Re: [css-color] Exposing "brand"/"accent" color

On 10/14/2014 08:12 PM, Bogdan Brinza wrote:
>Tab Atkins wrote:
>>
>> It sounds like you're just asking for a new system color; is this right?
>>
>> ~TJ
>
> My apologies for replying so late.
>
> Yes, essentially, however such color does not have a fixed value. For example see this page - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/How-to/wp7/start/change-accent-color-or-background-theme that lists available colors and impact on operating system presentation.

System colors don't have a fixed value in general, that's why
they're system colors...

> One of the current consumers within Microsoft is our JavaScript/CSS framework WinJS - https://github.com/winjs/winjs, they want to consume the user selected accent color and we want to expose this in CSS. Many other teams within the company that have web content have expressed interest in similar scenarios.
>
> Now the reason for me bringing this is up is that concept of user selectable "special" color is not unique to Windows. Mac OS X has highlight color that serves similar purpose and perhaps there are more examples.

Andrey brought this up during a WG discussion (that I can't find
minutes for). It's fairly straightforward to expose this as a
system color, but there are still some questions here about its
actual usage.

   * For example, if the color is expected to be usable as a
     background color, then we need some way of ensuring adequate
     contrast with the foreground color. Or vice versa.

     Microsoft restricts the colors you can pick for the accent
     color so that its expected uses in the platform are all
     supported. We don't have the option of restricting the
     accent color palette, so we need some other way of handling
     this problem, such as naming the color more explicitly and
     creating guidelines for what kind of color it can be and
     how it should be used, or prescribing some kind of luminosity
     correction, etc.

   * As another issue, some platforms might have more than one
     "accent color". Even if such platforms aren't popular right
     now, how can we set up the solution to this problem so it's
     compatible with such platforms and any extensions we need to
     make in the future?

In CSS we need to solve the problem in both a cross-platform and
future-proof manner, so while your request is *totally understandable*,
it's not enough info to really solve the problem...

~fantasai

Received on Thursday, 16 October 2014 00:52:47 UTC