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7

Looking beyond the individual colors in isolation, however, we see far too high of contrast. The bright white of the variable names on the dark background is literally painful. The Haloween orange used for the function name also contrasts much too strongly with the aforementioned putrid green.
– Jerry Coffin
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 6:48
11

The new color scheme is also problematic from a functional viewpoint. For example, it appears to use the same color for the name of the class, the function, the numeric literals, and the None (in the Python example). Some of it doesn't even may sense syntactically--for example, in Python both if and None are keywords, but the new colorizer has given them different colors.
– Jerry Coffin
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 6:54
Oh, and just in case the subject should arise: yes, I calibrate my monitors on a regular basis, and I keep the background lighting dim enough to assure that my eyes are adjusted almost exclusively to the white point of the monitors, not the room (though it's at a fairly reasonable approximation of the standard D55 illuminant in any case).
– Jerry Coffin
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 7:07
11

I prefer the old colors, because they look like Visual Studio. The new colors feel really weird (especially the green strings, which I always associate to comments).
– Métoule
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 8:01
7

I disagree that the new scheme is at all garish, though obviously that is a subjective consideration, and they'll never keep everyone happy with any change (or no change!) in that area. As mentioned by @Métoule though, green for string literals could be an issue given several very common tools use green for comments. I like that you are keeping comments grey though. In any case I find what is highlighted and the contrast levels far more important than the specific colours, I quickly get used to new colour schemes as long as I can see the key things I find helpful to see identified.
– David Spillett
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 9:49
11

Having sucessfully ranted against a design change - the specific issues probably should be in the questions, especially things like "Some of it doesn't even may sense syntactically--for example, in Python both if and None are keywords, but the new colorizer has given them different colors." One finds things like insipid and garish are often a matter of personal taste though
– Journeyman Geek
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 10:37
3

@Métoule the IDEs I use have green for strings, grey for comments.
– OrangeDog
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 13:48
11

Thank you for creating the side-by-side before/after shots. I didn't consciously create them in any certain manner other than "I took the old shots at the same time and the new shots at the same time". I'll pass your feedback on the color scheme to the designer. I do see your point about some colors being potentially mismatched or not matching other IDEs. I'll do a bit of cross referencing and see if we can't make some tweaks there for a quick win.
– Ben Kelly StaffMod
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 14:28
11

Side note: I found the info in your comments to be very helpful. I'd recommend adding it to your post to help flesh out the statement/request a bit more and to help deter drive-by downvotes for "personal taste" vs "specific issues"
– Ben Kelly StaffMod
Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 14:30
41

Re Python specifically, None and if are both keywords, but they have different semantic roles: if is control structure, None is a constant. Highlighting them in different colors is common in IDEs and I actually think it's better that way.
– zwol
Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 12:59
@zwol: I can see at least some merit to that line of thinking. My personal preference would be to start from a high level and make things more or less hierarchical, so (for example) key words are in shades of green and values in shades of blue.In this case, I can see where it would make sense for None to be more or less a teal color to accurately reflect that it's a keyword that's typically used in a value context, so to speak.
– Jerry Coffin
Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 18:10
In IDLE, repl.it (online IDE), and PyCharm, if and None are the same color by default.
– Rainbolt
Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 14:12
1

If the old colour scheme is better, as it seems to me that it is, is it possible to create a "theme" for the new highlighter to match the old highlighter's colour scheme?
– Sam Watkins
Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 22:19

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