Bring old colors back?
In the previous update (not the current one, the previous) there was an adjustment made to the colors in the workspace (selections and notes during playback). I remember seeing this at the time and asking myself why this change was made in the first place since, since it now makes everything dead and uninspiring (you can tell I didn't like this change).
Fast forward a few days and now I have an actual good reason to suggest bringing the older colors back (because IMO "i don't like it" isn't reason enough): Since the colors are less saturated, it's harder than ever to distinguish between voices 1 and 2, and voices 3 and 4. The grey-ish tourquise from voice 1 and the grey-ish green from voice 2 look really similar. The same applies to the orange and red of voices 3 and 4.
If you work using night light mode (like I do) it's downright impossible to distinguish at times, and it really strains the eyes in long periods of time.
Why was this changed in the first place? There was nothing wrong with how selections looked.
Sure, since there are options to change the colors in the Preferences menu (under the "advanced" tab), this is only a minor inconvenience, but it seems unnecessary and interrupts workflow.
Comments
My understanding is that the reason for the change has to do with reducing the confusion over similar colors being used for a variety of unrelated things (voice 1 content, non-printing elements like breaks, styled vs unstyled elements in Inspector, pressed vs unpressed toolbar buttons, etc). While you or I may have simply gotten used to this, there was feedback from new users, including professional designers, that the colors were problematic.
In reply to My understanding is that the… by Marc Sabatella
But now everything is hard to see (and now that you mention it, non-printing elements are also really hard to spot now). I can understand this reasoning, but in my humble opinion, the colors are still problematic (in the sense that despite being more consistent, it also makes things consistently hard to see).
The palette in previous versions of Musescore made things distinguishable (the dark blue from the notes/selections and the light blue from those non-printables you mentioned). They are the same color, but they don't look alike. Or maybe I did get too used to it.
This more consistent style is fine by me, as long as we can see/distinguish everything. Maybe keep this new palette philosophy but just change the colors? Few people seem to be talking about this in the forum but I think it's important (the kind of thing people don't talk about, but it's still important). Maybe put out a poll or bring it up somewhere a lot of users are going to see? :x
In reply to But now everything is hard… by Luigi Bonocchi
It is generally impossible to get unanimity, in any piece of software, on color choice.
So what about offering, not only option to change color one by one, but also to set all of them globally as a theme?
The new colors could be called theme V3, the old ones V2, and a theme customized would allow to change them one by one.
Or even several personnal themes actually: perhaps one would like (sligthly) different colors for small laptop screen and for big TV screen?
The currently existing light and dark options could be merged in that theme choice.
Users could also upload their nicely designed theme to MuseScore.org/com to share it!
Pretty sure the theme "Sabatella-Jazz" will be a success!
In reply to It is generally impossible… by frfancha
Actually theme should not be limited to colors, font and policy size and buttons size can be part of it!
In reply to Actually theme should not be… by frfancha
An interesting proposition indeed!
In reply to It is generally impossible… by frfancha
There is already the possibility to create a custom workspace and make your UI settings part of it, so if you want a custom theme, you can have it. And it looks like the voice colors do get saved as part of this. You can even package up that custom workspace as an "extension", although the process isn't documented - but it's just a ZIP file containing a workspaces folder plus templates & soundfonts foders.
Here for instance is such a custom workspace I created as a demonstration for use with young musicians:
See also, #291280: Make Voice 1 and 2 colors easier to distinguish.