Re: [proposal] Adopt palette to Symphony palette partially

[Armin Le Grand <Ar...@me.com>]

     Hi List,

I have now comitted the adapted version as discussed; please have a look 
in one of the next versions. As with gradients - suggestions are 
welcome, nothing i set in stone ;-)

Sincerely,
     Armin

On 20.12.2012 11:45, Armin Le Grand 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
--
ALG

Re: [proposal] Adopt palette to Symphony palette partially

[Shenfeng Liu <li...@gmail.com>]

Armin,
  Thanks very much for your great work!
  I just recorded them in 4.0 planning wiki
here<https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/AOO+4.0+Release+Planning>
.


- Shenfeng (Simon)


2013/1/2 Armin Le Grand <Ar...@me.com>

>     Hi List,
>
> I have now comitted the adapted version as discussed; please have a look
> in one of the next versions. As with gradients - suggestions are welcome,
> nothing i set in stone ;-)
>
> Sincerely,
>     Armin
>
>
> On 20.12.2012 11:45, Armin Le Grand 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<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/palette.png>,
>> http://people.apache.org/~alg/**Palette/palette2.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
>>
> --
> ALG
>