[Bf-funboard] colours for different button types?

[Luke Wenke]

Hi,
Should there be different colours for different button types? My vote is for
yes.
The main button types I can see are

- "action" buttons (not sure of the right term) which you click on and a
process begins
- toggle buttons - which toggle on and off
- radio buttons - which are groups of toggle buttons where exactly one is
active at a time
(they're the same as dropdown lists really)
- text-fields (that you click to edit)
- number-fields (that you can click or drag to adjust their value, or
shift-click to edit)

In the edit buttons (in blender 2.28c) there is kind of a pattern as to
which colours correspond to what button-type...
Three of the toggle buttons are teal (greenish-bluish-grey).
Most of the action buttons are orangey/salmon
The "Decimator" slider is purple. (sliders don't need to be a different
colour... it is already obvious what type of control they are)

Basically I think that button/control types of the same kind should have the
same colour. And many controls wouldn't need to have a colour - e.g.
sliders, dropdown lists, etc, since it is obvious what kind of control they
are.
I guess radio buttons are basically the same thing as toggle buttons - so
they should have the same colour. To emphasize that radio buttons are linked
to each other, they could be very close together, and not have strong
borders where the radio buttons join. (so they kind of look like one big
control)

Now when you're dealing with colours, you've got to take into account people
who have colour blindness.
I found some stats:
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/stats.php
and an interactive demonstration:
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/index.php

Basically the colour scheme could take into account the most common forms of
colour blindness, and for those who are totally colour blind, the interface
would seem the same as it normally is anyway (the different button types
being indistinguishable).... and if the colours could be customized then
even the colour blind could use this feature... e.g. certain button types
could be black or light grey or medium grey or white, etc.
BTW, I noticed that Tuhopuu lets you adjust the colours for things like
buttons... but it describes the buttons as "butblue" or "butyellow", etc. So
when you are adjusting say the teal ("butgreen") colour and change it to
yellow for example, the button type name will still be "butgreen".
I think the button type names should be "action button background"
(ActButBg?), "action button text", "toggle button on background", toggle
button on text", etc. (So you can even specifically define the colours that
toggle buttons go when you turn them on and off - you might want a subtle
difference in colour in the state change - or a radical colour change [blue
to red], etc)
BTW, I really like the button types in Tuhopuu - e.g. gradient, complex,
special, soft (and of course, basic)

I think text-fields and number-fields should probably have a different
colour - so that beginners learn quite quickly which ones can be edited by
clicking, and which ones by shift-clicking... or if you could edit
number-fields by simple clicking then they could be the same colour.

Besides the toggle button type, that leaves the action button. I think it
should also have its own distinct colour. The other controls can be the
default colour. BTW, the position of the render window and the layer
settings are toggle buttons so they should be the toggle button colour. As
far as the icons in the render window go, they should be the default colour
since they should be tabs (see tuhopuu - in normal blender they look like
normal buttons). For the icons in the 3D window, etc, maybe they could be
dynamically "colorized" depending on if they're action buttons or toggle
buttons. To colorize something you basically start with a fully bright
picture - that is black on white - then multiply it by the colour. For the
radio buttons they could be bunched up a lot more and not have strong
borders in between (e.g. the rotation/scaling centre point icons in the 3D
window)

- Luke