Multi Commander > Support and Feedback
Color of selected files in the inactive panel.
pmennen:
The color setup for MC is about as complicated as any application I have used, but since I am picky about the colors for the applications I use most I appreciate the flexibility to control the colors so precisely. After much fiddling, I've gotten the colors to look exactly like I wanted, except for one small problem. I've chosen purple as the color of the files that have been selected. When the panel containing the selected files becomes inactive the color changes from purple to some other color. That behavior seems entirely appropriate, but the problem is: "how is that color chosen?". Right now the color chosen for that is so faint that I can hardly even read it. I would like to change it to a subtle color to make it obvious that it no longer is active - but not so subtle that I can't even read it (as in the current situation).
Since the color selections are so varied, I have attached a screen capture showing the color setting dialogs. I have marked this up to show the colors that I have entered for the respective choices. And BTW I used the alternating background colors selections because I liked how obvious it made it to tell at a glance which panel was the active one and which one was inactive.
And finally one other related question. Although the purple color is bright enough to make the selected files stand out, I was thinking of ways to make them even more obvious. One way I thought to try was to use a bold face font for the selected files. I noticed that I could select bold face for just about every file type, but the selected files themselves couldn't be set to bold. That seems strange to me, since of all the file names on the panel, the selected files are the ones where bold face would seem the most appropriate, yet these are the only files that may not be set to bold. Am I missing something there?
Thanks
~Paul
Mathias (Author):
Yes color configurations are complicated.. There are too much to change.. and it used to be even more.
--- Quote from: pmennen on August 18, 2015, 13:28:02 ---I've chosen purple as the color of the files that have been selected. When the panel containing the selected files becomes inactive the color changes from purple to some other color.
--- End quote ---
Hmm Are you sure. the background will change since you have different color for background of active/inactive.. Colors can look difference if the background are change. The Text Color should not change depending on active/inactive. Only time colors are changed is by Color Rules or to emulate Explorer if Explorer Mode is active..(But that will only affect selected items, they get "faded" when panel is not in focus.. .)
--- Quote from: pmennen on August 18, 2015, 13:28:02 ---Since the color selections are so varied, I have attached a screen capture showing the color setting dialogs. I have marked this up to show the colors that I have entered for the respective choices. And BTW I used the alternating background colors selections because I liked how obvious it made it to tell at a glance which panel was the active one and which one was inactive.
--- End quote ---
That is the "Highlight the background on panel in focus" settings. The Alternating background settings so for different color for odd/even rows.
Since you have same color for Alternating background color.. you can disable the "Alternating background color" it should not change a thing.
--- Quote from: pmennen on August 18, 2015, 13:28:02 ---And finally one other related question. Although the purple color is bright enough to make the selected files stand out, I was thinking of ways to make them even more obvious. One way I thought to try was to use a bold face font for the selected files. I noticed that I could select bold face for just about every file type, but the selected files themselves couldn't be set to bold. That seems strange to me, since of all the file names on the panel, the selected files are the ones where bold face would seem the most appropriate, yet these are the only files that may not be set to bold. Am I missing something there?
--- End quote ---
It's architectural. The normal coloring system can not do that. And it is already to complex.
but it will be possible in the future. More of the coloring system will be controlled by the Color Rules instead and it will get support for assigning rules to different file states. So then it can be overridden there.
pmennen:
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on August 19, 2015, 14:55:23 ---Hmm Are you sure. the background will change since you have different color for background of active/inactive.. Colors can look difference if the background are change. The Text Color should not change depending on active/inactive.
--- End quote ---
The attached picture shows the appearance change between the active and inactive states.
Perhaps you call the color of the selected file the same in both panels, but to my 61 year old eyes the letters in the inactive panel are so faded out that I can barely even tell what the characters are not to mention tell what color they are. I'm surprised you chose such a strong "faded" factor for the inactive color. Then again your eyes may have many fewer years on them than mine :)
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on August 19, 2015, 14:55:23 ---Only time colors are changed is by Color Rules or to emulate Explorer if Explorer Mode is active..(But that will only affect selected items, they get "faded" when panel is not in focus.. .)
--- End quote ---
I guess you are suggesting that I can disable the problematic fading out of the characters by switching from explorer mode to commander mode. But is there any other way to solve the problem? I have been using the windows style right click, F5 for refresh, ... etc. for decades and I may be too set in my ways to reprogram myself to use the commander styles which I have never been exposed to.
~Paul
Mathias (Author):
Ahh Okey so you are running Explorer Mode that explains it. Yes that will fade colors of selected in inactive panel.
The fade factor is the around the same as Explorer Uses. But there you can not tweaked the color so much so you do not see that.
Normally the The Background is getting lighter and text darker. But with your configuration that is not happening since you disabled items specific background so the background for the item is not changing. Making the fade effect bad.. (Also purple on black might be a bad combo )
Sorry. the Explorer Fade effect for selected item cannot be tweaked.
Going CommanderStyle might not be a solution for you. However you can use the same hotkeys as Explorer if you want. But CommanderStyle setup also handles mouse actions a lot different.
Not sure.. But you can try to enable item specific background and then check "Use default background color" for all items..
Then maybe the background for the selected also is faded.
pmennen:
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on August 21, 2015, 07:51:25 ---Normally the Background is getting lighter and text darker. But with your configuration that is not happening since you disabled items specific background so the background for the item is not changing. Making the fade effect bad..
--- End quote ---
Early on I disabled items specific backgrounds because that made the already complex color settings even harder to wrap my brain around, but now I see that this is actually needed to get an acceptable windows mode color scheme. So thanks for that suggestion. After a little experimentation with it I converged onto a pleasing color scheme. I still have no control over the way the selected files look in inactive mode, however the default (despite having a somewhat unexpected look that I wouldn't have chosen) was never-the-less quite readable. So I'm now happy with the color scheme and believe it was worth the work to understand the MC coloer settings.
Thanks again for your patience.
~Paul
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