https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=121520
Bug ID: 121520
Issue Type: DEFECT
Summary: Adopt palette to Symphony palette partially
Classification: Application
Product: drawing
Version: AOO400-dev
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: CONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: P3
Component: editing
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
ALG: From the dev-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!
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