450034 - Month view shows weekends like out-of-current-month days

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Calendar :: Calendar Frontend, defect)

Description

[Heribert Wettels]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: 0.9pre

In the new grid month view the weekends are now grayed out in the same color shade as are the days that do not belong to the current month.

I like the new color scheme a lot, but weekend days and out-of-current-month days should be distinguishable. While this could be done using userChrome.css it really should be part of the standard theme.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Christian Jansen]

I agree this should be changed (again)

Comment 2

[gekacheka]

Attachment: v1 screenshot: month view day background

This proposal uses light gray for off-month background, and a darker gray for weekends.  It also darkens the number label background on both of these, and the today day, and the selected day.  It lightens the number label background for in-month days so it feels less 'busy'.

Bonsai cvs blame says day background color was last changed in bug 430382.
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsblame.cgi?file=/mozilla/calendar/base/themes/winstripe/calendar-views.css&mark=&rev=1.38
One concern mentioned in that bug was for the display to function like a 'heat-map' emphasizing the (business) days that were available (bug 430382 comment 6), and drawing attention away from weekend days.  So the weekend days are darker than the other-month business days.

Comment 3

[gekacheka]

Attachment: v1 patch: darken month view weekend day backgrounds, day label backgrounds

(patch -l -p 1 -i file.patch)

As described in comment 2.
(review request withheld pending ui-review.)

Comment 4

[Pete Riley]

(In reply to comment #2)
> So the weekend days
> are darker than the other-month business days.
Given the requirements, I think it looks good.  However, not all users are business users and even if they were, not all business users want to darken weekends.  IMO the default theme should be more "normal".  If some business users think that weekend days are unimportant then they could hide them completely or use a theme that's dedicated to those business users.

Comment 5

[gekacheka]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Given the requirements, I think it looks good. 
Thanks.

> ... not all business users want to darken
> weekends.  ...

Business or other users who consider weekend days as part of their work week could use "Options / Views / Workweek" to define their workweek to include those days, and they will be displayed with the lighter work week background.

A benefit of visually distinguishing workweek days from non-workweek days is that the result of "View / Workweek days only" is more apparent and easier to learn even with non-standard work week days.

All the gray stripes are a bit distracting, but perhaps worth the benefit in the default theme for first-time users.

Comment 6

[Heribert Wettels]

(In reply to comment #5)
> > ... not all business users want to darken weekends.  ...
> 
> Business or other users who consider weekend days as part of their work week
> could use "Options / Views / Workweek" to define their workweek to include
> those days, and they will be displayed with the lighter work week background.

I consider this a typical "yes, but..." situation. The very dark weekend days now look like they are disabled which seems to be what you had in mind from a business user's perspective.

Using the calendar for business and private scheduling I consider weekend days as available for private appointments but not for business appointments. In that way they are available for scheduling with some restrictions. That's why I want them to be visually distinguishable. (If you want to, you can see this as a slightly cooler spot on the heat map but not a really cold one.)

When in month view, I'd like a special focus on this month. So I could imagine to have the lighter and darker shades of gray just turned around: weekends light gray, out-of-current-month dark gray.

Nevertheless which way is chosen, the weekend background should be consistent throughout all available views (day, week,...).

Comment 7

[gekacheka]

Attachment: v1b screenshot: month view day background, other-month darker than day-off

For comparison, here is what this month looks like with the grays swapped so other-month days are darker than day-off grays.

Comment 8

[Heribert Wettels]

Thanks for preparing the new variant which I really prefer. Especially because the dark shades of gray would not appear in week and multi-week view.
I'd appreciate this patch.

Comment 9

[Pete Riley]

(In reply to comment #7)
> v1b screenshot: month view day background, other-month darker than day-off

Shouldn't Sunday the 27th and Saturday the 6th have the same color as the other "other month" days?

Comment 10

[gekacheka]

Attachment: v1c screenshot: month view day backgrounds, other-month darker than and overrides day-off

For comparison, here's what it looks like if the other-month weekend days are the same gray as other-month days.  A month with week starts on Monday is also shown.

It seems to lose the weekend columns a bit, but looks less busy.  I guess people who might mouse on a other-month weekend-day (28Feb, 4Apr) would hope to notice it is a weekend-day from the color in the adjacent row.

Comment 11

[Heribert Wettels]

Maybe this is the best way to do it. Screenshot v1c now is exactly what I originally had in mind. It now looks tidy and intuitive.  I am confident that people will recognize 28Feb and 4Apr as weekend days.

The darker intersections of other-month and weekend days got a prominence at first glance that was hard to understand in a intuitive way (though it of course made sense when explained). Maybe it was a bit overdone.

Thanks again for your efforts.

Comment 12

[gekacheka]

Attachment: v1c patch: darken month view weekend day backgrounds, day label backgrounds

(patch -l -p 1 -i file.patch)

(review request withheld pending ui-review.)

Comment 13

[gekacheka]

Comment on attachment 335626 [details]
v1c screenshot: month view day backgrounds, other-month darker than and overrides day-off

Christian, do you have a preference or other concerns?  (Or another design?)

Comment 14

[Christian Jansen]

(In reply to comment #13)
> (From update of attachment 335626 [details])
> Christian, do you have a preference or other concerns?  (Or another design?)

Looks good for me. Maybe we have to adjust some colors later. UI=Christian

Comment 15

[Christian Jansen]

Comment on attachment 335288 [details]
v1 screenshot: month view day background

ui=christian

Comment 16

[gekacheka]

Comment on attachment 336200 [details] [diff] [review]
v1c patch: darken month view weekend day backgrounds, day label backgrounds

This patch uses light gray for weekends background, and a darker gray for
off-month days (including off-month weekends).  It also darkens the number label background on both of these, and
the today day, and the selected day.  It lightens the number label background
for in-month days so it feels less 'busy'.

Comment 17

[Berend Cornelius]

Comment on attachment 336200 [details] [diff] [review]
v1c patch: darken month view weekend day backgrounds, day label backgrounds

patch looks good.r=berend. I will check it in.

Comment 18

[Berend Cornelius]

patch checked in on trunk and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH
->FIXED

Comment 19

[Andreas Treumann]

checked in lightning 2008090303 and sunbird 20080903 -> VERIFIED.