o1bigtenor via Dng said on Thu, 20 Jan 2022 07:03:27 -0600
>AIUI there are not only different forms of color blindedness but also >different levels. Putting that all together means a very large amount >of complexity. > >Likely an easy path to avoid most difficulties - - - use only strong >primary colors - - - does that solve the possible issues - - - nope >but those that are color blind have learned to cope with those specific >issues (I'm thinking of red like in stop lights). As a guy with vision correctable to 20/50 at best, I have a dog in this fight. The initial theme should: 1) Be readable by anyone who can see at all. 2) Make it trivial for anybody to create, edit or change themes. The preceding two rules would make certain that nobody is presented with a buried shovel in which if they could read the print, they could change the config, and if only they could change the config, they could read the print. 90+% of users will immediately change their theme to something prettier and less stark. The visually handicapped could copy the initial theme to their own theme and modify as necessary. I'm not color blind, but I have a pretty good idea how to make things legible to color blind people: Always have either very dark print on very light background, or very light print on very dark background. This way, the color blind person can discern by light and dark, not color on color. Also, NFT (No Friggin Transparency). For people like me with poor visual acuity, the following are important in the initial theme: * Bigtime contrast. No dark violet on dark blue, or darker violet on dark violet. * Big print. Minimum 12 point, 14 point is better. * No Friggin Transparency! Transparency is the kiss of death for those with low visual acuity. * Startlingly different window decoration for the window with focus, as opposed to the windows without focus. I think very light gray background titlebar for unfocused and very dark blue titlebar for focused would be perfect. Obviously, make the titlebar text contrast starkly with the titlebar background. Also, adding a couple pixels to the window border helps those with low vision know where the window ends and something else begins. You haven't lived until you look at a screen and can't tell which window has focus. Are my suggestions ugly? Most people think so. But please remember the vast majority will immediately switch to a theme more visually pleasing. True story... There was once a Linux project called Gobo Linux, with a packaging scheme I would have preferred to any existing. As with MS-DOS, each application had its own directory tree. That's how I like it --- screw LFS. I was starting to test it, but there was only one thing wrong: The terminal text was about 7point, dark blue on dark purple. I asked them to change it and they said "no problem, you change it at the Grub prompt." So I tried, but they'd set the console font to about 6 point gray on black. I asked them to change the console font and they said I should change it, even though it was clear I couldn't change what I can't read. I was going to publish good stuff about the Gobo project on Troubleshooters.Com. Several projects have been very glad to get publicized on Troubleshooters.Com, but I guess these guys couldn't be bothered either to make it usable for me or make it usable for those with poor eyesight. I never publicized them. As far as I can tell, their mailing list stopped functioning in November 2019, and today their IRC channel has eight people. But they stuck by their guns and kept their "viewable by GenZ only" interface. Oh well. SteveT Steve Litt Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng