Color Scheme Management Tool

[fgeurts]

rhapdog,
I've tried a few different themes and have a personal preference for one with a dark background, similar to a mainframe terminal which has a black background. I find this much more restful to work with than a light/white background. I had to read through your explanation a couple of time to understand it clearly. 60% luminosity as a cut off would I guess classify everything with dark blue/grey type background as a dark theme which seems a very reasonable setting. I guess this is something that could be tuned or it could be made user selectable given that people have differing perceptions of of light/dark and colors. Hope these thoughts help.

Cheers...

Frank

[rhapdog]

Frank, thank you for your response.

Since my last post, I have been doing some "visual testing" to see what really makes it. I have, to my surprise, found quite a few themes that are using 40-60% luminosity.

I'm really having trouble defining, at least in my mind, anything over 35% luminosity as a dark theme, because dark should be really dark. It seems to me that those who prefer a "dark" theme want the background to be rather dark.

It also seems to me that anything falling between 35% and 65% would have to be a "low contrast" theme, as there are is not a great deal of "distance" between the background and foreground luminosity.

I think I would have to consider anything at 65% and over as a light theme, anything under 35% as dark. But what with the middle? Perhaps we could just call them "Standard Themes" and "Dark Themes", where dark is really dark, and Standard is everything else. The reason I think this is that people who like the lighter themes like variety, and don't care for really dark backgrounds. Those who want a dark theme want a "real" dark theme, and not one that is "medium dark" so to speak.

I have the filter working for dark/light (or dark/standard, whichever way we go), so I just need to make the determination of whether to go dark/light (and make it 50/50), or dark/standard (and make it 35/65).

Once that is decided, I would like to add a "second filter" into the mix, so that users can further refine a "search" so to speak. That is, allow users to set a "contrast ratio" between foreground and background color of the Plain Text color. I want to be able to filter between "high contrast", "low contrast", and be able to "set a range" of what the contrast should be defined as. The contrast range I believe should be the difference in luminosity between foreground and background colors. If a particular theme is 20% background luminosity and 40% foreground, then it would have a 20% spread on the contrast, which would be a "low contrast" theme. A 90% background luminosity with a 10% foreground luminosity would be considered "high contrast" as it would be 80% spread on the luminosity. What I would do is simply place the "contrast number" in the theme file when it is saved. Then a user could filter the list for "80%+ Contrast" or "40%- Contrast", etc. Or perhaps even "30-60% Contrast". I haven't decided exactly the best method to implement that to give people appropriate choices, and would love input if anyone is interested.

I know I'm putting a lot out there to think about, but I'm trying to make this program better for everyone, and putting a lot into the development is going to help do that I believe.

[fgeurts]

rhapdog,
from your description it sounds like 35/65 is the way to go for the dark/light split. And contrast definitely is something that comes into play. Whether a dark or light theme is used, if the contrast is not right, then when the active line bar cover some text or text is highlighted it may not be clearly visible with incorrect contrast. You do need to put these thoughts out there as there are many parts to getting a good display image and you're certainly covering all the bases.

Cheers...

Frank

[rhapdog]

The coding for the "dark/light split" has been completed, and is working flawlessly at this point.

I decided to give a "default" value of 35% and below for "Dark Background" and call everything above 35% a "Standard" background, since I wasn't sure all of that range could be called "light".

I also decided to place a configuration option in the program to allow the user to adjust that number to anything they like. Since the "dark/standard" definition is not saved in the theme, this allows users to "define it differently" without it affecting another user's preference. It is determined whether or not it is classified as "dark" at the time the list of themes is read and displayed. Works well.

Now, on to new stuff that I've been working on. I'm working on a new feature set for this program to allow users to "display" and "edit" their "Language definition line" in the wordfile through a more user friendly approach. On this, I need a bit of direction.

Mofi, when I read in things like "Noquote", "DisableMLS", "Block Comment On", etc., should I "correct" the case in these in the same way being done by the Sort Language utility for the keyword Nocase? Or should I just "not find" them if they are incorrect? I'm considering just "not finding" them for now, and programming in the extra coding it will take for corrections in the near future. Should I make sure the coding is there to correct before I make a public release?

[Mofi]

Ignoring keywords on language definition line written in wrong case is the behavior which UltraEdit uses too. And I think it would be definitely enough that UECompanion ignores them too. I suppose that after a user finished the configuration in the dialog, UECompanion replaces the entire first line of the wordfile with whatever the user has configured in UECompanion. Also after years of looking on user made wordfiles I saw only wrong written Nocase keyword. The reason is perhaps that this is the only key string with is normally written with a space as no case and some users think that they have to camelcase the word for this reason as they do also in their source code files. All other commonly used key strings on language definition line are with a space and I think this is the reason why they are written always correct. Therefore an auto-correction is not really necessary.

[rhapdog]

I've uploaded some additional themes.

Download UE Themes made between July 17 and July 31, 2012 - Pack of 29 additional Themes for UE.

[rhapdog]

New version released, 3.0.0.2632. Download link is in the first post.

View Change Log to see what's new in this release. Lots of fixes, enhancements, and new features.

This is a major release.

[rhapdog]

Version 3.0 is averaging about 10 downloads per day. Not bad for such a highly specialized, niche tool.

It all started because I wanted features to make doing certain things in UE easier, and feature requests just weren't being fulfilled the way I wanted. (Like colored theme management.)

There were other things on my list I wanted to be able to do, and now that I have finally finished the previous work on this project, it is time to move on to 4.0, and add more goodies. 4.0, for the most part, will add features that move away from wordfiles and color management.

There will be a few new wordfile features, such as adding in the rest of wordfile editing, such as delimiter editing, fold strings, indent strings, function strings, and also color group management, but that will be as far as the program goes other than the periodic updates to keep up with "new color" options added to future versions of UE and UES.

From here, I plan to get into better management of the history UltraEdit keeps in the INI file. Things like Recent Files, Recent Projects, LCI tracking, saved hidden lines, bookmarks, compare history, search/replace history, etc. Right now, if you clear the history in UE, it clears everything. But what if you want to clear recent files, but not clear your bookmarks? Or clear Search and replace history without clearing recent files or your last used DOS commands?

I have set up new tabs to handle UE History, Tag Lists, and Templates.

UEHistory.png (10.73 KiB) Viewed 971 times

Notice that you can decide exactly what you want to have cleared? You can even use the clear buttons to clear one item at a time.

I realize that UE already has what we need to enter/edit Tag Lists and Templates, however, there are, to me, a couple of important features missing here. There is no ability to "import" tag groups from other tag list files and automatically insert them into the current file. That means we have to manually paste them together by hand, and renumber them. It's a real pain. So I plan to make "import and export" to and from tag list files, along with the other tag list functionality.

The same things will be true for templates. I propose that we be able to import one or more text files automatically as templates. This will make it easier for people who have stored file snippets to quickly convert them to templates without having to load them and copy/paste into the template box one at a time. If you have hundreds or thousands like I did, it can be a real pain.

This post is just a bit of an update to let you know what I have in mind for version 4.0. These ideas are why I decided to rename the program from UE Color Management to UE Companion, because, looking down the road, I knew it would have to change.

I don't yet have a timeline on when 4.0 will come out. I have already completed the coding for the clearing of the History, but there is much work to do on Tag Lists, Templates, and the remaining word file tools. Don't expect it before the end of the year, but it will be worth the wait. It you want to test new goodies as they become available, you're welcome to send me an email to my support email address in the about box of the program, and I will set you up for access to betas as they become available.

[rhapdog]

I have uploaded a new 7zip package of themes to the link in the first post. This package contains all the themes I have gathered from August 1 to August 22, 2012. There are 51 themes in this package.

This now brings the total number of themes available for download to 1394. As of this post, there are 1378 schemes available for Visual Studio on the Studio Styles website. We have everything they have, plus a few extra users have created here.

I'd say at this point if a user can't find what they want in the list of already made ones, it should be easy enough to grab one that's close and modify it.

[rhapdog]

I have uploaded a different version of the program for download.

It is still the same version number, but contains the source code and new license agreement. It is now open source.

I am also halting development on this program, as it is being handed over to IDM in hopes that they will make the decision to incorporate the ideas contained within this program into the main UE product for future versions of UltraEdit and UEStudio. It is my hope that they will make use the theme files so that users can easily get the full experience.

If IDM decides to go forward and implement a version of this into their program, then that would be best for all of us. If you would like to see that happen, perhaps you can drop them an email and let them know.

The above history tab was pulled and made into a separate program.

[Tanuki]

Just registered on the forums to say: Thanks for all your work on this, rhapdog!

PS. the portable version downloadable from your first post in this topic, "UECompanionPortable_3.0.0.2632_English.paf.exe", installs an older version than the filename would indicate. The regular setup is fine.

PPS. Should the IDM folks decide to use your ideas/code (would be nice), it would be good (and make more sense, really) if the "active line" colors were used for the recently(?) added "active column" color, whenever the active column color has not yet been specified or is missing from an older theme file, instead of the default blue on light blue.

[rhapdog]

Just registered on the forums to say: Thanks for all your work on this, rhapdog!

PS. the portable version downloadable from your first post in this topic, "UECompanionPortable_3.0.0.2632_English.paf.exe", installs an older version than the filename would indicate. The regular setup is fine.

PPS. Should the IDM folks decide to use your ideas/code (would be nice), it would be good (and make more sense, really) if the "active line" colors were used for the recently(?) added "active column" color, whenever the active column color has not yet been specified or is missing from an older theme file, instead of the default blue on light blue.

Glad you're getting good use out of it.

If the portable version is not installing the correct version, because of any mistake I may have made during setting up the setup file, then just take the regular version .exe file and copy over the portable .exe file of the same name in the PortableApps\UECompanionPortable\App\uecompanion\uecompanion.exe, and it will update. They two programs are identical, and it will "detect" when it is set up in that portable path by looking for "..\..\UECompanionPortable.exe".

Unfortunately, if there is a problem there, I won't be doing any further corrections to the program at this point in time. I wrote this in Delphi 2010, because a company that contracted me to "complete" a project that another programmer had abandoned had done a majority of the project in Delphi 2010. They purchased a copy of Delphi 2010 for me as part of the contract. I created the first version of what was back then called "uecolors" using this platform, in order to get me familiar with Delphi 2010. Since then, everything has been maintained and expanded using Delphi 2010, and I am really, really ready to drop it and go back to programming in C++ exclusively. If I had done this project in C++ to begin with, then IDM could just drop the code into UE and make immediate use of it. As it is, the entire thing will have to be "converted" in order for them to make use of it so that they can make changes where needed.

I'd consider rewriting it in C++, however, it would take far too long to do so, considering I can only devote no more than 1/2 hour 5 days a week to work on it, and this has become a pretty large application.

My last communication with IDM indicated that they are quite interested in picking up this project from me, but there are a lot of details that must be worked out first.

Oh, yes, I must agree about the active line/active column colors. I had that on a list of things to do before I decided to stop work on the project. If IDM decides against going forward with it, then perhaps I'll consider going forward, but I doubt I'd be adding much in the way of new features, just keeping it compatible with new versions. However, I think it is doubtful that IDM won't at least pursue some degree of this in future versions of UE.

[Nologic]

@ rhapdog -

Just wanted to say thank you again for all your hard work...this is a brilliant bit of software, that has proved it's self priceless time and time again.

Not to mention all the hard work you put in converting all those themes...thank you very very much for your generous work and allowing us all to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

[rhapdog]

Thanks, Nologic. You were my original inspiration that gave spark to the idea for me.

I know the program is invaluable to me... I'm just pleased so many others have found it useful as well.

I have given the source to IDM Computer Solutions as they have expressed a strong interest in "incorporating" this program into a future version of UE. This is what I've been hoping would happen eventually. The interest they have expressed means my job was done.

Stay tuned... I have another 50 plus themes to be uploaded very soon, in the next day or so. Possibly today, if I get the time later.

[rhapdog]

Okay, more themes uploaded to the theme area. Check it out.

New archive of 52 themes, bringing the grand total available to 1453 themes for UE/UEStudio.

Gotta love it.