BUG: In TortoiseMerge, changing Settings | Colors | Modified has no effect.

[Vidar Hasfjord]

In TortoiseMerge, changing Settings | Colors | Modified has no effect, due to a regression in revision 28717 (implementation of dark theme support). In CBaseView::CBaseView, the members m_ModifiedBk and m_ModifiedDarkBk are initialised incorrectly, using wrong Windows Registry value paths ("...\Colors\Colors\...", presumably a typo).

The issue can be circumvented by creating the erroneous key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TortoiseMerge\Colors\Colors" in the Windows Registry and populating it with copies of the parent values "ColorModifiedB" and "DarkColorModifiedB".

Screenshots of the regression, as well as a patch file, can be found in my OneDrive public folder:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArGG4DkKoPNVgcxwkn2uxoCbkXe00w?e=ZUUOZc

Note that the screenshots only show the code at fault and the fix. They do not show anything wrong with the colours (I had circumvented the bug as described above, before I took the screenshot). However, they do show my custom colour scheme, which I hope you will consider adopting as a default, rather than the current Christmas tree setup (sorry). 

My "marker pen" colour scheme is very simple, intuitive and easy on the eye: Light yellow background for modifications (RGB: 254, 255, 165), with removed lines shown in a fainter yellow (RGB: 254, 254, 221) and gray text colour (RGB: 128, 128, 128). Inline additions are shown with a darker yellow background colour (RGB: 236, 229, 137). Empty lines are shown in faint gray (RGB: 240, 240, 240). In conflict resolution mode, conflicts are shown with faint red background (RGB: 254, 192, 192) with dark red text (RGB: 128, 0, 0), while resolutions are faint green (RGB: 200, 255, 200) with normal black text.

In TortoiseUDiff, I use the same scheme, with the addition of a faint blue background (RGB: 205, 226, 244) and a blue text colour (RGB: 43, 124, 194) for the UDiff command, and a slightly paler blue text colour (RGB: 52, 137, 210) on white background for the UDiff position and header. For UDiff comments, I use bright red (RGB: 255, 0, 0) text colour on white background, to make them stand out.

This scheme should be easily adaptable to dark themes by tinting the colours from black rather than white.

Another couple of requests: Add a feature for selectable and customisable named colour schemes (select, add, edit, remove). And add a feature to save and restore select colour schemes for backup purposes (and/or store the schemes under the users Application Data folder, in which case they will be automatically backed up). I currently save the Windows Registry keys, but that isn't very user-friendly. It would be great to be able to switch between the default scheme and my own at will.

PS. Thanks for your effort in creating and maintaining TortoiseSVN! It is an great tool, and I've used it for years. I've donated once, and will do again.

Regards,
Vidar Hasfjord

[Stefan]

Thanks for your patch!

Committed in r28920

Stefan

[Vidar Hasfjord]

Thanks for your swift action!

Another request for TortoiseMerge: With my faint colour scheme, the content preview scroll bar doesn't show the changed parts of the file very well, due to the intended low contrast in the colours selected. See my screenshots posted earlier. Please draw a darker outline around each changed section to make changes stand out (like e.g. Visual Studio's Diff view does). Alternatively, increase the contrast of the selected colours temporarily for drawing the bar (e.g. decrease luminosity and increase saturation).

[Stefan]

Can you do a registry export of your color scheme and post it here?

[Vidar Hasfjord]

Hi Stefan,

Sorry for the delay. My colour scheme is attached. It includes a registry export of the colours used by TortoiseSVN for Blame and UDiff (the reg-file only includes the registry values for colour settings; other registry values are not included, so it should be mergeable). My colour scheme for Blame is simply yellow shades with fainter yellow for older revisions. It is easy on the eye and less distracting than a diverse palette of colours.

If, in the end, you don't like my colour scheme, I propose you adopt Visual Studio's scheme. The attached zip-file includes a screenshot, in which I have also highlighted the previewing scrollbar, which implements the framing of changed sections that I suggested earlier (for added contrast with faint colours).

[Stefan]

Thanks.

I've tried out your color schemes on a few computers. And it looks good on about 2/3 of them. On the others it's almost impossible to read the text or see the different colors. Basically you need a new monitor that provides contrast-rich colors. On older monitors or some new monitors that have weird default settings, those colors are bad.

So I guess I can't use your colors as a default in TSVN - the default colors must be more distinguishable so they work on all monitors.

[Thorsten Schöning]

Guten Tag Stefan via TortoiseSVN,
am Donnerstag, 25. Juni 2020 um 19:38 schrieben Sie:

> I've tried out your color schemes on a few computers. And it looks good on
> about 2/3 of them. On the others it's almost impossible to read the text or
> see the different colors. Basically you need a new monitor that provides
> contrast-rich colors. On older monitors or some new monitors that have
> weird default settings, those colors are bad.

Not sure if it's related, but after upgrading to 1.14.0 I recognized
the report browser showing strange buttons as well. I don't have any
special color scheme set in Windows or TSVN, should be pretty much
Windows defaults.

The problems are the left and right arrow key at the left side of the
UI, the folder icon and revision chooser at the right side. They all
have black background with some grey icons or stuff like that. The
revision number can hardly be read. I'm somewhat sure this wasn't the
case in earlier versions and most other dialogs don't show that way.
When clickjing at the hard to read revision button, another dialog
comes up which seems to follow default Windows color scheme.

https://abload.de/image.php?img=repobrowser3wjqi.png

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Thorsten Schöning

--
Thorsten Schöning E-Mail: Thorsten....@AM-SoFT.de
AM-SoFT IT-Systeme http://www.AM-SoFT.de/

Telefon...........05151- 9468- 55
Fax...............05151- 9468- 88
Mobil..............0178-8 9468- 04

AM-SoFT GmbH IT-Systeme, Brandenburger Str. 7c, 31789 Hameln
AG Hannover HRB 207 694 - Geschäftsführer: Andreas Muchow

[Vidar Hasfjord]

Hi Stefan,

> I've tried out your color schemes on a few computers. And it looks good on about 2/3 of them.

Thanks for trying out my colour scheme and for your dedication to general good user experience by testing on various screens and screen settings — a default colour scheme that doesn't work satisfactory for most users is no good, I agree. Feel free to adjust my scheme, increasing the contrast and/or saturation as needed. Perhaps it can serve as a starting point. As an alternative, look at Visual Studio's scheme.

Considering that users have different setups and preferences/needs (possibly due to colour blindness or poor sight), it would be great to be able to select among a set of built-in schemes, with the possibility to save and recall your own, as suggested earlier. Of course, that would require more implementation work.

Regards,

Vidar Hasfjord

[Andreas Grob]

Hi Thorsten

I have already reported this problem and Stefan has already fixed it in r28899.
see thread: https://groups.google.com/g/tortoisesvn/c/6sWSi49Kahc

Cheers
~ Andreas