User:Billw58/Project Window Border Options

In all cases the focus border has been brightened from standard.

Votes:

Pink 1: Bill -1, Peter -1, Ed +1, Gale -0.5, James -1 Current -2.5
Pink 2: Bill -1, Peter -1, Ed +1, Gale +0.75, James -1 Current -1.25
Green 1: Bill -1, Peter 0, Ed +0.5, Gale +0.25, James -1 Current -1.25
Green 2: Bill -1, Peter 0, Ed +0.5, Gale +0.5, James -1 Current -1
Green 3: Bill +0.5 Peter 0.75, Gale +0.75, James +0.5 Current +2.5
Green 3 with black numbers: Bill -1 Peter -1, Gale +0.25, James -1 Current -2.75
Orange 1: Bill +1, Peter +0.5, Ed -1, Gale -0.5, James +1 Current +1
Orange 2: Bill +1, Peter +1, Ed -1, Gale +0.25, James +1 Current +2.25
Orange 3
- for border style on track: Gale +1 Current +1
- for smaller numbers: Gale -1 Current -1
Brown: Bill ?, Peter ?, Ed ?, Gale -0.5, James +1 Current ??

Gale:01Jun12: Thanks, Bill. I pasted in the current brown for comparison. All are an improvement to me in looking cheerier and distinguishing the track focus better; the oranges are least good at dealing with the track focus. Steve has not voted yet but I think we can discount Pink 1, Green 1 and Orange 1. Would Bill be appeased by a darker, less fluorescent green? And will the colour of the numbers make a difference? I could see black working better than the blue we have now, especially with a green.

Bill 01Jun12: Added Green 3, which I could live with.

Gale 02Jun12: I prefer Green 3 to Green 2, so downgraded my vote for Green 2. I would like to see Green 3 with black numbers, as I think that might push me to +1 on it (I'm not +1 on any of these yet). In many ways Orange 2 is still better, but focus border clash looks bad to me. Did we ever try a bolder grey or black for the border colour? A bright number colour could still cheer it up enough with a black/grey. Fine tuning shades of blue/green/red may never be convincing.
Bill 04Jun12:
- I don't see the focus border "clash" with orange 2.
  - Gale I see it quite strongly with any colours that are similar but try to have a defined border (I am slightly colour blind). It might look better if it looked like an orange border as the toolbars, not an orange and black border.
    - Bill I deliberately left the black track border outside the coloured highlight so there'd be some definition of and separation from the focus highlight. All options were done this way. I've added Orange 3 with no black between the track highlight and the focus highlight. It also shows smaller numbers as requested by Ed.
    - Gale I think this will probably swing my vote to orange 3. This is much less painful to look at for me. It also removes the problem that the border to right of vertical scale looks brighter than the border inside the track focus. Can we please also do this for the bottom of the Timeline, then if most think this is better, do this also for green 3 so we can have a final comparison of those two.
      - Bill: New Orange 3 image with orange border covering the black line at the bottom of the timeline.
    - The other minor problem I see with all the images is that everything above the track focus looks "on top" of the rest because the track focus looks less wide. Would it not look better if we made the track focus to be the same width as the border above? We are already faking focus brightness. In real life there is almost no background to left/right of the track focus, but in this image there is. This change would make the focus distinction clearer too.
      - Bill: I don't quite follow what you're asking. "In real life" there is a 4 pixel grey "border" around or between all tracks, as well as a 1 pixel black drop shadow effect. The "real" focus highlight is 3 pixels wide and shades from bright yellow to yellow-grey. My "brightening" effect as to change it to 2 pixels wide bright yellow and not touch the 3rd pixel. So to my mind the track focus in these images is 2 pixels wide, the same as the highlight borders. Are you asking to move the track + focus border up two pixels so the yellow focus highlight touches the orange border of the timeline? Or are you asking that the track and focus highlight be moved 2 pixels left so the focus highlight lines up with the orange borders? I don't know if we want to engage in that kind of fakery. Brightening the focus highlight is one thing, changing the location and appearance of a track is another.
- I prefer the blue numbers as they are clearly not part of the interface.
- Orange 2 graphic now updated to show the numbers.
- Removed pink 1 and 2, green 1, and orange 1 since these are negative.
- Added Green 3 with black numbers