Sorted column coloring

[mikes16]

Howdy-

I would like the sorted column COLOR to override the grid coloring.

If the grid coloring is blue, for example, then every other ROW would be blue. If I create the sorted column color as ORANGE I would like to see EVERY entry in the COLUMN to be ORANGE bypassing the GRID coloring.



I would like the orange to be on every row in the column, not every other row as shown in the image. I would like it override.

[j_c_hallgren]

Personally, I think your request isn't such a good idea, as that would eliminate the ability to discriminate between rows in that column and somewhat defeat the purpose of using grid coloring...so can you provide some reason why you believe it would be better to have a solid coloring?

When one has only two rows visible, and IP is maximized, then spotting sort col is maybe a bit harder, BUT the triangle is always shown in heading so that will easily indicate which col is sorted...I just use the default sort col color which is a light off-white/gray and that is more than enough for me to see sorted column...I use grid coloring on special occasions, but not always, so that's maybe why I don't get your reasoning.

[surrender]

Well, then uncheck "Show grid" from Tools>configuration>colors.

update: JC was faster at replying, as he mentioned i would also not suggest it. But its a compromise, you get either grid color or sort color, not both.

[mikes16]

Well, I want to leave the grid there because I can still follow the details of each of the attributes of the files separated by the grid color.

I believe having a color for the sorted column is MUCH more visably pleasing in my opinion if the entire column is colored the same way. The act of clicking on the column means the focus of the user is THAT column at that time. Just like clicking on a ROW brings the SELECTED ROW color to the forefront bypassing the grid coloring.

I am just asking that the COLUMN selection work like the ROW selection in the same way. This is not that off the wall - most other explorer replacements work this way.

[jacky]

I am just asking that the COLUMN selection work like the ROW selection in the same way. This is not that off the wall - most other explorer replacements work this way.

Huge difference here: there is no such thing as column selection! It's a sort order, not a selection.

That said, I don't really have any opinion there cause I don't use the Highlight Sorted Column option. I used to, but realized I never used it & it bothered me more than anything else, but that's me

Anyways, a somewhat mid-way solution could be what I used to have setup, which is to use the same color for the sorted column than for the grid (zebra mode), that way the sorted is indeed the same color

[mikes16]

Yeah- I just went that route.

I guess I would like feedback on the philosophy of the coloring from Don. Is the precedent of the colors on purpose? An oversight? Not considered?

Just because the tool doesn't do it currently doesn't necessarily mean that this is the intended behavior of the functionality. Conversly, it could be working exactly as designed.

Another question while I have you monitoring this thread What are "focused" and "selected" rows colors? I change these to obnoxious colors and cannot get them to appear no matter what I do.

EDIT- found out about the focused row.

But- for selection when I select files they always end up being colored an olive green - even though the Selected Row color is any other color.

[jacky]

Another question while I have you monitoring this thread What are "focused" and "selected" rows colors? I change these to obnoxious colors and cannot get them to appear no matter what I do.

EDIT- found out about the focused row.

But- for selection when I select files they always end up being colored an olive green - even though the Selected Row color is any other color.

If you haven't already, you might wanna take a loot at the wiki about this: http://88.191.26.34/XYwiki/index.php/Configuration#List

But basically it's what it said: Focused Row will be the background color of the focused row, while Selected Row will be the background color of all selected rows. Note that you need to have those options (Highlight Focused Row & Highlight Selected Rows) enabled obviously to get it to work.
Also note that we're talking here about the background color of the full row, not the highlighting of the names, which is done using Windows color I believe.

Lastly, I personally use & would recommend to turn on the "Underline" option as well for selected rows, so the color isn't used on the background but as an underline. Might look odd at first, but you get used to it quickly & it's IMHO the best to easilly spot which rows are selected, while still being able to see which row is focused!

[mikes16]

Thanks jacky- I appreciate the help! I will try your suggestions!

[lukescammell]

I've wanted something like this for a while actually. The solution as I see it would be to use an overlay on the column. That way you retain the rw zebra striping

[Creat]

Well I myself don't use zebra striping, but I also don't think it would be a good idea to have the selected column color override it. The purpose of the grid coloring (with zebra striping) is as far as I understand it is to allow one to easily discern to which row something belongs. This would defeat this purpose (especailly if the sorted colum is particularly wide, like the name column in my case), and as far as I can tell it's the only purpose of the zebra striping.

The act of clicking on the column means the focus of the user is THAT column at that time.

As Jacky pointed out that's not the case. If I click on a column I just want it to be sorted by what I just clicked on, the focus usualy stays with the filename (at least for me) except for very (very!) few cases where I actually look for a specific date/size/whatever.

I do have two requests for Don at this point though:
First it would be nice (especially for new[er] users) if you could add some explanatory descritions to the tooltips of the list color options, maybe even including on what settings they depend. I'm quite used to XYplorer and the terminology, but it still took me like 20 minutes to figure out what color setting means what, what gets overridden by what and what options need to be on for it to be active. Here an example:

Selected Rows
This Color is used to Highlight rows of the items that are currently selected.
Overrides: 'Sorted Column', 'Selected Row' and 'Background' colors.
Requires: 'Highlight selected rows' (Config:Colors or View:List Style)

I also found a bug regarding the 'selected row' setting. If you turn it off (or it is turned off) and you turn it on by checking the box in Config:Colors, the corresponding View:List Style item doesn't get checked. Every other combination seems to toggle them both (for example disabling it via View:List style also disables the checkbox).

The second question is one (actually many ) of consistency. Why is there a checkbox for 'Highlight selected rows' in Config:Colors, but none for 'Highlight focused rows'? Also the underline/zebra can only be toggled from the config, not the View:List Style menu, which is probably just to not overcrowd the menu.
Why does the 'Highlight Focused row' override the grid color (line mode, not zebra) even though it doesn't have a 'line' setting? What I mean by that is actually two things: First why is there no line style option for 'focused row', but one for the other two options grid and selected (I personally would like and use a line option on that). And secondly, since it is a box-style highlighting (like selected row with underline turned off) why does it extend over the line below while no other option in box-style mode does (i.e. why is this box bigger than the selected row box)?
This makes for weird results if you have the 'highlight focused' row feature and the grid feature on, with colors like 'highlight focused' = 'sorted column' (which is the default) and a different grid color. If nothing is selected the (grid) line separating the lines (the focused line and the one below) disappears and the two kinda merge together.

I also have a suggestion on how to setup the colors dialog to be more consistent (at least in my opinion, might confuse others...) so I made up a screenshot


One way would be to just put in the option marked red, or arrange the color labels and boxes as I did and add the checkboxes (replacing all options below them). You could add some descriptions of what checking the box would result in into the corresponding tooltip to make it a bit clearer. I would find the second option better obviously, since I made the whole thing up in the first place

Well, thank you for reading this... This became a bit longer than I expected
Just trying to help make XY be as good as it possibly can, if you don't want to do any of it because it's too much work that's fine too of course, somehow I got a bit carried away here
It did take me about 1.5 hours to write this though, so please at least consider it seriously

bye
Creat

[Creat]

damn, got another idea. This totally overkill I'm sure but I thought I'd just throw it out there anyway

You could allow the user to edit the order in which highlights are applied.
The Idea of this would be to have the user decide if the column color should override the grid, or if the focused color should override the selected rows color and so on.
This would allow everyone who posted here to have it exactly the way
they want it. I realize that 99% of all people wouldn't ever use it and those who would probably wouldn't consider it a high priority to have this (especially with this amount of flexibility) while it also would most likely require an at least medium sized rewrite of the highlighting code.

So all in all it's just a bad idea I guess, but as I said in the previous post, I got a bit carried away here , and I still think it would be awfully cool

ok, shutting up now...

bye
Creat

[j_c_hallgren]

Creat: Here's another prior thread that relates to this same basic subject/topic http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1152 that you may want to review also.
I think there's another similar thread floating around somewhere.