189842 - Highlighting in about:config is too dark.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Jason Bassford]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030120
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030120

The new about:config menus (from bug 107418) are great, but there's one small
problem.  When you have an item highlighted, the background colour is so dark
that it's almost impossible to determine what the preference is.  You pretty
much have to click somewhere else to be able to read the entry again.

The background colour should be made lighter.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enter "about:config" into the URL bar.
2. Highlight an entry.

Actual Results:  
The highlight colour is so dark that it's almost impossible to make out the text
of the preference highlighted.

Expected Results:  
The highlight colour should be lighter such that there is problem reading the
selected preference.

Comment 1

[Andreas Kunz]

The problem is that the text color for the prefs is hardcoded green/blue while
the selection color depends on the OS color scheme.
This may work with some color schemes, but fail with others.
See
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/xpfe/global/resources/content/config.css#50
for the hardcoding of the pref color.

Solution: choose other colors for the prefs texts that depend on the color
scheme (about:plugins is nicely styled this way!).
Best way is probably to use text style rather than text color for distinction
between user set and default prefs.

Maybe I'll attach a patch in a while (no promise made!).

CCing [e-mail] who fixed bug 107418 and made the prefs selectable (I
think). Sorry if you didn't like me to do that...

Comment 2

[Andreas Kunz]

Attachment: Possible patch: use sytem color and different text styles

This patch makes all text in about:config use the system color for such text.
User set preferences are bold now (whole line) to make a difference to prefs at
default (no text style).
Locked prefs are set to italic, but I have never seen such ones anyway...
(Previously: green, blue, red)

The first column is now not emphasized any more (was bold previously), but I
don't see any need for that - it's a own column after all and easily
distinguished from the others that way. And its content does not justify an
emphasis IMO.

I just tested this patch with various different Windows color schemes and
setting/unsetting user prefs. It works all well, the colors are as one would
expect and highlighted items look just like any other highlighted text in any
application.

Any objections against this way to go?

Comment 3

[Andreas Kunz]

Attachment: Screenshot with my patch

Looks like this now.
(With my personal color scheme, but colors change as schemes are switched.)

Comment 4

[Jason Bassford]

> Any objections against this way to go?

It looks good to me!

Comment 5

[[e-mail]]

Your patch doesn't match your screenshot - currently the preference name column
is bold, but it isn't in your screenshot, yet you aren't turning it off...

Comment 6

[Andreas Kunz]

Attachment: Real patch

Ooops, sorry.
This new patch also removes the bold style from the first column as the first
one already was supposed to do. (When transferring the canges in my build to
the file I checked out using CVS I forgot that one change).

Now it matches the screenshot.

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 112145 [details] [diff] [review]
Real patch

Well, I don't have any better ideas, perhaps when the skinVersion next changes
we can make about:config themable.

Comment 8

[Andreas Kunz]

Neil: great!
Should I try and get a sr= somewhere? or is yours a rs= ?
Can you check it in or find somebody to do so afterwards?
Or should I find somebody? I think I know somebody who would do it.

It would be nice if this went in before the freeze because that new feature
(editing prefs here) will be one of the new things in 1.3b - too bad (although
still usable) if it still had this problem...

Comment 9

[Andreas Kunz]

Comment on attachment 112145 [details] [diff] [review]
Real patch

Requesting sr= from [e-mail].

It would be nice to have this very small fix in 1.3b because Neil's changes on
about:config are a bit better usable with it.

Comment 10

[jag (Peter Annema)]

Comment on attachment 112145 [details] [diff] [review]
Real patch

sr=jag

Comment 11

[Andreas Kunz]

Comment on attachment 112145 [details] [diff] [review]
Real patch

Requesting approval for 1.3b:

Risk: minor low risk css changes for 'about:config'.

Benefit: they make Neil's new functionality of that page better usable.

Comment 12

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Comment on attachment 112145 [details] [diff] [review]
Real patch

a=asa (on behalf of drivers) for checkin to 1.3beta.

Comment 13

[[e-mail]]

Fix checked in.

Comment 14

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

looks fine --tested with 2003.02.12 comm trunk bits (win2k, linux rh8.0, mac
10.2.3).