[MlMt] Hidden preference for inversion of text in coloured messages when selected in message list

[Henry Seiden]

Like so…

Respectfully,

Henry Seiden
- -
Techworks Pro Co.
E: info<at>techworkspro<dot>com
W: http://techworkspro.com

On 26 Feb 2024, at 9:51, Pierre Igot wrote:

> For those of you who are affected by this issue, if you use 
> MailMate’s built-in colour feature to colour mailboxes and their 
> contents, there is actually a hidden preference in MailMate that 
> switches from the default scheme for selected/highlighted messages in 
> the message list to a scheme where the background colour used for 
> highlighting selected messages, instead of the being the default 
> accent colour for MM, is the colour of the selected message, and the 
> text of the selected message is inverted (to white):
>
>     defaults write com.freron.MailMate 
> MmMessagesOutlineViewColorInversionEnabled -bool YES
>
> (Probably requires a relaunch.)
>
> Benny has kindly provided me with this information (the feature has 
> yet to be documented) and noted that it has actually been supported 
> for some time.
>
> I must say it’s a big relief to me that this hidden preference is 
> available, because it gives us much more flexibility in the choice of 
> colours for messages, since selecting messages no longer risks making 
> them hard to read in the message list.
>
> Hope this is useful to other people.
>
> Pierre
>
>
>
>
>> To those who kindly added their voice to this discussion, I also 
>> invite you to add to the ticket that I opened about it a while back:
>>
>> https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/3296-regression-text-color-not-inverting-when-selecting-an-item#ticket-3296-2
>>
>> I have yet to see a response.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Pierre
>>
>> On 31 Jan 2024, at 8:54, Pierre Igot wrote:
>>
>>> Just want to confirm that the new system for coloring messages works 
>>> just as well as the old styles.plist-based one. In fact, in some 
>>> respects it has more flexibility and works better.
>>>
>>> HOWEVER, there is one glaring issue that remains unaddressed in 
>>> recent builds: when a coloured message is selected in a list, the 
>>> selection highlighting colour is your default “accent” colour 
>>> (typically dark blue), but MailMate does not INVERT the coloured 
>>> text to white to make it readable over the dark blue background. The 
>>> result is that, if the text colour for the message in the list 
>>> happens to be a fairly dark colour, it becomes pretty much 
>>> unreadable when highlighted. The only dark-coloured messages that 
>>> remain readable when selected are those that are in BLACK. If the 
>>> text colour of the message is black, then MM inverts it to white 
>>> when selected. For all other colours, there’s no inversion. Only 
>>> lighter text colours remain (somewhat) readable over a dark blue 
>>> background when selected.
>>>
>>> I have send an extensive post directly to Benny about this, with 
>>> supporting screen shots, explaining why I strongly believe that he 
>>> should bring back inversion for coloured messages as well, i.e. 
>>> ignore the default accent colour and use THE MESSAGE’S TEXT COLOUR 
>>> as background for the highlighting and invert the text itself to 
>>> white. This used to be the case in order builds of MM. Then at some 
>>> point Benny reversed his decision and went back to using the default 
>>> accent colour for highlighting in the message list, regardless of 
>>> the text colour of the highlighted message, with no inversion of the 
>>> text to white in order to make is readable.
>>>
>>> I would really like that all those other MM users who use text 
>>> colouring (either in an older build via  the hidden Styles.plist 
>>> feature or in more recent builds with the new smart-mailbox-based 
>>> feature) indicate here how they feel about this defective text 
>>> inversion scheme that makes it coloured messages hard to read when 
>>> selected/highlighted. It might be a bit “slicker” and 
>>> “cleaner” to have the same accent colour for selection 
>>> highlighting everywhere in the message list, but it is at the 
>>> expense of readability and usability. I’d rather have a mishmash 
>>> of different selection highlighting colours based on the underlying 
>>> colours of the selected messages, with proper inversion of the text 
>>> to white. I find the lack of readability of non-inverted darker text 
>>> over a dark selection highlighting colour background much less 
>>> “clean” and very inelegant and user-hostile.
>>>
>>> At the very least, Benny could bring back text inversion for 
>>> selected messages using their own colour as the selection 
>>> highlighting colour as an OPTION for those who use text colouring 
>>> — which is now, after all, a fully supported (no longer hidden) 
>>> feature in the MM user interface.
>>>
>>> Anyone else agree?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> Pierre
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 31 Jan 2024, at 2:41, Sven Klages wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thank you Bill & Eric!
>>>>
>>>> Sounds good, I will give it a try :-)
>>>>
>>>> -Sven
>>>>
>>>> Am 30.01.24 um 23:58 schrieb Eric Sharakan via mailmate:
>>>>> On 30 Jan 2024, at 17:33, Bill Cole wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2024-01-30 at 14:32:34 UTC-0500 (Tue, 30 Jan 2024 20:32:34 
>>>>>> +0100)
>>>>>> Sven Klages <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
>>>>>> is rumored to have said:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>> When using smart mailboxes as proposed in the comments of your 
>>>>>>> bug report, I do have one type/color per smart folder, that’s 
>>>>>>> not the same … did I get it right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, but I think that you are missing the fact that you can 
>>>>>> create a smart mailbox aggregating the messages of other 
>>>>>> (colored-message) smart mailboxes. The messages keep the color 
>>>>>> assigned by the parent mailbox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Right, all you need to do is create smart mailboxes containing the 
>>>>> conditions you want for coloring the messages. Then, use the 
>>>>> Mailbox->Color submenu to choose a color for that mailbox, and 
>>>>> also select "Use Color in Message List". Your chosen color will be 
>>>>> applied not only to the messages in your smart mailbox, but also 
>>>>> to the original messages, wherever they reside.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's totally flexible and has been working great for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Eric
>
>>> --
>
>
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