Tooltip instructions for changing bg/text colors is unclear or isn't correct

[shear12345]

When hovering over the color icon in the top right corner of the test viewer, a tooltip is displayed that says "Run with -Dbgcolor= and -Dtextcolor to change permanently".

I have tried multiple variations on specifying those colors and multiple ways of running the JAR file; including modifying the desktop shortcut pointed to the etsviewer.jar file to include the aforementioned command line options for the colors; and running the JAR file using the java CLI with the -jar option, specifying the path to the etsviewer.jar file, and including the aforementioned command line options for the colors.

Either the instructions for this behavior are incorrect or unclear; or a bug has been introduced that has disabled this feature. Please advise on how to properly use this feature. I have a hard time with black text on white backgrounds and highly prefer the opposite color scheme. In a perfect world, the application would use the color scheme from the operating system (ex: Windows Theme). The product is otherwise really great.

Thanks,
Shea

[admin]

Yes, I admit that the color handling is messed up. It took me a while to figure this out.

The -Dtextcolor and -Dbgcolor options are indeed used by the application but unfortunately, there are two issues with it:

1. Different parts of the program are interpreting this value different (in one place it expects a hexadecimal value, in another it is expecting an int). There is no way one value will work the same in both of these places.

2. There is a bug in Question view where the -Dbgcolor system property is being interpreted with base 16 but -Dtextcolor is being interpreted as a decimal value.

So, at this point, the following command line impacts the question view correctly:

java -Dtextcolor=16777215 -Dbgcolor=999900 -jar etsviewer.jar

Another issue with picking the colors is that the question view requires 5 different colors to convey different elements of the question:
1. color problem statement and options text
2. highlight color for correct options
3. Color explanation under options
4. Color for control buttons (next, previous etc)
5. Color for displaying the status of the question ("Left unanswered", "Answered correctly" etc.)

Just picking the theme from the OS or changing bg to a dark color may cause other elements to become practically invisible. So, allowing to change the bgcolor and textcolor, without allowing to change others is not too useful. Ideally, it should have a dark Palette option that would change all these colors.

We will work on improving this. But for now, please use this command:

java -Dtextcolor=<a decimal value> -Dbgcolor=<a hex value without 0xff at the beginning) -jar etsviewer.jar

[admin]

Please download https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.27.jar and run it with the following command:

c:\etsviewer\>java -Dbgcolor=006633 -Dtextcolor=ffffff -Dexplcolor=00ffff -jar etsviewer.jar

That should take care of your issues (at the one with the Question view).

[shear12345]

I really appreciate your willingness to respond so quickly with a solution. IMHO, you could probably just simplify the color system like you were somewhat hinting at; and just have light and dark modes. It seems like that would cover the 99% use case of color customization; and you could curate the palettes of both modes so that there wouldn't be the conflicts that you mentioned. Just my 2 cents.

As for the version you had me download, it does work, but as you mentioned in your previous response there are still some issues. In review mode, the highlighted answers have a bright green color background and white text; which makes them very hard to read. Are there any color command line options for changing the colors used for highlighted answers? I am happy to do any testing to help you work on these issues, if that would be helpful.

[admin]

Yes, you can use -Dcorrectoptionbg=#<RGB Color code> on the command line to change the highlight color also. Eg. -Dcorrectoptionbg=#FF0000 will make it red.

Let me know which color combinations work for your the best and we will incorporate that combination as a dark theme.

Note that this option expects a # sign at the beginning of the color code

[admin]

Please download v4.28 from https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.28.jar and run with the following options:

java -Dbgcolor=113333 -Dtextcolor=ffffff -Dexplcolor=00ffff -Dcorrectoptionbg=999900 -jar etsviewer.4.28.jar

[shear12345]

Thanks! That works like a charm!
Here are my current color scheme options for a dark theme: -Dbgcolor=2F2F2F -Dtextcolor=ffffff -Dexplcolor=00ffff -Dcorrectoptionbg=#1C6A36

There are a few remaining issues that I noticed and I thought I should let you know about them.
Test Explorer issues
------------------------------
* The "Test View" and "Study View" tabs in what I would call the "Test Explorer" MDI child window (not sure what you call it internally) are using the BG color for the tree component, but not the text color. So the tree-list-item text is hard to read because it is black on a dark BG color.

Test Viewer Issues
------------------------------
* In what I would call the "Test Viewer" window, the border and caption-text color of the frames (but not the text within them) that contain "My Note" and "Explanation" seems to still be using the default text/foreground color instead of the value provided in the -Dtextcolor option. The text within the frame IS using the correct value from the command line options.
* (Minor issue) The blue color of the links for "Add Note", "Previous", "Next", "Discuss", and other links is a little hard to read on the dark-grey background, but not too bad. I would just change the background color to a darker color (e.g. black), but I think the dark-grey is actually easier on the eyes.
* The "Test Overview" page in the "Test Viewer" seems to be ignoring all of the color CLI options, except at the top where it is using the Dtextcolor value for the "summary fields". The background isn't dark as it is not using the CLI option from Dbgcolor. So, the summary text is hard to read because it is white on a super-light-grey (default window color) background.
* Similar to the previous issue, on the "Performance Report" tab of the "Test Overview" page, the description text at the bottom is using the Dtextcolor option, but again the background is still the super-light-grey default window color; making the text hard to read.

Again, thanks for the willingness to work on this and I'm glad to help with testing and providing end-user input, because I know what its like to be a developer. I hope you don't take the issues I've mentioned above as me complaining. I know that testing and finding the issues/bugs is generally the hardest part of fixing them. So I figured you'd appreciate me telling you about them.

[admin]

Thank you for the detailed feedback. We sincerely appreciate it. Unfortunately, the application was coded 20 yrs ago at a time when light/dark themes weren't a thing. So the points that you have mentioned are valid but they are not bugs. Theming is simply not baked into the application. Java Swing too doesn't have any built-in facility for theme switching/detecting.

Over the years, a few enhancements were added to make the question view more usable for users of the dark OS theme. But they are just hacks, tbh. We know that they don't work in all of the screens.

Changing the color combinations of the tables and trees is a bit more complicated than simply changing the bg and fg, so I am afraid we can't do much about those at this point.

We are working on a new viewer application based on a different tech stack altogether but there is no timeline on that.

[shear12345]

I understand. You must prioritize carefully and I appreciate what you've addressed so far. It definitely made the majority of the UX better for me. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with future versions.

Thanks again.

[admin]

Version 4.29 now supports a -Dcolortheme=dark option. It is equivalent to -Dbgcolor=113333 -Dtextcolor=ffffff -Dexplcolor=00ffff -Dcorrectoptionbg=999900

It can be downloaded from https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.29.jar

[shear12345]

Thanks! I'll check it out.

[shear12345]

Seems to be working as intended and I see that you addressed the summary text background color issue at the top of the "Test Overview/TestDetails" page/tab. The description text at the bottom of the "Test Overview/Performance Report" page/tab is still hard to read, but its not a big deal. Just thought I'd call it out. Thanks again for making these changes. I really appreciate it and it shows that you care about your customers.

[admin]

Fixed in v4.30 https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.30.jar

thanks!

[shear12345]

In the spirit of being comprehensive, I thought I'd share another small issue that I missed in my original testing. In review mode, the checked checkboxes are somewhat had to distinguish in dark mode, as the "fill" color of the checked checkbox is a light grey and the foreground color (the check-mark) is of course the light color (white). So there isn't much contrast. I understand if you can't prioritize this issue, but I figured I'd call it out anyways.

[admin]

Fixed in v4.31 https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.31.jar

thanks!

[shear12345]

Awesome! The only issue is that it only addresses checkboxes (multi-choice) and not radio buttons (single-choice).

[admin]

Fixed in v4.32 https://enthuware.com/etsviewer/etsviewer.4.32.jar

Keep them coming, thanks!

[shear12345]

Much better! Thanks! I'll let you know if I find anything else related to the dark theme.