352833 - Highlighting of selected email in the Message List pane is too subtle - poor contrast especially LCD monitor with DVI

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Theme, defect)

Description

[Bob Lord]

The highlighting of mail messages in the Mail List pane (where you see your threads) can be too subtle. I see three color modes today:

1. Mail List pane has focus.  In this mode, the selected mail message shows up as a strong blue.  No problem here.

2. Mail Body pane has focus, message selected is on an even numbered row (which means that its background is a little darker). In this mode, the selected mail message shows up as a medium-gray.  No real problem here.

3. Mail Body pane has focus, message selected is on an odd numbered row (which means that its background is white).  This is the problem. 

Because there are already many slightly blue-gray lines, one that has a slightly darker gray is basically indistinguishable from the rest. Also, if there is one unread message among a list of already read messages, and that unread message is on an odd line (which is a little darker), then it will appear at first glance to be the item selected. 

Request: I would like to see the selected line to always be highlighted in a way that allows me to see which message is selected. Maybe the color scheme for mode 2 can be used in mode 3? Even at is not ideal, but would be a huge improvement.

Note that use LCD panels, and this problem may be worse there than on CRTs.  I'm running on Linux also and I don't know how much that exaggerates the problem, if at all.

Comment 1

[Scott MacGregor]

the row background icon just got updated to have a slight blue hint to it. I wonder if that makes your problem better or worse Bob.

You should see it in tomorrow's build.

Comment 2

[Bob Lord]

It's still a little subtle, but much better than before on my LCD.  

Thanks much!

Comment 3

[Phil Barrett]

It's *far* too subtle for me in 2.0b1 (20061206) on CRT.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Attachment: comparison of even and odd line selected

i've always thought so too.  also, I harder to pick it out if the lines are busy / filled with text compared to lines that have a lot of blank space.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

screen shot coming up

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Attachment: contrast on LCD monitor DVI conenction

>Note that use LCD panels, and this problem may be worse there than on CRTs. 

New screen shot shows the contrast is far worse than attachment 264265 [details] (comment 4). Since comment 4 I have gone to DVI connections for my LCDs. DVI doesn't provide contrast controls.  So the selection not can't be seen  when focus is not in the thread pane. Perhaps selection ring would help. 

Monitors: Dell 2007WFP and Gateway FPD2020
video: ATI Radeon X1300 / X1550

=> sev=normal

Comment 7

[Robert Kaiser]

Are those the default styles from toolkit (where we now should use system colors for odd/even rows) or is this from that special-crafted Thunderbird tree.css override (that probably should go away anyway)?

Comment 8

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

It looks fine to me on my Linux computer, with these 24.1" Sun monitors (using Thunderbird 3)...

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Are those the default styles from toolkit (where we now should use system
> colors for odd/even rows) or is this from that special-crafted Thunderbird
> tree.css override (that probably should go away anyway)?

I can't answer your question.  But here's a respin which I hadn't noticed - XP is good compared to Vista.   Attachment 264265 [details] is XP's rendering. Vista's rendering attachment 319770 [details].  (I only recently started using Vista more.)

AFAIK I don't have any strange Vista settings.  And clean profile's come up the same. Default theme on both XP and Vista.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Attachment: vista-on-left vs XP-on-Right

This shows the difference between XP & Vista.
p.s. the Vista rendering has no hint of blue in the alternating rows.

Comment 11

[Phil Barrett]

Still poor for me (OS X 2.0.0.14, default theme).

Fine with many other themes, e.g. Cobalt Thunderbird 3.0.7

Comment 12

[Phil Barrett]

Attachment: Comparison on OS X

Screenshot compares focussed and 2 unfocussed states on OS X, 2.0.0.14, default theme.

Comment 13

[Phil Barrett]

NB this is viewed (half of the time) on a MacBook Pro screen which (allegedly) has 6-bits-per-channel colour depth and no accessible contrast control.

Comment 15

[guanxi]

Per the duped bug 363800:

The grey background in alternating rows in the thread pane is also too subtle to see on my slightly washed out LCD. In case it matters, I have an HP Compaq nc8230 laptop running WinXP Pro SP2. Screen is 1920x1200 pixels in ~15.4", or ~150 pixels per inch. Video card is an ATI Mobility Radeon x600.

The following, now in my userChrome.css, fixed the issue for me:

/* change Thread pane alternating row colours TB2.0
   source: http://www.linnhe2.free-online.co.uk/thunderbird/chrome.htm
   "The background colour is an image (why, who knows?) rather
   than a background colour. To change it you need to remove the
   image first."
*/
#threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-row(odd) {
  -moz-appearance: none !important;
  background-image: none !important;
  background-color: #CFCFCF !important;
}
#threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-row(selected) {
  background-color: -moz-Dialog !important;
}
#threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-row(selected, focus) {
  background-color: Highlight !important;
}

Comment 16

[ovidiu]

I was just comparing the vista os file highlighting with tb and I'd say it's not quite taking os theme. Is just more faded.

As for the even vs odd lines, I think is just too faded anyway. At least on some cases, os themes. Like the vista example.

As for the css stuff:
1. Workaround I use is in css

/*border around selected tree rows in all trees*/
treechildren::-moz-tree-row(selected) {border: 1px solid black !important;}

2. The background may be easier to be an image if you consider transparencies to work with back modified by tags or other css. I assume image was safer, cleaner etc. 

BTW, I use a general tree, row thing as you can see, cause it shows clearly both thread pane and folder pane selection, and other lists where needed. And border was the neutral choice, not to bother backgrounds.

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

this has driven crazy (figuratively) the last couple days while cleaning up several months of bugmail.

Is this not evident on Mac?  (not sure I understand comment 13)

Comment 22

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Don't we use the native colors on Mac for lists? I highly think so.

Comment 23

[Phil Barrett]

I'd say it's a lot better on Mac now (using 3.0b1). The grey selected-but-not-focussed line is sufficiently different from the pale-blue odd/even line.

@Wayne: My comment 13 was just saying what hardware I was using.
@Henrik: Yes, the selected-and-focussed colour comes from the system pref.

Comment 24

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

For linux, this was fixed by bug 483761 - i think bug 483761 comment 20 is the relevant code.

Comment 25

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #24)
> For linux, this was fixed by bug 483761 - i think bug 483761 comment 20 is the
> relevant code.

nice. Can we get this into windows?  (sounds like Mac is good)

Comment 26

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

I'm assigning this to andreas to look into (when you have time).  I think the Mac is pretty good right now but Windows could use some help here.

Comment 28

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Is this relevant anymore? I don't think we use alternate-row highlighting anymore, so this shouldn't be affecting us today.

Comment 29

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

We are now using zebra striping only on OS X and XP. Both had some rework and the contrast is good. -> WORKSFORME