Bug 573736 - Default foreground / background color should not be the same as built in colors
Summary: Default foreground / background color should not be the same as built in colors
Status: ASSIGNED
Alias: None
Product: CDT
Classification: Tools
Component: terminal (show other bugs)
Version: 10.2.0   Edit
Hardware: PC Windows 10
: P3 normal (vote)
Target Milestone: ---   Edit
Assignee: Jonah Graham CLA
QA Contact: Jonah Graham CLA
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on: 573735 573730
Blocks:
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Reported: 2021-05-24 20:19 EDT by Jonah Graham CLA
Modified: 2021-11-15 12:27 EST (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Jonah Graham CLA 2021-05-24 20:19:20 EDT 
In Bug 549697 we added the ability to have multiple color palettes and change individual colors. However the default colors were left as they always were.

This causes bad defaults because the bright white color is the same as the bacckground color and many programs assume the terminal has a dark background and use bright white when outputting. This makes the defaults in light Eclipse mode sometimes white text on white background. (BTW invert colors does not work in this case because it inverts both white text and background so you end up with black on black).

This is fixed by changing the palette, and was one of the main drivers for the implementation done in Bug 549697.

I recommend that the default palette is changed to Eclipse Light (when running in light mode) and Eclipse Dark (when running in dark mode) and leave Terminal Defaults as a palette for those users who prefer it.

I am going to artificially tie this to Bug 573730 and Bug 573735 to make the new changes more visible.
Comment 1 Jonah Graham CLA 2021-05-25 00:15:49 EDT 
I don't know where the correct place to handle this aspect of the colors is. The foreground/background colour by default is inherited from the Eclipse Theme, not defined by the terminal itself.

So the other option is to change the color definitions. I added the current Eclipse Terminal colors to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#3-bit_and_4-bit so it is easier to see how other terminals handle this. The main thing is that the default bright white color of the more modern terminals (VSCode, Windows 10 Console, and Terminal.app) is darker and guarantees a contrast with the default white background of their light themes.

Therefore I plan to darken the color of bright white to keep the contrast.

If you are reading this and have an opinion, please share it as I am not really sure what color to do.
Comment 2 Jonah Graham CLA 2021-09-15 10:32:48 EDT 
(Sorry - Covid summer used up too much of my time and these items did not make it into CDT 10.4. Retargetting for 10.5)
Comment 3 Jonah Graham CLA 2021-11-15 12:27:28 EST 
I am working on this in the background - but not sure which version of CDT I will get this resolved in.