[Libreoffice-ux-advise] color managing in LibO

[Markus Mohrhard]

Hey,

as already mnetioned several times during the ESC call our color
handling is suboptimal. Currently we over more or less around 100 hard
coded colors in our color picker dialogs. While one can argue that
only a few colors are really necessary it creates big problems in
interoperability when you get a document that uses colors that we
don't offer. This is also a problem in the discussed changes to the
default color palette as it makes it more difficult for people to
select the old colors.

Additionaly we have no way to use ARGB right now in the UI while it is
supported in the code. So we should find a solution that most likely
limits the standard color palette but offers an easy way to define
custom colors.

We need maybe even more than one single concept to cover all the
places where use color pickers. I know immediately 3 different places
that use already different concepts:
   - color button for example in normal dialogs
       - uses right now a button with the color names
   - toolbar button for font color, cell background color
       - needs a small pop-up dialog with a button to go to a bigger
dialog for defining custom colors?
   - bigger dialogs like the cell background color in the cell formatting dialog
       - lots of space there

It would be good if we could find a good solution for all our color
pickers that look consistent and make it easier for users to select
custom colors. I think a feasible target to get this in would be 4.1.
This would then also allow to use new colors for the palette as we are
no longer bound to the old fixed color set.

I'm looking forward to your suggestions and input.

Regards,
Markus