Background colours for messages from different accounts in the Smart Folder view

[andrewilley]

Earlier in the year (e.g. thread http://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=2257.msg8752#msg8752) we were discussing the possibility of having an extra option to allow individual account colours to be used as 'background colour washes' in the message lists in order to make it easier to differentiate messages from different email accounts within the Smart Folder view.

The current little corner flashes can tend to get lost beside colourful sender avatars/icons on larger screens, and it'd be so much more clean and elegant to be able to define a light coloured background for messages from each different account - light-blue for work emails, pale-orange for my personal account, light-green for my website account messages, etc.

At the time you said there were plenty of other things taking higher priority, but I was wondering if the current work on the general interface colour schemes and layouts might prove a convenient opportunity to have a quick look at adding this feature without it taking up too much extra time for you? I'm guessing it should be fairly straight-forward to use the same code which currently inserts the corner flashes to optionally use the same colour for the message background instead.

Hoping this is something you can look into implementing,

Andre

[andrewilley]

Yes, I tried that a while ago when I first started using AquaMail, but the downside is that it adds an unnecessary (and otherwise blank) extra line to the top of each message, which reduces the number of messages visible per screen. And I don't actually need to see the account name text at all, as 90% of my messages are from one account, but would just like to have different accounts flagged with different background colours, rather than adding an extra coloured line above each item.

Ideally, it would just be a case of adding one extra option into either the Smart Folder menu or the Look and Feel menu (which is where the corner triangle flashes are enabled), which could use exactly the same logic and code as the "Account and Folder Names" facility that you mentioned, but all it would do would be to adjust the background colour rather than adding anything new to the item.

Andre

[andrewilley]

Ah, I never use read/unread/starred background colours, so that wouldn't have been an issue for me - I use just bold & a text colour to highlight unread messages (see attached). I'd forgotten those modes even existed to be honest, but they are basically what I was suggesting per-email-account rather than for read/unread messages. Adding further darkening/lightening options for read/unread messages would work I guess, but it might add quite a bit more work to what I had hoped would be a really trivial option to implement (I don't want to create a load of work for Kostya!).

To be honest, as it wouldn't make much sense for a user to define two different modes for colouring backgrounds anyway, I suspect the easiest thing would be for any per-account background colour feature to only work if read/unread colouring was not currently active (i.e. ticking one option would force-disable the other, perhaps with a prompt to warn the user if this is about to happen when they change a setting).

Andre

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, I understand the difference -- no, right now the app does not change an entire message item's background color based on its account.

I would recommend turning "account hints" back on, then it'll look like in Paris Geek's screenshot. Oh, and it works with "Slim Padding" (more compact layout) that you appear to be using, based on your screenshot.

[andrewilley]

Thanks, but as I said above, I did try that mode a year or two back, but the extra wasted line at the top means I get 5 messages per screen at my preferred text size rather than 7, which isn't really worth it. However I'd still love to have the best of both worlds at some point with optional per-account coloured backgrounds for message-list items, as discussed above.

Just hoping that this might have been working its way a bit further up the to-do list since we last discussed it back in April. Many thanks for listening anyway.

Andre

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Back in April? Oh my!

Ok, do you propose coloring the whole message item? What if the user still uses read/unread/starred background?

Maybe a small vertical line on the right (when "show account / folder names" is disabled for the smart folder -- as a special case)?

When "slim padding" is also enabled, there is about 2dp there (2 logical pixels, so 6 pixels on a 1920 * 1080 screen).

I have other ideas as well, like a gradient that would extend from the right to maybe 1/3 of total width, but that's a little trickier to get right --

[andrewilley]

Yes, I was suggesting the whole background colour of the item should be changed, in exactly the same way that the read/unread flag works at the moment (and it might as well use the same per-account 'Assign Colour' value that the 'Account and Folder names' option already uses). The small corner flashes can tend to get a bit lost next to the avatar images, and I think a vertical edge-bar might do too (however that would still be a good compromise if you don't want to implement the full background colour idea).

I must admit that I had initially forgotten about the read/unread background status as I just use bold/coloured text for my unread subject lines rather than b/g colours. I agree that it wouldn't make very much sense to have both modes enabled at the same time, so to keep the coding simple I'd suggest making the new mode mutually exclusive with read/unread backgrounds. Thus the menu choice for message-list items would change from the current on/off toggle for read/unread to a three-way selection between Off, Read/Unread indicators, and Per-Account-Colours.

Does that sound feasible? (And also fairly simple to code, as I'm sure you've got a lot else in the pipeline too)

[Not criticising you over the April thing at all by the way - I've known feature requests on some apps to take a heck of a lot longer than that! You are one of the more responsive developers out there in fact]

Andre

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Please try this (just posted) version:

http://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=3140.0

I think you should see the difference (assuming you have per-account colors assigned, and textual "account / folder" labels are still turned off).

[andrewilley]

Thanks, accounts are much more noticeable with the graduated edge colours. I would still prefer the colours to cover the whole width of the list though (optionally of course, as I'm sure some people won't want it) but this is definitely better than before. Thanks for the update.

Andre

[andrewilley]

Agreed that there are bound to be some users who don't like this, so it definitely ought to have an option to disable it if not required. I would suggest that the option defaults to OFF if the user only has one email account, as coloured edges are of no use to them.

I'd still really like an option for the whole background area to be coloured though - which as has been said would imply the user switching the read/unread backgrounds mode off (as I suggested earlier, I'd have thought changing the current on/off switch into a three-way option would be a perfect and quick solution).

Andre

[mikeone]

...
I love adding color/behavior features in AquaMail. Let's add them only as (true) options. Meaning that those edges be added as an option (yes/no selection) in Smart folder menu. Then forum contributors will translate needed strings into all languages

English:
Account colors
Show account color for each message

French:
Couleur des comptes
Afficher la couleur du compte, par message

Thanks to all

+1

German:
Kontofarben
Kontofarbe anzeigen für jede Nachricht

[andrewilley]

The colored edges working with unread/read/starred colored background is a very good feature. We should keep this ability (I have adopted it a few minutes after testing)

Fair enough, options are what makes AquaMail so great - I love the way the app allows everyone to have it their way (quote unashamedly stolen from a fast food slogan).

For my own ideal list-view, I think I'd like to keep my regular messages with just a plain white background, and use light blue/orange/etc backgrounds for the less common accounts. And I'll keep unread messages as being flagged by bold/blue font.

Thanks for the early Christmas present anyway Kostya!

Andre

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, currently there is no setting -- I don't want to break the existing "perfect" translations.

Oh, wait, but there is -- if the user switches off textual "account / folder" hints, and there are assigned account colors -> gradients.

As far as coloring message items fully, top to bottom and left to right -- it gets really messy with read/unread backgrounds (default or user-assigned colors). One of those cases of "feature X" * (times) "feature Y" * (times) "feature Z", etrc.

[mikeone]

Kostya :
For me it's not going really messy... however it will be the users choice to configure the colors messy or even not.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

By "messy" I meant -- messy to implement all the combinations (e.g. text hint on / off, read/unread/starred backgrounds...).

There is one other aspect too -- users being able to (or not being able to, more likely) -- understand the logic.

For you and @andrewilley it's different -- since that's something you *consciously* wanted and asked for (and you follow the forum, read my ramblings, etc).

But imagine some "random" user, Mr. Balthazar Quigley or Ms. Jane Smith, who goes "oh, what is account / folder labels, let me turn that off -- oh, why are my messages have some random colors"?

Let's just keep things as they are for now.

( the post-update madness is still continuing, by the way, and MS did something to Office 365 so I have to deal with that )