| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001689 | OpenMPT | User Interface | public | 2023-04-10 15:26 | 2023-04-14 19:44 |
| Reporter | Polaris911 | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | normal | Severity | minor | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | OpenMPT 1.30.06.00 / libopenmpt 0.6.5 (upgrade first) | ||||
| Summary | 0001689: Make current pattern more prominent in pattern order list | ||||
| Description | When you have a long pattern order, the list can get very disorienting since they all look identical. I find myself scanning the row, and scrolling back and forth trying to figure out which pattern it's on. The only indicator is a faint dotted border. It should be more prominent, like a colored box. When there's a scroll bar on the pattern order view, sometimes the current pattern isn't even visible. Look at my screenshot and tell my how long it took you to find the current pattern. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Has the bug occurred in previous versions? | |||||
| Tested code revision (in case you know it) | |||||
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It might beneficial to keep the selected item(s) visible even when the order list is not focussed by giving them the button background color; however that color is currently used for the order lock feature. That feature would then need to use a different set of colors then, but none of the standard Windows color combinations would do the trick, I think. |
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Could you invert the colors, or put an arrow head? invert.png (10,313 bytes) |
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The are above the order list is not drawable. And inverting the colors leaves a way too big accent (bigger than the usual selected color even) for a control that is currently not focussed. Especially if more than one pattern is selected. You would have a huge black rectangel there, stealing all the attention. |
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Here's what I envision, these are the same colors as what is currently being used for the playback lock, so need to find new colors for that. inactive_selectiong.png (14,111 bytes) |
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This is too faint in my opinion.. same problem as before. |
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There's a bit of a problem with that. Maybe I should clarify that to give more context. There is no indicator for the currently active pattern. There's an indicator for the start of the selection (the rectangle that you're observing), and an indicator for the currently playing pattern the (a line above the pattern number). And then there's the background color for the selected pattern(s) (blue). Most of the time, but not always, the indicator for the start of the selection is equal to the currently edited pattern position. However, if you draw a selection spanning multiple patterns, and also play the song at the same time with "follow song" disabled, none of these things will point at the currently edited pattern: The start of the selection is still the start of the selection, the play indicator points to the currently playing pattern (which may be a completely different one) and of course the selected patterns can also be completely independent of the pattern you are currently working in. I hope it is clear that from this description that making the font of any of the three mentioned items bold is not a solution, because there are sitations where neither of them actually are consistent with the currently edited pattern, and adding a fourth option to the order list would be a lot of work. I'm not saying that it's impossible but that's a longer-term goal that certainly will not be done in time for OpenMPT 1.31. What I can do right now, in the remaining weeks until OpenMPT 1.31 is released, would be displaying the selected patterns even if the order list is not selected, but this mustn't be done with an attention-grabbing color, as that might give the impression that the order list is still focussed. |
