Hyperlink difficult to see with dark theme #213
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Well, yes; that's the way your desktop's dark theme does it. Please take that up with the developers of that theme. All QDirStat does is use it. I am personally not at all a fan of dark themes because those problems are all over the place. I find those dark themes barely usable. |
Hi, Below is a code snippet where the link color is hard coded - see Any chance you would reconsider exposing it for people with visual disabilities who have to use dark themes (like myself)? Thx! Line 148 in 07e7a45 |
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I have an idea! :) How about I work on a What do you think? |
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This is what Qt Designer (the interface designer) generates when you insert a hyperlink in a QLabel. I guess they are using the same values that they use for a QRichText style sheet. It's what people normally expect a hyperlink to look like in a normal (web-browser like) environment where there is typically a light-colored background. There is a reason why I chose to use the interface designer for this project: To avoid a ton of boilerplate code for mundane stuff. I really don't want to overengineer this with a lot of code that just determines the font color of a hyperlink (that is used very infrequently to begin with), adding config parameters, duplicating them for both the normal case (a light widget theme) and the exceptional case (a very dark widget theme) with a threshold determining which one to use etc. etc.; that is leading nowhere. Anybody who has visual impairments should know better than to use a dark widget theme: It's the norm, not the exception, that there is poor contrast everywhere. There is a reason why after the bad old MS-DOS days in the 1980s where a black CRT monitor with green, amber or later white font color, all systems rapidly changed to a white background with black font color because it's much better to read: Atari with GEM, Amiga, MS Windows, even Sun and SGI workstations. Using a dark widget theme in the 21st century is not done for necessity or usability (to the contrary), it's a fashion statement. That fashion statement comes at a cost. And that cost is much lower contrast. |
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On 2023-02-24 17:05, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
This is what Qt Designer (the interface designer) generates when you
insert a hyperlink in a QLabel. I guess they are using the same values
that they use for a QRichText style sheet. It's what people normally
expect a hyperlink to look like in a normal (web-browser like)
environment where there is typically a light-colored background.
HI Stefan,
Got it. It'll get me going.
Anybody who has visual impairments should know better than to use a
dark widget theme: It's the norm, not the exception, that there is
poor contrast everywhere.
Visual impairments are on a spectrum and as I mentioned, a dark theme
makes a marked difference for my computer use.
Using a dark widget theme in the 21st century is not done for
necessity or usability (to the contrary), it's a fashion statement.
No one who knows me would ever say that I'm one to follow fashion
statements. :)
Young me loved a light theme. My old eyes can no longer support it.
Off to fork ...
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During my career as a software developer (since the late 1980s) I did create widget themes for visually impaired users. Yes, I know a bit about that, and now in my late 50s my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be. We had a user working for a customer, for example, who could only read text that was huge (3-4 times as large as the normal font) and in bright neon colors on a black background. We made - with his cooperation and constant input - a widget theme especially for him and his huge monitor. But it was unusable for everybody else; way too much contrast, screaming colors, and an aesthetic disaster zone. It worked for that user, and for him alone. Years later, I added something similar to YaST, the SUSE Linux installation and system administration program (I was in charge of the user interface engine back then), and right off the bat, we knew we'd have to provide several widget themes for different kinds of visual impairment. It's still there, and these days there is even an icon button in all YaST screens to switch widget themes. But none of those special widget themes are suitable for everybody, much less for users without vision impairment. There is no catch-all that works for everyone. And then, there are the true fashionistas who just want a cool-looking desktop and switch it to a dark theme for that reason, usability be damned. Good user interface design is always a balancing act, and it comes with lots of compromises. Nowhere else is it more true that you can't be everybody's darling. So, if you personally have special needs in that area, and you know how to build software, please go ahead and git-clone the repository and exchange that color that you can't read well for one that you can, and then simply build your own personal version of QDirStat. That's the power of Open Source. But a solution for everybody is very unlikely to work. Also, it's not as if hyperlinks were everywhere in QDirStat. It's in that message panel (which you get mostly when you were trying to read a directory tree where you don't have permissions for every directory), and in the breadcrumbs widget where you see and quickly switch the full path of the current directory. And in the "About..." dialogs in the "Help" menu. |
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On 2023-02-24 17:49, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
[ snipped for brevity ]
Years later, I added something similar to YaST,
Yup, I've used it. I have to toggle between a few to find the right one
that works for me at that particular time.
Supports your points below that there's no one-shoe-fits-all. I know
this all too well.
In fact, it's worse than that because some days are better than others
so sometimes I'm having to increase font size. Ah, nothing like getting
older.
As my now deceased father-in-law would say, "do not worry, it only will
get worse." That was after I complained about some age related item to
him. It was the last time. :)
But none of those special widget themes are suitable for everybody,
I agree 100%. This is why I had initially proposed that the product be
extended to support themes and let users contribute as they see fit.
Good user interface design is always a balancing act, and it comes
with lots of compromises. Nowhere else is it more true that you can't
be everybody's darling.
The above is the problem with subjective solutions. *grin*
*** Edit: this is why I primarily live in the back end. UI? No thanks!
So, if you personally have special needs in that area, and you know
how to build software, please go ahead and git-clone the repository
and exchange that color that you can't read well for one that you can,
and then simply build your own personal version of QDirStat. That's
the power of Open Source.
[ snipped ]
Also, it's not as if hyperlinks were everywhere in QDirStat. It's in
that message panel (which you get mostly when you were trying to read
a directory tree where you don't have permissions for every
directory), and in the /breadcrumbs/ widget where you see and quickly
switch the full path of the current directory. And in the "About..."
dialogs in the "Help" menu.
I do have a need and I admit that it will be rare that I will need the
app. :)
I figure a shell script with /sed/ ought to make things right quick.
The breadcrumbs are readable. It is only the hyperlink. Somewhat of a
dead-easy thing.
Perhaps this weekend I'll get a binary dropped -
https://github.com/pablos-here/qdirstat-dark
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Hey Stefan, Well, I couldn't help it ... :p ... as all I had to do was make the one change, building the app truly was dead-easy. Heck, it took longer to download the Qt dev bits than to build it. Any chance you'd be game to tweak the color for the link to say Check it out ... swanky!
ps: I'm fundamentally lazy so I don't want to really fork and keep it up to date but ... |
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If it's a change that subtle, I think that should work. I'll just have to check if it still works in the normal (light) theme. |
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Notice that this affects only that one location in the panel message. Old:
New:
This is a bit less contrast in the normal (light) theme, but still acceptable. |
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In the BreadcrumbsNavigator widget, this still uses the default which is the same blue as in the "old" screenshot. https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/blob/master/src/BreadcrumbNavigator.cpp#L99-L131 html += QString( "<a href=\"%1\">%2</a>" )
.arg( crumb.url )
.arg( qHtmlEscape( name ) );Notice that this code doesn't do all that artificial QSS styling like that HTML code that Qt Designer automatically inserted, including explicitly setting |
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Hi Stefan, The breadcrumbs follow the current KDE In the VM I stood up, I am switching between the various supplied openSUSE TW themes and the Thank you so much! |
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Please let me know if you'd like me to add screenshots with the various themes to the screenshots page. It's the least I can do to help out. |
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This made me think I'd try to reduce that HTML code from But alas, no, Qt Designer insists in adding that stuff again the moment you click "Save". |
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On February 25, 2023 09:45:54 Stefan Hundhammer ***@***.***> wrote:
But alas, no, Qt Designer insists in adding that stuff again the moment you
click "Save".
Talk about "artificial intelligence" - or, more likely, "artificial
stubbornness". ;-(
One of my constant burns is when software tries to be smart and has no
override. Feh.
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As for the screenshots, for one of the next releases I think I'll have to either redo them all so they become consistent again; right now it's a wild mix of different desktop / window manager themes. I am also not sure if they haven't become too many over the years. |
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Please try branch huha-force-href-theme-style. This beats Qt Designer's artificial stubbornness into submission; just to show it who the boss is here, man or machine. ;-) This uses very plain HTML without frills (in particular without hard-coded styling) which should then use the theme's default, so if the theme is well-behaved and has an appropriate color for hyperlinks, it should use the one defined there, rather than using a different hard-coded override which the first approach did. I tried in my environment (openSUSE Leap 15.4 + Xfce4) with half a dozen dark themes, but not a single one of them offered a different hyperlink font color than the default Since you wrote that the BreadCrumbs widget works fine for you, and you can read the links there, it should now use the same font color. Please try. |
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On 2023-02-25 11:05, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
Please try branch huha-force-href-theme-style
<https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/tree/huha-force-href-theme-style>.
Hey Stefan,
Thank you so much for the quick turn-around.
Ding, ding, ding ... a winner! It's following the theme. Please see
the screenshots - https://imgur.com/a/SSJqSx6
This beats Qt Designer's /artificial stubbornness/ into submission;
just to show is who the boss is here, man or machine. ;-)
ha ha!
This uses very plain HTML without frills (in particular without
hard-coded styling) which should then use the theme's default, so if
the theme is well-behaved and has an appropriate color for hyperlinks,
it should use the one defined there, rather than using a different
hard-coded override which the first approach did.
I get it. The theme is overridden by hard coding coloring. That makes
sense.
I tried in my environment (openSUSE Leap 15.4 + Xfce4) with half a
dozen dark themes, but not a single one of them offered a different
color than the default |#0000ff| blue. But IMHO that is an oversight
in those themes.
Agreed. The new TW VM has a combination of dark and light themes. As
you can literally see above, the link now follows the theme. Very cool.
Please let me know if you need help with any screen captures, etc.
Otherwise I'll chuck my VM. :)
Cheers!
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OK, merged to master. |
Hi,
When running
QDirStatwith aDark Theme, hyperlinks are difficult to see - see the screenshot below.One idea is to add to the color scheming editor the ability to change object colors:
Screenshot
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