Comments about the tray icon

[ttencate]

Converted from SourceForge issue 2969928, submitted by wanderer51

The tray icon looks nice but there is one small problem. The "enabled" state of the icon is somewhat similar to the disabled one, so sometimes it's a little difficult to understand whether Taekwindow is enabled or disabled.

The colors in the enabled state are not very bright, so in terms of brightness, they are similar to the gray color of the disabled icon.
Also, the color of the enabled mouse pointer is exactly the same as the one in the disabled state.

Suggestion: Make the enabled state colors a little more bright (intense), the enabled mouse pointer color a little brighter (more bright white) and make the disabled gray color a little more dark and the disabled mouse pointer color light gray.

[ttencate]

Submitted by ttencate

The difference is clear enough. I suggest you buy a better monitor.

[ttencate]

Submitted by ttencate

Sorry, that may have come across as a bit rude. I do appreciate your feedback, and I hope you will accept my apologies.

I do not want to make the enabled state any brighter, because the system tray is usually full of icons with horribly conflicting colours already. The brighter you make it, the uglier it all becomes. And there is no need for the icon to draw any attention to itself.

But I now realize that relying purely on colour for the state indication is narrow-minded. Not everyone has perfect eyesight, and there are various forms of colour blindness to be taken into account. I think that your suggestion should be taken a step further, and that the icon should actually change shape somehow. I'll see what I can come up with.

[ttencate]

Submitted by wanderer51

Well, i was a little surprised with your answer at first but that's OK. Sometimes we feel strongly about something and we tend to express it enthusiastically. Discussing it though may help us realize things we hadn't thought about.

My previous message had two parts. The first part was a description of something i view as a problem. I'm glad you agree that it can be. I've seen how the icon looks in two different monitors (a laptop's TFT and a netbook's TFT, both with default XP theme on them). The problem with this type of monitors is that the colors are not so vivid as in CRTs and if you look at them from certain angles, the difference between two colors of similar brightness may not be so clear.

The second part was just an idea on how to improve the situation. My main point was not to make the icon blind the user with its brightness but make him clearly realize that there is a difference between the two states. That's why i used the words "a little" several times.

Changing the shape of the icon is not a bad idea but it may not be the only way to go.

• Changing only the color of the mouse pointer to something darker might be enough. It could be dark gray (a little lighter than it's background) so it will be more clear that it's "turned off".
• Putting a red X over the icon might be more clear, or perhaps a red slash line over it. It may look somewhat ugly though. It might not be the best way...

Just some ideas. I'm sure there are other ways to go.