Re: [edbrowse-dev] Playing With Colors

[Adam Thompson <arthompson1990@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Sep 07, 2019 at 09:00:36AM -0400, Karl Dahlke wrote:
> Well it's just an experiment.
> If we don't like it I can comment out a couple lines and it sort of goes away.
> If we do like it then I need to document it.
> 
> Not sure when I'd even use it, except for those sites that say
> refer to the blue section below
> or
> your entry is invalid please refer to the items marked in red
> This happens sometimes but not often.

Still it's a cool idea, particularly when talking to people and you get instructions like "click the completely uninformatively (but purple) named link, enter 42
into the green box and then type a selection of random words into the blue
box but in no way fill in the pink one, click the red button and not the
green one and then you've completed some mandatory HR/business related thing" (and yes that's
how I feel when I get some emails about how to use some web apps at work).
At least I can now work out which parts of the web page they're referring
to.

> Colors (from the css sheets) are almost always rgb values which is borderline useless,
> so I convert them to the closest standard color.

Good thinking, though it may be worth being able to display the rgb values
as well just in case something's odd on a particular page (unless it's a lot
of work to have that as an option, even more obscure I suppose).
> I'm using nonascii (for the first time) symbols to demark a color section,
> and I sort of like that but sort of don't,
> but we're so badly overloading the ascii symbols that I don't know how long we can keep doing that.
> I should probably use other unicodes to demark invisible sections, hover sections, frames, etc.
> 
> The ease of use depends on how you set up your adapter,
> which is the nice thing about moving to higher unicodes.
> You can have your adapter say
> color start, color end
> or just start end, or in out, or whatever.
> Probably anything is better than double less than or whatever it says by default.

I know speakup says "double left angle" and "double right angle" and as a
speakup user I'm fairly happy you've gone for a unicode it (or more
correctly the espeak soft synth) understands.  I guess that's my one concern
with going non-ascii particularly if we start using the more odd corners of
unicode.  However I agree with the decision to explore this.

> To play with it, browse any site,
> and type colors
> a toggle command,
> which means colors+ and colors- will work.
> You'll see things like
> 
> :red≪{contact us}≫
> 
> Or color start and end around a whole menu or section, etc.
> Have fun, and send me feedback.

Yeah, will do.