topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 4:39 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch  (Read 9580 times)

noutters

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Thanks for developing FAR. I can't use a PC without it anymore.

I have an idea to improve the GUI and help to eye focus on the right row of the search results.

Why not color the text backgroud in the main window by the frequency of launch of the programs?

Example:
A program that I launch frequently will have a background of solid red.
Less frequent programs will have different shades of red (from 255,0,0 (red) to 255,255,255 (white)) according to their frequency.

I have produced a picture of it but could not figure out how to display it here  :tellme:

The user should be able to define in the Preferences the ends of the frequency color scale.

Cheers  ;D

Carol Haynes

  • Waffles for England (patent pending)
  • Global Moderator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,066
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2006, 09:01 AM »
Sounds like a good idea to me (actually I think this would be a nice idea to implement in Start > Programs too ... potential coding snack?)

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2006, 10:23 AM »
something like this might be nice - though maybe the color would be distracting.  what about just a column of results which showed frequency or score as a color bar?

kfitting

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 593
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2006, 10:43 AM »
this is somewhat different, but reminds me of the idea about having colored icons for different types of files.

Kevin

noutters

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2006, 02:20 PM »
Mouser,

May be coloring the whole line would be distracting. It depends on the color scale the user defines. I like the simple GUI of FARR and hope it remains this way.

BTW, any plan to add an extra-minimal GUI with only the search field and the result field within a simple frame (no title bar and no help and preferences icons)?


mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2006, 02:44 PM »
i forgot where we left the titlebar thing - yes that is planned.
as far as hiding the help+options icon, you can do this - just grab the right hand side of the edit box and drag it rightward on top of the icons.

noutters

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2006, 02:57 AM »
He he... of course :-)
Thanks!

allen

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,206
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2006, 08:33 AM »
I really like this idea. I'd prefer to have the different colors (and perhaps thresholds/limits) user-configurable.  I think either a separate column for colors would be a viable option, and maintain readability.  A default to pastels might also work -- subtle differentiation rather than extreme.

Carol Haynes

  • Waffles for England (patent pending)
  • Global Moderator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,066
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2006, 10:54 AM »
A default to pastels might also work -- subtle differentiation rather than extreme.

Possibly a monochrome gradient column which is sortable would be good (darker most used etc). The base coulour being linked to the skin or user selectable.

noutters

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2006, 12:19 AM »
He heee... now you have a preview of my idea.  ;D

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8564/farcolors2fn.png
Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2006, 02:45 AM »
that looks quite nice, thogh i'm not sure how distracting i would find it in regular use..
but i will put this on the todo list to things to add support for, and when the time comes we can talk about different color schemes and various ways a user might want to say to color things (ie color by file type, by score, or by frequency of launching, etc).

lanux128

  • Global Moderator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 6,277
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #11 on: March 20, 2006, 10:07 PM »
an off-topic question... a software called rhinoceros? what does it do?  :tellme:

Carol Haynes

  • Waffles for England (patent pending)
  • Global Moderator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,066
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2006, 04:08 AM »
See http://www.rhino3d.com/ (3rd item in a google search ;))

brotherS

  • Master of Good Ideas
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • **
  • Posts: 2,260
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch
« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2006, 04:59 AM »
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8564/farcolors2fn.png
Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch


that looks quite nice, thogh i'm not sure how distracting i would find it in regular use..
I like noutters' idea! To make it less obstrusive you could just color the last 5 or 10 pixel of every row! Or what about just underlying the number in front of the program name with that color? Even better I guess!
:)