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From: deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: A couple of color questions...
Message-ID: <1991May7.074041.21382@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 07:40:41 GMT
References: <1991May01.014734.25231@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> <1991May4.222227.9364@agate.berkeley.edu> <52482@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: Stick Software
Lines: 55

In article <52482@apple.Apple.COM> keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) writes:
>In article <1991May4.222227.9364@agate.berkeley.edu> deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) writes:
>>The Finder only dims colors that are in the Apple Standard 34 Colors.  Who
>>thought of this originally should probably be shot.  Whoever thought of the
>>"Standard 34 Colors" in the first place should probably be shot.  
>
>There was a lot of thought put into the handling of color icons in the
>Finder. The implemention of the "Standard 34" colors was to solve the
>problem of highlighting. Here's the problem:
>
>Assume that you allow any possible combination of colors in an icon. How
>do you highlight them? Do you simply darken the icon by subtracting
>0x2000 from the R, G, and B components of all the pixels? What happens
>if one icon is drawn with (0xA000, 0, 0) and a second in another shade
>of red (0x8000, 0, 0). If the first one is selected and highlighted, then
>it becomes indistinguishable from the one that is unhighlighted.
>
>The choice of the magic 34 colors was to avoid the confusion, and was
>backed with a lot of use testing. Before you go shooting people, I'd
>love to hear your alternative.

  Oh, I only *talk* about shooting people.  My gosh, Keith, this is my
week for being shown up by you.  But I really don't think you're right
here.
  For starters: you haven't solved the problem.  If one icon has stuff in
one of the magic 34 and gets dimmed down, the dimmed version would probably
be a color that *isn't* in the standard 34, and so another icon could
contain that color, and when selected, look the same as the original, etc.
You haven't solved anything, unless you can get *everyone* to use only the
standard 34 colors.  But in fact, I think people will use the standard 34
as dimming colors, and will use the other colors as non-dimming colors, and
therefore get nifty dimming effects for their icons.  I've already made
many icons that take advantage of this property, actually.
  Secondly, the standard 34 are stupid.  Who picked them?  There are some
good choices, such as having a flesh tone, and having several "system 7
blue" shades.  But why 14 shades of gray (are they really *that*
important?), no good orange (don't tell me the one in there is *good*), no
dark brown, no fully saturated red, no half saturated yellow, etc. etc.
  Third, you ask what algorithm I would use.  Personally, I don't see your
example as a problem.  If someone deliberately makes an icon that looks
like it's dimmed when it's not, they deserve what they get.  I really don't
think anyone is that dumb.  And if they are, I don't think you can prevent
them from making fools of themselves.  I think doing a weighted blend with
black, or doing a SubPin with some shade of gray, would be much more
consistent, and look just as nice.
  Besides, a selected icon has the text below highlighted, so if all else
fails one can just look at that.
  I really honestly think that the Standard 34 Colors is one of the worst
decisions I've seen come out of Apple.  Luckily, it's not a particularly
*important* decision.

-Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
"You're much better off in twos
 If you're going to see the carnage in the backroom..."
       - John Cale & Brian Eno