newRPL: design of soft menus

[Claudio L.]

(11-14-2016 08:01 PM)Han Wrote:  The gradient background keeps making me think that my screen has contrast issues.

In the bands that appear when you press On+/-, the contrast setting I use is the one that shows all 15 shades clearly. If I go one point more the first 4 darks become black, and one point less and the first 4 lights become white. But in both calcs there is one point which displays all 15 shades.

The light background should be barely visible on the dark menus, and very light on the light menus on that optimum setting. This is to keep the text readable. If you try to get a "stronger" gradient then yes, you'd have to see one or the other, but not both at once.

(11-14-2016 08:01 PM)Han Wrote:  Also, I believe the rows can be kept to 8 pixel height with a single empty pixel row between each of levels. Having solid black background means we can have 7 rows of pixels for the label (some letters like y and g will have to dip into the bottom-most row, but I don't think it would look that bad). The top (8th) row then is used for the directory tab.

I fought for those pixels for a while, the only reason I got convinced that losing 4 pixels was acceptable is this:

7*3+2 = 23 pixels height
8*3+1 = 25 pixels height

The first is close, but only allows for 3 lines of help using a 6 pixel font. Losing those few pixels we can have 4 lines of text, so I could add the command name to the help without going fullscreen, which I much prefer.

The gradient can force you to use one contrast setting, which is a bad thing, I'll find something else to show directories. I'm thinking the first letter could be gray, the rest black (or white). Or the first letter have gray background, the rest black or white. I'll test to see what looks best, but unfortunately I can't afford to spend years just changing pixel colors, the project needs my attention in many other areas.