Allow styling of borders separately from default files

[mc-butler]

Important

This issue was migrated from Trac:

Origin	https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4553
Reporter	nout (mc.lie8a@….me)

One big issue that's preventing creation of better looking skins is that borders are always styled the same color as files (and other default foreground text).

One partial trick is to introduce a new filehighlight that captures all files and style that separately in the skin.
This is what I did in https://github.com/notnout/mashdark , but that's hacky and users have to download my filehighlight.ini definition. Note that this trick doesn't work in dialogs and menus.

So the request here is to add a new param in the style definition that would allow styling of the borders (ideally including the "buttons" for hidden files).

Note

Original attachments:

• mashdark-screenshot.jpg (raw) by nout (mc.lie8a@….me) on Jun 22, 2024 at 17:30 UTC

[mc-butler]

Changed by nout (mc.lie8a@….me) on Jun 22, 2024 at 17:30 UTC

• Attachment mashdark-screenshot.jpg (raw) added

[notnout]

In general - it would be great if the various labels, texts and borders are style-able separately. That's the main missing piece to allow really cool, smooth and consistent skins/themes.

[zyv]

Related discussion in #2737.

[egmontkob]

I've totally missed this issue when I filed and addressed duplicate issue #4931, my bad.

Closing this one as "reverse duplicate".

Could you please update your skin, and test with latest git snapshot of mc, or alternatively on https://skins.midnight-commander.org/ ? Note that the fix hasn't been released in a stable tarball yet.

There were other generic skin changes too which you might want to or need to incorporate, see my comments containing the word "rebase" at PR #4775 to see what they are.

[notnout]

Thank you! Is there a way to get a list of new properties that were added to the theme in the last ~2 years? Is it just the *frame? And is there any interest in including MashDark natively as one of the themes (see the screenshot in the original post) - I could clean it up and get it into a good state.

[zyv]

Thank you! Is there a way to get a list of new properties that were added to the theme in the last ~2 years? Is it just the *frame?

It sounds like a lot of changes are coming. I would suggest you watch #4975.

And is there any interest in including MashDark natively as one of the themes (see the screenshot in the original post) - I could clean it up and get it into a good state.

I wouldn't object to adding more high-quality skins if it offers something different from what we already have.

All I'd like to see is that they hopefully conform to established styling (if it's an implementation of some widely known theme, apparently in your case it's irrelevant) and do not have obvious accessibility issues like toxic or very low-contrast colors.

There is a PR adding new skins (#4775), but unfortunately, it seems that the author has lost interest in polishing them.

Maybe more skin editor stuff will make it easier or better.

[egmontkob]

Is there a way to get a list of new properties that were added to the theme in the last ~2 years?

As for the last few months: Go through the comments, including pushes by me, at #4775. For a bit longer back in time: I'm not sure... you can try to git log the skins directory to see what changed. But rather probably just compare the keywords in your file against the skins in current git master, and against the brand new README.txt file there.

And, of course, try your skin with newest mc git and/or in the skin editor (although the latter should be beefed up with more screenshots because currently many colors aren't showcased).

Beware that there were some not-so-compatible changes, like renaming "Lines" section to "lines". Newest mc itself still accepts the old name, the online skin editor only supports the new name, while existing mc releases only support the old one.

Some more changes may happen during the current development cycle (e.g. #4974), and the next release in a few months will probably be called 4.9. So maybe it's time for you to fork your skin: Keep a version (probably unchanged) for 4.8, and start updating for 4.9.

And is there any interest in including MashDark natively

I'd love to see new high quality skins, especially if they demonstrate previously unseen features (like different frame color). I generally like your theme, although some text is extremely dark gray over black background, I'd be glad if you could improve the contrast there.

See also the comments in #4775 again – some may apply to your skin, too. For one, I'd prefer to see more skins using underline for the hotkey, but maybe that's just me (definitely not a hard requirement).

[notnout]

I did a major cleanup of the skin using the new capabilities that are currently in mc tip. Please let me know how if you have any major concerns and I can create a PR to add. I tested it extensively - dialogs, menus, sftp, diffing, editing with multi floating windows, etc.
I fixed some of the dark texts (because of the recent change I can style them differently now, so that's good). Just for fun here's the screen with tree and with editor.

[egmontkob]

I think the simplest is if you create a PR for us to test. We can discuss the concerns, if any, under that PR.