TiddlyWiki theme palette is too complicated to understand.

[Reet Pandher]

Hi, I know it sounds pedantic but i'd really appreciate if the theme palette was a bit easier to understand. Coming from notepad++ this one feels like i need a written guide to know what setting is going to change what. It just isn't user friendly. Plus there's the problem for some of the themes color palette preview is incorrect.

/rant

[Joshua Fontany]

I agree that this area could use some work. The "incorrect" theme colors are due to those colors being set by the <<colour "primary>> macro (where "primary" can be any name in the active palette). The preview lit doesn't render those correctly, and while I did take a shot at fixing that a few weeks back it was looking complicated. The best thing to do would be to use your browser's Inspect feature while switching palettes to see how rendered items are named, and then investigate the `$:/PaletteManager` tiddler (open it in the story river itself, so it is not nested in the $:/ControlPanel Palettes tab).

Best,
Joshua Fontany

[Mat]

Reet Pandher wrote:

Hi, I know it sounds pedantic but i'd really appreciate if the theme palette was a bit easier to understand.

Could you link to some images showing good UIs for the equivalent?

<:-)

[Reet Pandher]

Hi Mat,

I used to take my notes in Notepad++ extensively and this is a screenshot of the UI configurator in np++.

Notice how thorough it is yet how clearly everything is labelled making it so much easier to follow. In Tiddly everything is named in a more technical fashion and i cannot figure out what does what. e.g. what even is General Primary ? Where is the Text foreground option? How do i change the background and text color of the sidebar? What are the options to change tab outlines?  Everything just seems excessively complicated. Plus you get to view the changes in real time in Np++. In Tiddly if i change a random setting i have no idea what got changed.

Not to mention there's even more options to configure text colors in Np++ if you learn how to define a language. I have also attached an image of one of my notes where i use my custom defined language alongside a customized theme. Hope this helps to lead us to a more user friendly tiddly.

[Mat]

Thank you very much! (Ironically, I use np++ myself but have never even considered that it might have such settings, but then I just use np++ as a clipboard type area.) Anyway, that view is, in deed, totally superior to TWs current palette. I think we ought to make something like it. Hope to look into it this summer after my other ongoing projects.

<:-)