Changeset graph colors are cool, but confusing

[Francois Bertrand]

Hi! This is a bit of a minor point, but has been bugging me for literally years so I thought I would post it here.

In the branch view, it's awesome to be able to color nodes per user. However, the selected changeset is only differentiated from color, meaning that when using colors, it's not obvious what is currently selected versus what is just a different user, for example: in this scenario, which node is selected?  

From this example, it feels like the circle currently used for labels is what one would intuitively associate with selection.

Again this is not super critical, but it would be nice if selection would be something like a black circle or something more neutral (perhaps using the circle that is currently used for labels for selectin, and identifying the label nodes differently such as maybe adding a star icon inside the circle?).

Thank you!

[ollieblanks]

This is a brilliant point! Thank you for raising it. I will share this with our Product Management team.

[Wolfram]

I'm curious how these "full circle" user colors are enabled/disabled. For me, I only see the "color slabs" on the left side - which I like more, and it would also make the problem described here obsolete:

[Francois Bertrand]

@Wolfram to get just the nice circles, turn OFF "color by replication source" (now that I think of it, @ollieblanks it would be nice to default that to "off" as well if it isnt already...)

[Wolfram]

17 hours ago, Francois Bertrand said:

turn OFF "color by replication source" 

 

Ah, thanks! I never checked there, because I never explicitly enabled it, and I also assumed they were mutually exclusive.

 

But in this case, turning that option ON would also resolve YOUR problem (unless you really need the feature to multi-color different replication sources in the same repository), as then you can combine the user colors with the regular highlighting colors:

 

[Francois Bertrand]

I have to say I'm not even sure what "replication source" even means (we use the Cloud edition). I get that it can be a workaround, but it's much, much clearer when the entire dot is colored other than just that sliver, so for the Plastic folks, I'd still vote for the changes mentioned in my original post.  Thank you!!

[Wolfram]

A single color  for a selected changeset would not be enough: As you can see in my screenshot, there are at least THREE distinct variants that a changeset can be marked, and there is another color that's visible when TWO changesets are selected.

Reserving colors for all these would severely limit the options for color-by-user, and it will still happen quite often that a user color is too close to such a predetermined color.

Using the labels instead would be a large change, and would require implementing a completely new paradigm on how to depict labels (which also can have different colors, BTW - a feature we also use).

The workaround of disabling the replication source coloring gives you the best of both worlds - showing BOTH informations simultaneously, without the danger of cofusing any colors.

 

However, I do agree that the current user color sliver is quite small, it might help if the split is 50:50. Or alternatively, as the changeset icon consists of an inner circle PLUS an outer ring, the color of the outer ring could be used for all selection/highlighting styles (but this might be hard to notice, as that ring is very thin). 

[Wolfram]

Oooh, I just discovered a workaround that gives you the best of both worlds! Full color circles per user, but for "specially" highlighted changesets (such as the currently selected, search results, etc.) you see most of the icon in the special color, BUT still see the user's color on the left.

You can activate this hidden feature by ENABLING the "By replication source" coloring, but then DISABLING all listed servers. See screenshots.

This way, you even get an additional visual info: "if the color sliver on the left is visible, this means that this changeset is currently highlighted differently for a specific reason (such as, being selected)", and therefore no more confusion whether a certain color refers to a user or a selection.