Background color for selected items [DONE]

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sasha
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Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:59 pm

Background color for selected items [DONE]

Post by sasha » Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:44 am

When selecting multiple items in brief/list view, I'd like the items to change background, exactly like in Finder.
select_multiple_items.png
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Currently, in NC's Settings -> Themes -> Files panel -> General, one can specify the foreground text color for selected items, unfocused and focused. That's good.

In ... -> Brief/List mode, one can specify "Selected & (inactive/active) row background", but the naming is a bit misleading. This setting only affects one row under the cursor. If multiple items are selected, the items not under the cursor keep the default background. It would be nice to have a setting for selected items not under cursor.

It would be great to have a theme included in NC that has more or less identical look as Finder's default settings. I'd prefer this to NC's "Modern" theme. What do you guys think?

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mike
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by mike » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:20 am

Hi Sasha,

This difference between NC and Finder is deeper than it might looks like.
They have a quite different notion of what is a cursor and what is a items selection.
In Finder they are fused together - you can't move the cursor without changing a selection.
In NC they are almost separated - you can select two items in one part of a listing, then move the cursor to another part of it and select another few.
That is basically the reason why NC changes a text color to distinguish between selected and non-selected items, instead of using a background color.

I agree that wording is a bit misleading, these colors setting should be named "focused.." instead of "selected..".

sasha
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Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:59 pm

Re: Background color for selected items

Post by sasha » Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:27 am

The semantics behind NC's selection are completely clear, Mike. Keeping the selection after moving the cursor is exactly how it should be, this is nicely implemented in NC.

IMHO, it would be still nice to be able to change the background of focused items while keeping the current selection behaviour. For example, this is implemented (rather ugly) in "that other commander for Mac" that I used before NC :)
c1_selection.png
c1_selection.png (36.21 KiB) Viewed 19664 times
I'd like the background color option in NC to make selected items more visible than just with a different text color. If you included that option in addition to the many customisation options in the Themes panel, I'd certainly appreciate.

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mike
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by mike » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:14 am

Ok, but how to combine a selection background with a cursor background - introduce some 3rd color?
Drawing a selection background only on some portion of an area might hit presentation performance.

sasha
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by sasha » Tue Aug 08, 2017 9:05 am

mike wrote:
Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:14 am
Ok, but how to combine a selection background with a cursor background - introduce some 3rd color?
Drawing a selection background only on some portion of an area might hit presentation performance.
If there was an option for "selected, unfocused background", the user could just chose a color. I would probably chose colors from a blue palette, a lighter one for unfocused and a darker for focused. No need to change the current default settings or something fancy that harms performance. Just my 2 cents :)

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mike
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by mike » Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:17 am

I mean, how to tell if some item is focused but not selected - only by a text color, right?

sasha
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by sasha » Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:39 am

mike wrote:
Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:17 am
I mean, how to tell if some item is focused but not selected - only by a text color, right?
Right. I'm using this in FAR, btw.
far1.png
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Here, "lpeg.dll" is focused and selected, text color is yellow. If it only focused and not selected, text color would be blue (1).

It has really simple color settings where for each entry, you can chose foreground and background.
far2.png
far2.png (39.63 KiB) Viewed 19592 times
But it's only a nice-to-have, I'm sure there are many more pressing things. I thought it's probably really easy to implement, just add one more background option to the many already existing.

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mike
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Re: Background color for selected items

Post by mike » Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:56 am

Hi sasha,

Done:
Screen Shot 2017-10-31 at 14.50.29.png
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I skipped the selection background for Classic theme though.
It lacks the notion of an inactive cursor at the time (I simply can't choose the right color so it won't look ugly) and fakes it with a regular background color. It leads to "gaps" in selection, which looks weird and confusing.

sasha
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Re: Background color for selected items [DONE]

Post by sasha » Mon Nov 13, 2017 4:04 pm

Thanks, Mike!

I'm sure this setting is not for everybody - that's why I would leave it off by default ("Selected item background" Opacity 0%). But for some like me it's a really nice thing to have. One suggestion: in Finder (and other apps), selected rows have thin white separator lines.

selections.png
selections.png (161.2 KiB) Viewed 18854 times

If that's not an overkill, please add those lines between rows. It really makes a difference, and it's macOS default ;)

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mike
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Re: Background color for selected items [DONE]

Post by mike » Tue Nov 14, 2017 10:36 am

I've tried it, but IMHO it looks worse than without gaps (there're no "lines" between rows - it's simply that selection isn't drawn over entire area).
Messy, kind of. I think the reason for this is that selection colors do vary by themselves, since the selection color is semi-transparent and background rows have alternating colors.
Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 17.29.59.png
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