Orphans turned purple ?

[kevinma]

Just let version 4 do an update, mid update it crashed but I clicked OK and it then seemed to finish. It was confusing and I can't try to create cause it thinks it did the update and that I'm set when I ask it to check for udpates.

Seems happy other than orphans are now purple. I know I can change this inf the config but did you change the default on purpose or is this some result of my grumpy update ?

Going purple after years and years of blue just isn't going to happen.

[Zoë]

The change in colors was intentional. As we've added more viewer types and the merge support the coloring has gotten messier. Using blue for both unimportant differences and orphans was especially problematic in viewers that have both, like the registry compare. We tried switching unimportant differences to orange instead, as a less intense red, but the contrast was too low.

Alternative coloring suggestions are welcome.

[kevinma]

I guess I have to start reading release notes cause changing blue is fundamental to the basic (beyond) comparison which has been in this product since forever. There must be a better way or these other use cases better be fairly significant cause I've been using those colors for every comparison I've done over the last decade. Every single one. How many times a day ?

Some things you just don't mess with and this would seem to me to be one of them. I could be wrong. I will look to the documentation to try to understand this one. I've quit updating in the mean time.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Sorry that you're feeling that way, but I think I can help explain the current behavior, and how we will try to work on it in upcoming releases.

The reason for the change is to prevent color conflicts in new and future views that have both Orphans and Unimportance. We can't use Blue for both.

The recent update is actually a reversion to BC3 colors for the File Views. In previous BC4 betas, we used Blue for Orphan, Red for Important, and Orange for Unimportant text. This was difficult for some users to see the contrast between red and orange. Reverting to the BC3 colors of Red Important and Blue Unimportant created a conflict with Orphan coloring, which we are now experimenting with purple.

We do allow users to customize their colors so the same color is used for both Orphan and Unimportant, like BC3, but we wouldn't want that to be the out of box behavior. We're definitely open to feedback and ideas. We're also looking into making Color Profiles very easy to Import/Export to allow a couple of different options at launch.

I would suggest continuing to update. The betas will eventually time out, and not testing the current release wouldn't help us come up with a better scheme. As a fallback, you can always customize the colors to be identical to a previous release, or any other color scheme, but we'd certainly appreciate the help coming up with a stronger out-of-the-box experience.

[chrisjj]

Alternative coloring suggestions are welcome.

I agree with K that blue Orphans are almost iconic.

Unimportant would upset many fewer than changing Orphans.

For Unimportant I think the hue should be near Important red and before rejecting orange I hope you try the minimal contrast boost.

[Aaron]

We've tried several shades of orange. As for which is more iconic, it would depend on which view you use more. We have many users that use only the Folder Compare or only the Text Compare. We're open to suggestions for a specific color scheme to try. You can customize the colors and upload a BCSettings.bcpkg here, or email us at [email protected] with a link back to this forum thread for reference.

[markm9999]

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I too think switching to purple is a bad idea.

NOTE:
"Folder View" has a color legend available from the menu.
There is no such option for "File View" that I could find...

If I understand this correctly, its a debate between "File View" colors and "Folder View" colors.

I performed a factory reset so I could make sure I was using them!

Since I use "File View" way less, I went to look for myself and noticed unimportant differences set to "Blue" (160,240,120) with a light purple background (160,240,232).

"Folder View" orphans is now using a darkish purple (180,240,100)

Why not just "flip" them?

"File View" -- unimportant differences text darkish purple (180,240,100) with a light purple background (160,240,232)

"Folder View" gets it's beloved "Blue" back! (160,240,120)

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the suggestion.
Shades of Purple are already claimed by the file view for Right Change background colors (with the foreground colors of the text being Red/Blue). This would create a conflict for the Text Merge session coloring, since we couldn't have purple text on shades of a purple background.

[chrisjj]

I performed a factory reset so I could make sure I was using them!

There's dedication! But note next time, this need is obviated by the excellent Portable install option.

[Aaron]

Agreed. As with any temporary edits, you can use the Export dialog to export all of your settings (or just the Colors), or as Chris suggests: make a Portable Install on your desktop for a fresh set of settings. You can then simply delete the Portable\ folder when you are done with it, or use it's own Export tool to get any settings from it.

[markm9999]

There's dedication! But note next time, this need is obviated by the excellent Portable install option.

I have both a regular and portable install running!
So I did it to my portable non-customized (except for orphan folder color ) version

[markm9999]

Hello,

Thanks for the suggestion.
Shades of Purple are already claimed by the file view for Right Change background colors (with the foreground colors of the text being Red/Blue). This would create a conflict for the Text Merge session coloring, since we couldn't have purple text on shades of a purple background.

I'm not seeing that - maybe I'm in the wrong area...

Can you post a screen shot of the "Color, Fonts" dialog highlighting this setting?

[Aaron]

Hello Mark,

No, that looks like the right area with your two screenshots. The merge-right coloring is the background coloring of the right pane in a Text merge session type (and we use similar colors with the Folder Merge). The entire line then has the Important or Unimportant coloring of text (Red/Blue), but then has the background color of the appropriate side in the Output pane. With this, we use one pair of colors to represent the change, and another to represent the side of the merging. If you changed Unimportant to be the same/similar color as the Right Merge, this could be confusing to overlap these concepts.

If you combining these concepts isn't a problem or you don't use the merge session, you are welcome to customize your colors to any specific scheme. We also allow the quick Export and Import of your current theme, and have additional themes to download here:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/downl...=kb_morecolors