Revise color selection for calendars

[TecJon]

Some (design) suggestions for the calendar colors

• Provide more colorful and high-contrast default colors (currently eight).
  • I'd suggest red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown (similar to OSX)
• Provide a 'other' or 'more' option to choose a custom color: Richer Calendar colors options #135
  • The 'other' or 'more' could be realized by a plus symbol occupying and replacing the last rectangle to choose a color.
• Prevent a messy line break when editing a calendar:
  • I'd suggest a single line for colors and a single line for both buttons.

• Also remove both scroll bars, as the horizontal bar wasn't mentioned in Remove unnecessary scroll bars #335 yet.

Here a quick suggestion how it could look like

Note, of course the text input, the colors and the buttons should be aligned on the right.

[georgehrke]

generally speaking create one ticket per actual issue please.

I'm very happy with the current colors and I think the ones you are suggesting are bad for readability.
As you already said there is a ticket for the second issue.

Can we agree to make this ticket about the third issue?

[georgehrke]

cc @raghunayyar

[TecJon]

I wanted this thread to collect ideas. Once agreed, each issue can be opened in a single ticket.

I guess the colors truly are a matter of taste. However, I think current colors 1, 2, and 4 are too similar and including 3 a little too dull. The ones I suggested in the image were quickly chosen, a designer should advise on actual good choices for readability (the red and orange are quite similar, too). Nonetheless, I would vote for more colorful default colors. :-)

[georgehrke]

I would agree that 1,2 and 4 are too similar.
"Dull" colors are not necessarily a bad thing. These colors don't need to be bright and shiny. What's important is that you can read the text very easily. A bright and shiny background is often bad in this regard.

[TecJon]

I agree, readability should be the primary concern here.

But I believe readability and a little colorfulness are not mutually exclusive. For example the labels on here on github are quite colorful yet easy to read.
OSX solved the issue by using a lighter version of the color as the background color of the event.

One could think about matching the owncloud contacts app colors.

[georgehrke]

Well, that ain't OS X Calendar but Fantastical, but I like that as well. 😉

[TecJon]

Oh haha! Well that's a little unfortunate. 😃

For the sake of completeness

[georgehrke]

cc @jancborchardt

[j-ed]

I like the idea of having more colorful and high-contrast default colors too. I cannot understand why a user should be limited to low-contrast default colors only. Many people cannot differenciate colors correctly or need to wear glasses so that it is essential for them to select colors based on their requirements. Unfortunately this is ignored by many developers because they didn't know or due to design descisions. The original color-picker mockup of @SamEliotFisher therefore seems to be the right way to go.

[eesko]

Custom color selection would be useful. I have a number of calendars that are color coded across all different programs/devices that I use. The limited color choices in the ownCloud calendar app make it impossible to use the colors I use across all other programs/devices. Also if I happen to have more than eight calendars I must currently assign same color for more than one calendar.

I also think that the dark colors are too close to each other. Some of the other default color choices seem odd to me as well. There is a gradient from yellow to orange to red but only one shade of blue and no green at all.