657275 - Need Better Visual Demarcation of Which Tab Has Focus

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Themes, enhancement)

Description

[David E. Ross]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110511 SeaMonkey/2.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110511 SeaMonkey/2.1

The tab that has focus has no line separating the tab from the content window.  The other tabs have a white line and then a light gray line in parallel for that separation.  This demarcation is hard to see.  

I suggest a black line be used in place of the gray line.  

Reproducible: Always




This might be an accessibility issue for individuals with visual handicaps, including individuals with uncorrected astigmatism or with cataracts insufficiently advanced to justify corrective surgery.

Comment 1

[Philip Chee]

Valid enhancement request. I'll move this to the Themes component since the fix is likely to involve some CSS fixes in this area.

Comment 2

[Philip Chee]

P.S. please attach a screenshot for future reference. Thanks.

Comment 3

[David E. Ross]

Attachment: Browser with multiple tabs

The attached JPEG file shows SeaMonkey 2.1RC1 with four tabs open.  Counting from the left, tab #2 has the focus.  The other tabs are "behind" it.  Note how much the right edge of tab #2 and tab #4 resemble each other.  Also note that the "white" (perhaps light gray?) line at the bottom of tabs #1, #3, and #4 appear to be the same color as the background of the top of the Web page in tab #2, with the darker gray line just below it is almost indistinguishable.

Comment 4

[therube]

Attachment: Screenshot, Modern Theme.

Modern Theme.
Differences in "underlining" & coloring differentiating the current tab.

Comment 5

[therube]

Attachment: Screenshot, CSS to color tab.

Suppose you're looking for more then some CSS in userChrome.css to color the current tab?

> /* Change color of active tab */
> tab{
>    -moz-appearance: none !important;
>    }
> tab[selected="true"] {
>    background-color: rgb(0,255,0) !important;
>    color: black !important;
>    }

Comment 6

[therube]

I guess I should also say that I agree that this is most definitely needed.

I have used the above (or similar) CSS for years, so I don't really notice the issue.

But when I open a default FF or IE, it is like OMG, how do they use this browser with no clear demarcation of the current tab.

Comment 7

[David E. Ross]

It has been suggested that use of the Modern Theme resolves this problem.  Having to use a theme other than the standard default is not an acceptable way to resolve this bug.  It is merely a work-around.  

Similarly, the suggestion to tweak userChrome.css is not a solution, merely a work-around.

Comment 8

[therube]

> I should also say that I agree that this is most definitely needed.

> the suggestion to tweak userChrome.css is not a solution, merely a work-around.

And now I'll note that as of SeaMonkey 2.12a, there is a huge performance impact for using that work-around.

Bug 763131 - large performance hit when applying custom css to tabbrowser