Bug 378461 - Style of focus indicator around active/focused panels
Summary: Style of focus indicator around active/focused panels
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: rkward
Classification: Applications
Component: User Interface (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: RKWard Team
URL: https://rkward.kde.org/Screenshots
Keywords: usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-04-05 09:08 UTC by Armin Leghissa
Modified: 2020-05-03 20:28 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


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Description Armin Leghissa 2017-04-05 09:08:48 UTC
---Problem description---
All panels start having an annoying red frame around themselves, when they get focus.

Please give a brief summary on the problem:
Red frames are confusing and ugly. Behaviour and Design should be defined by
the KDE theme set by the user, not by a specific program.

What - in detail - did you do directly before you encountered this problem?
focussing an arbitrary panel by klicking on it.

When you try to repeat the above, does the problem occur again (no, sometimes, always)?
yes

If applicable: When doing the same thing in an R session outside of RKWard, do you see the same problem?
has nothing to do with R, it's an ugly and confusing GUI behaviour.


RKWard is available in many different packagings, and sometimes problems are specific to one method of installation. How did you install RKWard (which file(s) did you download)?
Also the screenshots on your homepage suffer from those red borders.

---Session Info---
-- Frontend --
RKWard version: 0.6.9z+0.7.0+devel1
KDE version (compile time): 5.32.0
Qt version (runtime): 5.8.0
Local config directory: /home/armin/.config
RKWard storage directory: /home/armin/.rkward/
Backend version (as known to the frontend): 3.3.3

Debug message file (this may contain relevant diagnostic output in case of trouble):
/tmp/rkward.frontend.TJ3688

-- Backend --
Debug message file (this may contain relevant diagnostic output in case of trouble):
/tmp/rkward.rbackend.TJ3694

R version (compile time): 3.3.3  (2017-03-06 r72310)
R runtime session info:
R version 3.3.3 (2017-03-06)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Manjaro Linux

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8          LC_NUMERIC=C                 
 [3] LC_TIME=de_DE.UTF-8           LC_COLLATE=de_DE.UTF-8       
 [5] LC_MONETARY=de_DE.UTF-8       LC_MESSAGES=de_DE.UTF-8      
 [7] LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8          LC_NAME=de_DE.UTF-8          
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=de_DE.UTF-8        LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE.UTF-8     
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.UTF-8    LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] rkward_0.6.6

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_3.3.3
Comment 1 m.eik michalke 2017-04-05 11:24:37 UTC
thanks for your report. i never thought i'd write that, but it's nut a bug, it's a feature ;-)

knowing the current focus is crucial information (e.g., to know where typed in commands will end up, or why the menu shows its particular entries). so just to be clear on this, we'll not get rid of focus information per se.

RKWard has been indicating the currently focussed part of the interface by a thin red border for 10+ years. that is not to say it can't (or shouldn't) be changed, but to get this into perspective, it has never before been poited out as being an issue or "ugly", and we take it it didn't confuse users in the past.

so, in essence, this is about the border *color*. we'll look into it and see what can be done to improve the general experience with this.
Comment 2 Armin Leghissa 2017-04-05 13:08:44 UTC
Am Mittwoch, 5. April 2017 um 13:24:37 CEST schrieben Sie:
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=378461
> 
> m.eik michalke <m@reaktanz.de> changed:
> 
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> CC|                            |m@reaktanz.de
> 
> --- Comment #1 from m.eik michalke <m@reaktanz.de> ---
> thanks for your report. i never thought i'd write that, but it's nut a bug,
> it's a feature ;-)
> 
> knowing the current focus is crucial information (e.g., to know where typed
> in commands will end up, or why the menu shows its particular entries). so
> just to be clear on this, we'll not get rid of focus information per se.
> 
> RKWard has been indicating the currently focussed part of the interface by a
> thin red border for 10+ years. that is not to say it can't (or shouldn't)
> be changed, but to get this into perspective, it has never before been
> poited out as being an issue or "ugly", and we take it it didn't confuse
> users in the past.
> 
> so, in essence, this is about the border *color*. we'll look into it and see
> what can be done to improve the general experience with this.

Oh, thank you for the fast reply,

ok, the argumentation of seeing the active focus sounds
indeed reasonable.
I mean, it's not an important thing,
but would it be a solution to add a setting, where one
can choose *a color* or *no color/use theme default* ?
Because there are indeed Qt-Themes (e.g. the oxygen theme),
which actually do highlight the active focus quite good.

Would be nice, if once, one of you folks could find the time
to do that....

Sorry for declaring this as a bug, i simply didn't realise....

Best regards,
Comment 3 m.eik michalke 2017-04-05 14:17:39 UTC
sure, we'll see into it, just don't hold your breath ;-)
Comment 4 Jan 2017-04-26 06:00:36 UTC
The red frame around the focused window is very useful, for me. I like it.
Comment 5 dittrich.c.jan 2017-04-26 19:51:24 UTC
> Red frames are confusing and ugly. Behaviour and Design should 
> be defined by the KDE theme set by the user, not by a specific program

I would agree that this makes sense. "confusing and ugly" is a bit unclear itself. Confusing probably because it is red, which is usually used to indicate error (novel or occasional users may not be aware that it is "just" focus). Ugly because the red is quite strong and may not match the theme’s colors. 

However, since focus seems to be very important here and because it was indicated that some themes don't show focus well it may make sense to go with a custom solution here (OK, actually the themes should be fixed, but thats not in scope). 

Would it be possible to get the themes highlight color (if that is a thing themes have) and use this? So on ubuntu the frames would be strong orange, on fedora blue etc.
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2017-11-28 21:14:31 UTC
Indicating focus is good, but red is the wrong color. As dittrichpointed out, red is a negative color in many cultures--indicating danger, hazards, blood, death, etc.

Can we have it follow the colors from the active theme instead?
Comment 7 Thomas Friedrichsmeier 2018-04-20 11:12:34 UTC
I'm all sympathetic to this request. But would you happen to know just how I can retrieve the relevant theme color? Last time I looked I got lost in a jungle of styles platform plugins and eventually just gave up. Any pointers appreciated.
Comment 8 flyos 2018-04-20 11:24:25 UTC
Thomas, on the KF5-based version, there is a blue frame (similar to Kate, etc.., so inherited from KTextEdit?) around the script and console panel when they're active. With a Breeze theme, this means there is a red frame AND a blue frame around the active panel. I might be naive here, but maybe removing the red frame in the RKward code is enough then?
Comment 9 Thomas Friedrichsmeier 2018-04-20 11:35:47 UTC
Those blue frames do help a lot (and the red frame originated at a time when those were not available, yet), but unfortunately they are not available for all types of RKWard windows that can be "active". (Which also includes help windows, plots, data editors, and a few less relevant ones).
Comment 10 flyos 2018-04-20 13:37:56 UTC
OK, I see. I was too naive then, sorry for the noise!
Comment 11 Thomas Friedrichsmeier 2018-04-22 06:17:18 UTC
Git commit 30bdd0950796fc0c11343c33a65a98a40b359f8a by Thomas Friedrichsmeier.
Committed on 22/04/2018 at 06:14.
Pushed by tfry into branch 'master'.

Show focus indication in highlighted item color (usually blue), instead of hardcoded red

This is not a fully generic solution, yet, because - as far as I understand - this is not
necessarily the platform style's focus highlighting color. However, in most cases it will
probably match, and at any rate it should be less controversial than hardcoded red.

M  +1    -0    ChangeLog
M  +2    -5    rkward/windows/rkmdiwindow.cpp

https://commits.kde.org/rkward/30bdd0950796fc0c11343c33a65a98a40b359f8a
Comment 12 Thomas Friedrichsmeier 2020-05-03 20:28:05 UTC
I'm trimming down our list of active bug tickets to something more usable.

The current solution to this issue may not be technically ideal, but I think it addresses the original problem well enough. If you still hold a grudge against the focus indicators as used in RKWard 0.7.1 or later, please open a new ticket for that.

Thanks!