High Contrast, bad for MMF!

[JimJam]

I haven't seen this posted before. I recently switched my computer theme to a darker tone to save my eyes and the energy it takes to use the LCD screen.

Its something similar to the "high contrast" color schemes in Windows. But MMF2 doesn't agree with this change! There are lots of colors in MMF2 that seem to be hard-coded into it. Colors that do not change when your Windows changes, or that I could find options for. Here are some screen-shots of what I mean:

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/041/d/5/mmf_high_contrast_a_by_pencilgoblin-d399edr.png


In the image above, you notice that the Workspace toolbar is colored fine, but the properties pane is forcibly white in some areas, making the green text now hard to read. The background color in the Frame editor is some shade of gray. This doesn't complement my custom color scheme. Not to mention it is very bright when the window is maximized on my 1080p screen. I couldn't find an option to change these colors. More so, they should be set from the windows color scheme, instead of as they are. The properties window on the left shows my scheme as "High Contrast 2", so you can test it yourselves to see this.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/041/d/7/mmf_sample_image_b_by_pencilgoblin-d399ex5.png


This image above shows that the Event editor is now completely un-usable! The black text used for groups and events is lost! It seems the text used here is set to BLACK, and not Automatic! It should be Automatic, so that way it displays the text as it is defined in Windows themes. I find it odd that this text is not Automatic, since if you look at the buttons below the Windows menu, you will notice that thy are outlined in green to fit the theme. Why are the buttons automatic, and the event text is not?

In the preferences I was able to find options to change the colors of the RED events, and the colors of things in the expression editor. But there wasn't an option to change the normal BLACK text.

I need to be able to use a dark windows theme. It was recommended by my doctor to lower the brightness and use a darker theme to save me eye strain. I've had no problems with any other programs except MMF2. Its going to drive my eyes nuts if I have to switch to a brighter theme just to use MMF2!

Are there any solutions to this?

[Paul_Boland]

I hear where you're coming from. I do a lot of work in MMF and I also do a lot of typing and looking at that strong bright white background use to kill my eyes. Then I went into Windows setup and I changed, just the white, to grey, light grey. The transformation has been astounding and I can happily working away on my computer now no problems.

Yes, you are right, some of the white areas in MMF are still white, but compared to how it use to look when Windows had white as its default text area colour, it's a huge improment and a lot easier on the eyes. When your Doc said to use a darker theme, did he really mean for you to go to the extreme of using black! Perhaps you can up it a bit, get a blue or grey theme going, believe me, you'll see the ease on the eyes very quickly.

[JimJam]

I was using the "High Contrast #2" theme just because it shows of this flaw best. My custom made theme isn't THAT dark, but the problem still persists.



This is my custom made theme. I find that the light gray text on a slightly darker gray background is very soft on the eyes. Its not very stark with contrast. As you can see, in basic windows functions (text editing, ms paint, my computer) everything is very readable and pleasing.



In MMF2 it still looks bad. Because MMF2 still uses PURE black and PURE white, my eyes are forced to focus on these areas when I look at them. Since the events backgrounds are colored via the "3D objects" property of windows, they are the same color as buttons, scroll bars, etc.

MMF2 makes the event text Black; I will have to make my whole windows theme much lighter to be able to comfortably read the text. Which defeats the purpose of me making the theme comfortably darker!

Even if I make my theme very neutral gray, that property window is STILL going to be bright white! And I can't seem to do anything to fix this.

Contrasting light is bad for the eyes because it causes you to strain your focus. Whether its bright white on black, or black on white, its still hard to focus on. In practice, this causes your vision to become blurry at a distance over many years. I'm trying to avoid that situation.

[Yves]

I'll check what happens with the property window, probably a bug somewhere because I don't see any hard coded colors.

Hopefully Francois can do something about the event editor.

[JimJam]

Thank you! I'm glad to see that this issue is being resolved. I imagine that it should be a pretty simple fix. I guess we'll see how this turns out in the next build.

I'm using a lighter theme at the moment to deal with the issue. But I'd like to use my dark scheme as soon as possible. Please post if there is a patch/solution for this before the next update.

[Yves]

I've fixed the problem in the property window, this fix will be in the build 252. But I don't know at all if Francois will be able to fix the colors in the event editor.

[Jacob]

The monitor does not use any less energy to show black than white. Google did testing for this when they changed their website to black for earth day ("We turned off our lights, why don't you do the same?"). They didn't make a permanent change because black on white was easier to read and used the exact same amount of energy.

[MuddyMole]

LCDs are horrible.
I always have the backlight turned right down on my netbook, or the glare hurts my eyes.
Also, I find light text on a dark background is much more uncomfortable than the other way around - sometimes after browsing dark themed websites, I start seeing imaginary white lines, even when I look away from the screen.

[Dynasoft]

With LCDs it actually takes less energy to display white. This is because the whole screen is backlit white, and then to display black it applies power to the LCD matrix to block the backlight (which is still on).

With old CRTs it took less energy to display black, because they work the opposite way, by lighting up the pixels.

[Dynasoft]

Btw, the recommended theme for reading is black text on light grey.