Clarke Echols <cla...@verinet.net> wrote: |Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
To me the problem is that i can't right now, even though i want. |With a world gone crazy over apps for this, apps for that, |and apps to manage apps (I'm guessing because I've never |owned a cell phone -- much less a smart phone) I see no I don't know about that. I have an «emergency» mobile phone. It is the second mobile phone i own – you know the story of the extreme cruelty and environmental terror surrounding Coltan, and that the Chinese even paid over world market price to calm down the situation some ten years ago, _if_ i recall correctly. So, no. I would still use my first, even older, Nokia, but the power plug is dead, and no one seems to be able to repair it. Though it would very well be worth it. Anyway i am now the owner of a used Samsung, which, i admit, has a camera and, once unfolded, a monitor. I couldn't wait for the renaissance of the plain old good stuff, unfortunately. Granted that we possibly have seen a step forward regarding user interfaces due to all this. Then again, i think it is just a step heading towards the vision that materialized in the Newton. And that in turn is most likely (not only!) a real-life translation of the brain transplant and do-by-thinking, which is much, much older, i think. |need for it. I can't agree. Though i am pretty conservative regarding this myself, most of the time – my vim, with which i stay practically all the time, uses DarkRed (brown) for comments and reverse,bold,red for warning messages. I see the need because this software, not only the macros, don't allow people to realize what they want. And they seem to do so, because whenever i start vim without my own config file, myself starts laughing. And it was like that already when i started using vim, around Y2K. And then colors offer the option to «break out» of a situation: say you work twelve hours in a two-colour editor session, it is, in my gut feeling, helpful to switch to a different environment with a completely different visualization. E.g., whereas i am completely fine with colour mono sum-dotmark ft=bold,ft=reverse dot colour mono sum-header ft=bold dot colour mono sum-thread ft=bold dot colour mono view-header ft=bold from,subject colour mono view-msginfo ft=reverse,ft=underline '' colour mono view-partinfo ft=bold,ft=underline '' colour mono mle-position ft=bold '' colour mono mle-prompt ft=bold '' on a monochrome display (the reverse is even too much), i also like switching to colour iso sum-dotmark ft=reverse,fg=blue dot colour iso sum-header fg=blue dot colour iso sum-thread fg=blue dot colour iso sum-thread fg=magenta '' colour iso view-from_ fg=brown '' colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject colour iso view-header fg=red '' colour iso view-msginfo fg=green '' colour iso view-partinfo fg=brown '' colour iso mle-position ft=bold '' colour iso mle-prompt fg=red '' on a normal eight-colour display and really like, for quite some weeks now, periodically switching over to colour 256 sum-dotmark ft=bold,fg=13 dot colour 256 sum-header fg=19 older colour 256 sum-header fg=16,bg=219 dot colour 256 sum-header fg=17 '' colour 256 sum-thread ft=bold,fg=164,bg=219 dot colour 256 sum-thread fg=172 '' colour 256 view-from_ fg=142 '' colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject colour 256 view-header fg=124 to,cc colour 256 view-header fg=203 reply-to,mail-followup-to,user-agent colour 256 view-header fg=88 '' colour 256 view-msginfo fg=green '' colour 256 view-partinfo fg=brown '' colour 256 mle-position fg=202 '' colour 256 mle-prompt fg=red '' on a 256-colour display, even though that is, well, colourful. |But one factor nobody's mentioned is the fact that some |users are color blind, and the wrong combination of |colors can make a page very difficult to read, and that |is NOT what's needed. I wouldn't enable this by default, then. That is easy to do if the software is a good one and the mechanism as such is backed by good code. I.e., the software should be capable to automatically detect whether colours are applicable, choose the right terminal sequences to realize what is desired, etc. I don't really honour the latter because i always have presupposed ISO 6429, i.e., ANSI attribution, which originates in the 1970s. |I suggest leaving well enough alone. Black text on a |white background has always worked well. Strong |contrast (NEVER grey on white like so many "modern" |graphic designers seem to think is so pretty, even if |it makes text much harder to read) is still the best |way to put text on a screen or on paper either for |that matter. | |My engineering manager from decades ago said the best |designs are always the simplest, and have the least |need for adjustments. I do appreciate clean and reduced designs myself. But it depends, and other people may have other desires. If the software can scale to the needs of those people, too, and does so automatically and correctly, then it is a personal matter chosen freely, not something imposed by outer restrictions. And that is what i desire, even though i know that most people don't survive freedom mentally. But the software has to move. --steffen
