'm not accusing anyone here other than myself, obviously.
Slapping other colors randomly selected just because "they go well with blue" it's not a good approach and we risk to turn the folder pane into a Christmas tree.
I'll take some time to explore solutions but most likely we will revert this and use a full bright white to improve the contrast of folders with undread (not new) messages in dark mode.
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Comment 18•3 years ago
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Has there been a change in colour for New mail?
Account name with new mail has gone darker blue. So has Folders with new mail.
Select Folder with new mail and it gets a mid blue background with darker blue text. Barely readible.
Any idea why this occured as I do not recall anyone mentioning any problems with 'New' mail in Mail account and folder colour.
Support forum is starting to get complaints about this.
I had an issue with 'Unread' being unnoticeable in dark theme because the bold white is useless and not noticeable.
I also had and still continue to have an issue with one folder never indicating it has had new mail, but I'm trying to find out why only one folder is being a pain.
I saw complaints in Support forum, so restarted version 78.5.1 in Safe Mode to check out what was happening.
But now there is load of weirdness going on.
In Light theme:
All mail account names with new mail are a deeper blue, but should be brighter light blue.
All folders with new mail are deeper blue, but should be brighter light blue.
People are saying the darker blue is not eye catching.
All folders with unread are bold black, so OK and readible.
Select folder with new mail - Bugzilla folder and background is blue has made the text virtually discernable.
In Dark theme:
Mail account colours are confused.
Some account names are darker blue and have folders with New mail in darker blue.
Other account names are white but have folders with New mail in darker blue.
Neither of which is correct.
All account name folders which have received new mail should be the lighter brighter blue.
All folders with new mail are deeper blue but should be the lighter brighter blue.
All folders with unread are pale blue, but I expected this was the item that would be changed to a darker blue. So I keep looking for new mail in a folder that is actually only unread.
Selecting a folder shows a mid grey background, but at least the text is readible.
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Comment 19•3 years ago
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Top account had new mail in Inbox, Bugzilla and Thunderbird - shown in the dark blue (although light blue was expected !)
I checked the Inbox, so Inbox became 'Bold Black' / 'pale blue'
I selected 'Bugzilla' - which did not change in colour at this point and still had emails with gold - new mail star.
I swapped from light theme to show dark theme, and the font colour changed to pale blue saying it had unread and I had lost all the 'new mail stars'.
Note: The mail account name also changed from dark blue to white. So had gone from saying there was new mail in that account to saying there were no folders containing new mail - yet as you can see 'Thunderbird' has new mail.
The same issue occurred with the gmail account which has not been selected at all.
But had no effect at all on the second account which was collapsed.
So Swapping a theme is also messing up the ability to identify New mail.
Any account that has 'New Mail' only in the 'Junk/Spam' folder - which is Dark Blue does not seem to count as new mail, so the account name is no longer 'Dark Blue' when it should be.
Expected:
For both Light and dark themes:
If new mail in account then account name should be new bright light blue, regardless of whether that new mail is in Inbox, Junk or another folder I created.
If folder had 'new' mail it should be new bright light blue.
In Light theme:
If no new mail in account then font should be bold black
If unread mail in a folder then font should be bold black
In Dark theme:
If no new mail in account then font should be bold white
If unread mail in a folder then font should be bold white - Although this was a problem for me in identifying unread mail - so I used a darker blue font which offered more clarity yet did not detract from the bright new blue of new mail. I was under the impression that this was the only item being changed.
Swapping between a theme (not exiting/restartng Thunderbird) should not effect being able to identify folders and emails that were new mail, but it does.
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Comment 20•3 years ago
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Anje, are you on Windows?
I checked this on macOS and Linux and I can't reproduce your errors.
No color changes have been introduced in 78.5.1 for the new email highlight, and changing themes doesn't create any problem for me.
Waiting for other core devs to double check on Windows.
Did you remove your userChrome customization?
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Comment 21•3 years ago
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Use a bright white for folders with unread messages. Don't colour the icons.
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Comment 22•3 years ago
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Comment on attachment 9192482 [details] [diff] [review] 1680947-bright-white.patch Review of attachment 9192482 [details] [diff] [review]: ----------------------------------------------------------------- Indeed, a full white is way better. It mimics the light/default variation, it's not distracting, and it doesn't introduce a new color, which is easier to handle. Users can always use the userChrome file to customize it the way they want, but the default we ship should be as neutral as possible and not introduce multiple color variations.
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Updated•3 years ago
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Assignee | |
Updated•3 years ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 23•3 years ago
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Comment on attachment 9192482 [details] [diff] [review]
1680947-bright-white.patch
[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #): Bug 1676697
User impact if declined: hard to distinguish between unread and new messages
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): not yet but should go to 78.6
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): low
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Comment 24•3 years ago
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Comment on attachment 9192482 [details] [diff] [review]
1680947-bright-white.patch
[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr78 - looks to be super low risk
Here comes Santa Claus, ...
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Comment 25•3 years ago
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Pushed by mkmelin@iki.fi:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/dbd0ef7464ae
Use on dark theme a bright white for folders with unread messages. r=aleca
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Comment 26•3 years ago
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(In reply to Alessandro Castellani (:aleca) from comment #20)
Anje, are you on Windows?
Yes. Windows 10
Support Forum also complaining that all new mail for account and folders is a dark blue and not easily discernable from the black.
Part of quote "Could whoever set this up for Thunderbird 78 please change the folder name text color indicating new emails from the dark navy text, back to the light blue text, so we can see when a folder has new email filter in when Getting Messages?"
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1317331
Also:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1311628
Users discovering folders not showing when new mail arrives (I also have a folder doing that) and dark blue font issues. People generally complaining that it is going wrong and unable to identify New mail.
I checked this on macOS and Linux and I can't reproduce your errors.
No color changes have been introduced in 78.5.1 for the new email highlight, and changing themes doesn't create any problem for me.
Waiting for other core devs to double check on Windows.Did you remove your userChrome customization?
Yes. The images I show are running Thunderbird in Safe Mode, so all basic default settings.
The only difference between the left and right is a change in theme from TB default 'Light' to 'Dark'. I did not select any other folder or email etc; just swapped theme. The 'Addons' tab was already open, so I selected that pre-opened tab and selected 'enable' dark them. The result is on the right side.
There is a real problem going on. Some folders with new mail do not get coloured for new mail. Colours for new are a dark blue and not bright light blue. Unread is bright blue (dark theme). Accounts say there are no new mail, yet folders say there is new mail. A swap in theme changes folder colour and removes new mail star on items in that folder.
This is not just me. I checked this out after seeing reports in Support Forum to see if I could replicate and agree there is a problem.
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Comment 27•3 years ago
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This is one of the reasons why people are needing to get the icons in the folder pane changed so they show a star on the folder containing new mail. Some people are using the old default icons others are using phoenity addon.
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Comment 28•3 years ago
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Let's post the candidate build here when it becomes available, so Anje and others can test it.
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Comment 29•3 years ago
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| bugherder uplift | ||
Thunderbird 78.6.0:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr78/rev/66f1c1e48f27
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Comment 30•3 years ago
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Verified in my testing of the 78.6.0 release candidate on Windows 10.
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Updated•3 years ago
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Description
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