Hi all,
First, thanks to the creator(s) of the new proposals for the color themes in
spreadsheets. Obviously lots of planning and thinking has been done for
them.
I do not have a specific favorite among them, I'd just probably pick
whatever is closest to Tango scheme (1), to make it possible to have as
cross-platform colors as possible (i.e. colors fit the style of different
platforms, note that e.g. Windows Vista and Windows XP are two different
platforms in this regard).
While the new colors are definitely an improvement to the existing ones, I
think there are fundamental issues that this update does not solve:
First, there are just too many colors. With 12 colors it is impossible to at
the same time address usability issues (contrast, printing, distinctiveness,
colors next to each other) and aesthetics. All the suggested color sets look
like flea market, when shown in a chart. Apple iWork has only 6 colors, and
it's much more aesthetically harmonious, without sacrificing usability. (2)
(12 colors could be made more harmonious by arranging colors differently,
i.e. similar colors next to each other, but that would make the usability
worse and black-and-white printed colors hard-to-distinguish)
Second, The "reference" color set should have pre-defined adjusments made to
contrast and brightness, depending on the type of the chart. Already in the
proposals (3), it can be seen that not all charts show the colors in same
_perceived_ contrast/brightness. For example, compare very thin lines
-charts to thick bar-charts. The situation is much worse with 3D charts,
which happen to be "conveniently"(?) not part of the voting process. I made
comment about this already in issue 7019 (3)
(Try "printing", i.e. black-and-white versions of "Lines Chart" and
3D-column chart, with the same color set. They do not look the same (4) )
Anyways, thanks for the hard work and good luck for the voting.
Mox
References:
(1)
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/41381/color-circle-tango.pdf
(2)
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/41455/Apple-iWork-palette.pdf
(3) Issue 7019 in issuezilla
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=7019
(4)
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/43281/OOo2.1%20colors%20in%20different%20charts.pdf
On 2/21/07, Ingrid Halama <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi chart users,
Would you like to see nice new default colors in new charts? Vote for
your favorite here:
http://ui.openoffice.org/VisualDesign/OOoChart_colors_drafts.html
Have fun,
Ingrid
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Mox on G
