hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:See screenshots:
- middle item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-0.png
- first item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-1.png
- last item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-2.png

What do you think ?
(personnally, I like it. The only drawback if you want, is that now the margins between a menu and its menu-items is reduced with respect to what we have now, by ~ 2 pixels)

Personally, I think the other solution was better. The selection in this version seems to bleed into the background, appearing wider than the menu for me, especially on the last screenshot. Keeping the selection rectangular and having a bit of white space below looks better to me.

Soukyuu wrote:

hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:See screenshots:
- middle item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-0.png
- first item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-1.png
- last item: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-2.png

What do you think ?
(personnally, I like it. The only drawback if you want, is that now the margins between a menu and its menu-items is reduced with respect to what we have now, by ~ 2 pixels)

Personally, I think the other solution was better. The selection in this version seems to bleed into the background, appearing wider than the menu for me, especially on the last screenshot. Keeping the selection rectangular and having a bit of white space below looks better to me.

One thing about these screenshots is that the borders aren't positioned optimally; for the best result the border should be outside the filled areas, removing the effects you're mentioning here where everything feels oddly seated.

Kver wrote:One thing about these screenshots is that the borders aren't positioned optimally; for the best result the border should be outside the filled areas, removing the effects you're mentioning here where everything feels oddly seated.

mmm
not sure it works either: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-3.png
(personally I prefer the other. Matter of taste I guess).

hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:

Kver wrote:One thing about these screenshots is that the borders aren't positioned optimally; for the best result the border should be outside the filled areas, removing the effects you're mentioning here where everything feels oddly seated.

mmm
not sure it works either: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-3.png
(personally I prefer the other. Matter of taste I guess).

Ideally the border is not overtop any of the menu fills... Here's what I was talking about;



Edit: the reason it looks funny is because on the left side the border-on-white blends into the background, making the highlight looks like it's sticking out. On the right-side the background is darker, so it stands out and the border looks separate. Basically, no matter what you do as long as the border is over top the fills it will look funny. So if you remove the border completely it may help - but as long as the border is roughly as dark as the hover colour it will keep everything framed better.

Cover entire width but add darker (blue) side borders (the entire menu has a darkened border)?

@Hugo It has been discussed since you asked, but I was just saying that if filling the corners wasn't possible, only then did I prefer adding white space to the bottom and top of the menu as I demonstrated in the image. I'd definitely favor filling the bottom and top entries completely along with the corners, but as others have mentioned this does introduce contrast issues with whatever is behind the menu.

On the other hand, adding space to the top/bottom has its own issues as it makes the menu look somewhat uneven and wouldn't necessarily share consistent spacing with the rest of the theme.

I guess if we go with the 'blue corners' we'll have to go with a dark outline for the whole menu (including highlighted entries) to make up for that lack of value contrast. If it's possible to have the outline color multiplied over whatever color is underneath (with reasonable performance), that may be the preferred method. If the outline color must be hardcoded, however, that may be more difficult to resolve. I'm personally fine with either solution, so the most practical one to implement may win out.

So far as monochrome icons are concerned, I feel that they serve the same symbolic purpose as text in the menus so they should definitely behave like other characters. Also, I think we'll all agree that medium-gray on slightly-lighter blue looks obnoxious.

Some images to illustrate these contrast issues that may not be immediately obvious:





Note the icons and the difference a border makes. A multiplied dark border would serve the same purpose without distractions:

luebking wrote:Cover entire width but add darker (blue) side borders (the entire menu has a darkened border)?

Yes, I think this would work (disregarding the actual darkness of the said border.
I think it is also in line with what SonicSpectre suggests in the last pair of screenshot. Will give it a shot.

ScionicSpectre wrote:@Hugo It has been discussed since you asked, but I was just saying that if filling the corners wasn't possible, only then did I prefer adding white space to the bottom and top of the menu as I demonstrated in the image. I'd definitely favor filling the bottom and top entries completely along with the corners, but as others have mentioned this does introduce contrast issues with whatever is behind the menu.

me too. For the same reason as yours (unbalance). would really like the selection cover the whole thing.

ScionicSpectre wrote:I guess if we go with the 'blue corners' we'll have to go with a dark outline for the whole menu (including highlighted entries) to make up for that lack of value contrast. If it's possible to have the outline color multiplied over whatever color is underneath (with reasonable performance), that may be the preferred method. If the outline color must be hardcoded, however, that may be more difficult to resolve. I'm personally fine with either solution, so the most practical one to implement may win out.

Darker blue (as suggested by you and thomas) should be doable with some smart clipping. Will experiment.

ScionicSpectre wrote:So far as monochrome icons are concerned, I feel that they serve the same symbolic purpose as text in the menus so they should definitely behave like other characters.

Agreed on that. Works nicely on (truely) monochrome icons, when done at the style level. Causes issues with other ones. Though I would say it is not dramatic in breeze, and better than not being able to see the icon.

Thanks for the feedback !

http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/29/menu-highlight-4.png

Opinions ?
Personally I like it. Subtle and crisp.

Looks fine here. Though it could be interesting to see it over various backgrounds, too (like the default plasma wallpaper).

Two suggestions for inclusion in the polishing effort:

1. It would be great if the Breeze theme could be extended to a Konsole color scheme as well. As far as I know there isn't a Breeze color scheme yet but I can imagine that I'm not the only one who spends a lot of time using and looking at text based interfaces and prefers a consistent style. Based on the Breeze colors I've started with a color scheme myself. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5f_F ... TduS0RYUk0

2. In Plasma 5.4 it's now possible to configure the Task Manager to close windows by middle clicking them. I think I'm going to use this option often, but I was thinking 'close buttons' (appearing on hover?) would be practical as well. Up until recently you were required to first open the context menu, and than close the window from there. The same is true for tabs in Konsole.

hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/29/menu-highlight-4.png

Opinions ?
Personally I like it. Subtle and crisp.

It's looking quite good. Out of curiosity, can you try one with the border outside the filled area?

@Hugo Honestly, it looks great. It's a huge improvement as-is and it's a good foundation for what most of the mockups we've seen are aiming for. I'm also curious if Kver's suggestion is possible (to create a dark outline that wraps around the menu rather than existing inside the filled area), as it could accomplish the same goals, albeit less 'crisp'. I don't think we can replicate that in GTK 2 without an ARGB engine, but I'm not too concerned about it since GTK 3 will be the main focus soon.

I'm not worried about changing the saturated icons in menus as they tend to use color for a specific reason that should remain intact (like the Ø in the menu you've shown or the X on buttons).

@Kver,
mmm. Unless I missed something, is it not exactly what I sent few posts ago ? (see below)

hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:mmm
not sure it works either: http://wstaw.org/m/2015/08/28/menu-highlight-3.png
(personally I prefer the other. Matter of taste I guess).

What do I miss ?

I can't speak for Kver, but I think this is what he may mean by 'border outside the filled area'.



Functionally, it's a semitransparent 1px shadow outlining the menu as opposed to doing anything special within the menu itself. You can even see it darken as it overlaps the window border. It could look 'weak' in some cases, but it has the advantage of providing an equal amount of distinction from any color beneath/around the menu.

I still rather like the implementation you've shown us, but with a thin shadow-like border around the menu the only colors that wouldn't contrast from the menu would be closer to black. This doesn't matter with anything but a dark theme in which case you could use white to lighten instead of black to darken. This technique was actually discussed a few pages back in relation to window outlines/shadows.

If our goal is consistency, it could be argued that menus should bear some similarities to windows despite being at separate levels of importance. Menus have traditionally been visually represented as simplified modular windows or slabs. At any rate, I'm just nitpicking- this could be unrelated to Kver's question and I'm digging rather far down the rabbit hole in the context of this thread.

Here's a quick image to demonstrate the differences with this change alone. You can stare at the left side of the highlighted entries to imagine what the top highlighted entry may look like without the protection of the blurred shadow (I was too lazy to mock it up).