On Dec 20, 2012, at 5:45 PM, Armin Le Grand <armin.le.gr...@me.com> wrote:
> Hi List, > > Talking about palettes is always difficult - at the end, it's a question of > taste. Nonetheless, we need a palette which is by default installed with the > office. You all know the current one (for years ;-)) which I think is far > from optimal. Thus, I analyzed the current one and want to share my findings. > From that, I want to propose a change for our next release. Also probably not > optimal, but optimal in this field depends on the user's eye and cannot be > met by a single palette anyways. > > Talking about palettes is also difficult since you need to 'see' something - > pictures say more than words. To make that easier, I have prepared some data. > Please look at > > A Impress document containing two slides > (http://people.apache.org/~alg/Palette/palette.odp) > The two slides as png's for convenience > (http://people.apache.org/~alg/Palette/palette.png, > http://people.apache.org/~alg/Palette/palette2.png) > > The following thext refers to figures there, so please take a look to see > what the text is about (...if you want to continue reading ;-)) > > The current (old?) AOO Palette, It's made up of five groups (from my > perspective): > > (a) The 16 VGA colors: These come originally from the times where only 16 > colors were possible and are in hex color notation exactly all eight > combinations of red/green/blue on or off, plus these in half intensity. It > *had* technical reasons, but these colors do not have any special meaning for > the user today (well, for the programmer). Anyways, they are a result of old > technical limitations. I think they are ugly and lead to ugly results when > using them directly (but that's my impression). > > (b) The 'Main' Colors: 56 colors which try to build up to eight > gradient-stepped ranges, e.g. orange. These ranges are *not* equidistantly > spread, but somewhat wild/random (see e.g. the reds). I do not know where > they historically come from, but I guess they were done by a deveoper at > these days. There are some nice colors among them, but not too many. I always > search for useful colors there > > (c) The Pale colors: These seem to be younger than the others, may have to do > historically with the StarOffice 5.2 color theme, but I'm not sure. Not too > bad, not too good a selection. A group of seven colors which form a nice kind > of 'schema' and make your presentation look 'acceptable' when using them > together. > > (d) The Chart colors: 12 colors used in the new chart module written some > years ago. AFAIK these were added at that time especially to support the user > having colors at hand corresponding to the default chart colors. Nice. Useful. > > (e) 'Nice' Colors: A sub-group from (b). One is fix, it's the mentioned 'Blue > 9' which is currently the default color for objects and has to be in the > palette. I personally like (and often use) 'Blue Gray'. These are a question > of taste, I would reccomend the named ones, but we need to collect 'your' > favorites here. Keep in mind to keep this number low (probably 4-5) and do > not forget that the color you like were not choosen freely, but *because* you > were limited to the offered ones, so it might be a compromize you are just > used to. > > Quite a mix. I compared it with Syphony's palette and there completely new > colors are used. One interesting aspect are the white/gray/black ones: In our > current palette these are divided between (a) (black, white and two grays) > and (b) (the rest, gray 80% .. gray 20%). This is of course because the first > four grays are technically in the old VGA palette. I more than once were mad > about finding the correct gray in our palette, because of the bad positioning > in it. Symphony has all needed grays in one draw as first entries in the > palette (what I would expect nowadays). > > Thus, I propose: > - Basically use Symphony palette > - Preserve some nice olors from our old palette, but not more than 4 or 5. > The default color needs to be preserved (blue 9). I propose to only keep > 'Blue Gray', but let's see which other colors are favorites here... > - Add the Pale colors > - Add the Chart colors > > The result is 'hand crafted' in the docs linked above, please have a look :-) > > Another aspect of the new palette is that it copies from Symphony the use of > '12-er groups' which look nice when you order the palette in a way that 12 > colors are in a row, please see the picture. This could be a part of our > sidepane in progress. > > One more hint: This palette offers defaults to the user after AOO is newly > installed, not more (and not less). It can be changed by the user anytime. > Colors can be added/deleted by the user. This has no technical limitations in > the sense that changing the palette may influence existing ODF's or other > written files. E.g. the chart colors are there to not have to look for them, > but can be added/removed by the user anytime (they are *not* the source for > the chart to use them). > > Lot of text for some colors. So, tell me what you think about this proposed > new palette! > > Sincerely, > Armin > -- > ALG Armin, Great enhancement. In fact this is in the UX backlog. Regards, Kevin
