Closed Bug 24578 Opened 25 years ago Closed 10 years ago

Auto-substitution of skin if only 16 colours available

Categories

(Core Graveyard :: Skinability, enhancement, P3)

enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: sidr, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: helpwanted, Whiteboard: [nsbeta2-])

Attachments

(3 files)

* Overview: If the default Mozilla skin is viewed at 4 bpp (16-colour), as with a VGA video card or driver, some of the UI elements dither very badly, because they are close to, but do not match, one of the 16 VGA colours. Mozilla would look far better when there are only 16 colours to work with if the skin developed for bug 22620, "[RFE] Available skin matching OS System UI colours", or another using only the VGA colours, were applied automatically. * Steps to reproduce: 1. Set your display driver to 4 bpp, or change it to one that can. This may not be possible on a Mac. On Win32, this is changed on the "Settings" tab of the "Display" Control Panel, under "Color Palette", or, failing that, by changing the driver to the VGA driver with a button, variously named, at the bottom of that tab. Changing this on X will vary depending on the server. 2. Launch Mozilla and observe the chrome. * Actual Results: Most parts of the UI will be dithered, some badly. The overall effect is ugly and unprofessional. * Expected Results: The skin will automatically be changed to one that does not dither before the Mozilla window appears. * Tested with: 1999-12-28-08-M13 nightly binary on Win98 SE using the VGA display driver. * Additional Information: This is obviously a very low priority item compared to the list of open XUL bugs, but it is still a bug, not a feature, for those who do not have a choice about switching to a higher color depth, those who have no idea that they can choose a higher color depth, and those who would not try changing to a better driver than the default Windows VGA driver because they just have no idea how. This will also affect anyonce who tries to use Mozilla on Win9x in "Safe Mode". Whether this gets fixed or not, eventually, will depend on an assessment of how many Mozilla users this will affect, and on an assessment of whether, for them, it is better to use OS-specific colours for the UI, unbranding it, or to have the branded UI look discoloured, dithered, and generally ugly. Five years ago this would have been a must-fix, five years from now it would be a certain WONTFIX, based on prevalance of 4 bpp displays; right now, I'm not sure, especially internationally.
I don't know, there are a lot of Palm Pilots out there ;-) assigning to don for consideration
Assignee: trudelle → don
BULK MOVE: Changing component from XUL to XP Toolkit/Widgets: XUL. XUL component will be deleted.
Component: XUL → XP Toolkit/Widgets: XUL
Adding Pam, Ms. Color.
Target Milestone: M15
*IGNORE* - more massive spam, changing open XPToolkit bug's QA contact to jrgm@netscape.com
QA Contact: paulmac → jrgm
Adding 'skins' keyword to appropriate bugs en masse, sorry about any mistakes...
Keywords: skins
Blocks: 29160
Can anyone show me a screen save of this? Can we work with the default UI design so it looks ok for everyone? -P
Screenshots to follow. These were taken using the "[VGA Mode]" WinNT boot option. The primary problem is that the Windows "Silver Grey" is at #C0C0C0, and the rest of the colours have R, G, & B chosing from among 00, 80, and FF -- only the pure colours from the 216-colour cube can be rendered in that set without dithering. The worst offender in the Mozilla UI for bad dithering at 4bpp is #CCCCCC, which gets dithered between #C0C0C0 and #FFFFFF... it just looks bad. 3 screencaps: 1. The mozilla window on the WinNT desktop with a menu pulled down 2. The profile wizard, showing white text on dithered grey 3. The mozilla window with a personal toolbar item highlighted, showing Netcenter
thanks for the screenshots. They do tell the story... I think German should be consulted here. I'll put him on the cc: list. And Ben -p
Move to M16 for now ...
Target Milestone: M15 → M16
Mass-adding beta2 keyword to all skins bugs.
Keywords: beta2
Keywords: nsbeta2
Why is this a beta blocker?!? Clearing target fix version and re-assinging to hangas so Paul can decide what to do. Paul, my recommendation is to later this.
Assignee: don → hangas
Keywords: beta2
Target Milestone: M16 → ---
Fixing this is a good idea but there is no time in the near furure for such a bug. Sending to M30.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Target Milestone: --- → M30
[nsbeta2-]
Whiteboard: [nsbeta2-]
Keywords: skins
This is a skin switching bug...sending to Skinability.
Assignee: hangas → ben
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Component: XP Toolkit/Widgets: XUL → Skinability
QA Contact: jrgm → blakeross
QA Contact: blakeross → pmac
Testing with the 2001-05-16-04 build on WinNT, things are very different: 1. The default skin is "Classic", which uses mostly colours from the VGA set; the chrome looks almost the same at 4bpp as at 24- or 32bpp. 2. The Profile Wizard no longer uses white on light grey; Classic uses Black on white, Modern3 uses White on mid-grey, for the top part of the wizard only (the rest shows as black on light grey for both). 3. On a 4bpp display, Mozilla maps its colours to the closest VGA colour rather than dithering among them. 4. As one consequence of (3), Modern3 has ugly horizontal banding at 4bpp, as another, all text in the chrome is readable (even white on light grey would be). So long as Classic is the default, the impetus for switching to a skin that displays better at 4bpp is much reduced; because of (3), the penalty for using any other skin is also much less. If Classic will continue as the default theme, there is very little case for action on this RFE. (The remainder of the case appears at the bottom of this comment.) If Modern3 becomes the default, a test for colour depth before anything is displayed might still be warranted, at least before the fist profile is created; it is ugly from the get-go at 4bpp, whereas Classic is entirely usable, and would provide a much better initial experience. ----- Computers incapable of more than VGA colours, even old ones, are now nearly nonexistant. Displays get set to 4bpp nowadays in two circumstances: A. Immediately after inatallation or re-installation of Windows, if the video card post-dates the Windows distribution, the only display driver will be the VGA driver until another is put in place. (Myself, at this point I'll grab the current driver from the web rather than looking for a CD -- but before that I'll install something other than IE.) B. The wrong display driver gets installed; same results. People in one of those circumstances will be the ones who would see what Mozilla looks like at 4bpp.
Mass move skinability bugs to nobody@mozilla.org, helpwanted.
Assignee: ben → nobody
Keywords: helpwanted
Summary: [RFE] Auto-substitution of skin if only 16 colours available → Auto-substitution of skin if only 16 colours available
Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"
QA Contact: pmac → skinability
Product: Core → Core Graveyard
This bug has been buried in the graveyard and has not been updated in over 5 years. It is probably safe to assume that it will never be fixed, so resolving as WONTFIX. [Mass-change filter: graveyard-wontfix-2014-09-24]
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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