[Tutor] Customizing Eclipse text editor

[spir]

Le Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:17:15 +0100,
Vicent <vginer at gmail.com> a écrit :

> Hello everyone.

[...]

> As you can see there, I prefer a black background, so I've changed colors a
> little. My second question is: do you know any kind of recomended (I mean,
> optimized for a good working experience, good for eyes health, etc.) color
> palette or color combination with black background?
> 
> Thank you in advance.

I have long talked about that with a web designer who is particuliarly aware of user comfort in relation to colors, brightness, etc. What I remember is the following rules about what factors make reading/watching harmful, difficult and/or tiring:

-1- overall brightness --> white background forbidden
-2- difficulty to read or distingush shapes (e.g. too small or badly designed fonts)
-3- physical effects of low quality monitors
-4- too low (rule -2-) or too high (rule -1-) contrast

In addition to that, a basic rule of graphical design in any domain is that too many colors or styles -- as usually done in standard syntax highlighting -- rather prevents readibility that helps it.
There should be some research done on this topic. After all, it's a relevant aspect of all programmers' everyday life, no? I'm rather sure that for most PLs, a combination of 3 to 5 colors, and bold/italics properties given to only 1 or 2 token types is optimal. I haven't yet found a style sheet to be really happy with, nevertheless.
Now, for a language that becomes more and more complex like python... maybe it will be easier with py3 ;-)

denis

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