Created attachment 191605 [details] Showing current cell selection colour as normal and transparent. We are volunteers transcribing weather from old Navy Logs for climate research. We import a scanned image of a logbook page into Calc and transcribe the data directly into the spreadsheet. A couple of our transcribers are colour blind and they can't see which is the selected cell because of the colour of the cell selection border. We would like them to be able to change the colour of that border to a colour they can see. We have been using Calc since version 3 and, I think, some time in the past, we might have been able to set the border, which is now blue. It is also the same colour as the colour of a selected cell range. I have searched around in Ask LibreOffice but all I could find was a way to change the colour of the cell selection border to Transparent Selection. This causes other problems. Would it be possible, in a future release, to have an option something like: Tools/Options/LibreOffice/Application Colors/Cell Selection Border
As a side note to the request regarding the possibility to change the color of the cell with the focus, but thinking about the goal of helping users with less-than-perfect vision, there is a new feature recently introduced: Calc > menu Tools > Options > LibreOffice Calc > View > "Column/Row highlighting". This recently introduced feature highlights the entire row and the entire column of the cell that has the focus (and/or the "home" cell of a selected range). Perhaps this new feature helps in the particular case presented in comment 0, independently of the technical request.
And it's possible to change the grid color, and how the grid behaves. Menu/Tools/Options/LibreOffice Calc/View - Visual aids.
I look forward to that option. I don't see it with my current build: Version: 7.5.9.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: cdeefe45c17511d326101eed8008ac4092f278a9 CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 22000; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win Locale: en-CA (en_CA); UI: en-US Calc: CL threaded The Help/About listing above shows Windows 10, but it is Windows 11 with the latest patches.
Although this RFE is not set as new yet, I think that Heiko Tietze and Michael Weghorn should be CC'ed, as it involves UX and assistive areas. Perhaps there is already some option or setting that would help in this case, but if there isn't, then they should better be aware of this need. Regarding the side-note... (In reply to Michael from comment #3) > I look forward to that option. I don't see it with my current build: > > Version: 7.5.9.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community FWIW, version 24.2 beta (already available for download) should already have the "Column/Row highlighting" feature as described in comment 1. Until this RFE is evaluated, relevant users might want to try the mentioned feature.
Just to link to relevant reports: - bug 142121 and follow-up bug 145080 were fixed resulting in better automatic colour (depending on OS); - bug 156800: ability to change the colour of the cursor was closed as "won't fix". Marking as affecting Windows, as colour choice depends on OS (and VCL plugin).
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(In reply to ady from comment #1) > As a side note to the request regarding the possibility to change the color > of the cell with the focus, but thinking about the goal of helping users > with less-than-perfect vision, there is a new feature recently introduced: > > Calc > menu Tools > Options > LibreOffice Calc > View > "Column/Row > highlighting". > > This recently introduced feature highlights the entire row and the entire > column of the cell that has the focus (and/or the "home" cell of a selected > range). > > Perhaps this new feature helps in the particular case presented in comment > 0, independently of the technical request. En <a href="https://doramasmp4.dev/">Doramasmp4</a> verás los doramas online gratis en emisión y finalizados en HD. Dramas Coreanos, chinos, tailandeses y japoneses en MP4
Michael, do you have a good argument to not use the system accent color (see the discussion in bugs mentioned in comment 5)? People with color deficiency in particular should be expected to change this color system-wide to a value they can see.
Due to a serious illness in our family, I'm away from home and my PC right now. I have only a very old iPad, so I have no access to Calc. As for colours: The mouse we can change with Windows The fonts and cell borders we can change with Calc The image we can manipulate with Calc: grey scale, brightness, contrast and gamma That leaves the background of the cell when we enter data and the colour of the border around the active cell. Ideally, the background of the cell would be the image underneath it, but I understand that isn't feasible. We did try changing the document background, which changes the background of the cell when we're entering data. Unfortunately, that changes the background colour on the other ten sheets in the spreadsheet as well as the background on the macro window. So, for this case, having a separate option to change the colour of the background when entering data would be most convenient. That leaves the border around the active cell. I can't test the beta version to see how highlighting the active row and column would work. It may be a solution. What we hope for is a greyscale image, a grey background on the cell when entering data, with a font and border around the active cell having the same colour. Thank you for considering this. Michael
With no intention to invalidate your request in any way, please take this as a side note (again)... In addition to the new row and column highlighting, whenever you can you could try testing with: Calc > menu Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Accessibility > "Use automatic font color for screen display". The setting has several consequences (so, you have been warned :-), but it may help you in this case (but please remember the polite warning).
I tried Calc > menu Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Accessibility > "Use automatic font color for screen display" but it seems that just changed the yellow fonts to black. The border around the Active cell remained blue.
Please comment on comment 4 (col/row highlighting) and comment 8 (change the system default).
Re comment 4: I found version 24.2 beta, I was looking int he Development area, not at the bottom of the main download page. I suppose that might work, unless the colorblind person can't see blue, which is the problem. I don't want to ask the transcriber in question to test it out until that feature comes in the "slightly older version which has been tested longer," which is now 7.5.9. As for Comment 8 which goes back to Comment 5 re: the system accent color. How do I find/change/test the system accent color?
I realize that ours is a very unique use of LibreCalc, and we are probably the only group that has needs as specific as these. We have been using Calc for this purpose since 2017, so we have found some ways of coping. We are transcribing data from logbooks that span the years from 1861 to 1955. Over the years, the colour of the pages have changed and some have faded very badly. The inks have also changed, some are much lighter than others. We have also seen blue and brown pencil marks as well as various shades of black and blue ink. This means that we have to enhance the background images to make them readable, and the enhancements often need to change when the logbook for a particular ship and year changes. There have been many changes of those 90 years, as well as the logbooks for the Coast Guard, Revenue Service and Navy also differ at times. I mention this to show that one size doesn't fit all. SO, you can see why the colours in Calc become so important to us. Our standard colours are red for the cell borders which align with the weather grids on the logbooks. We outline the Event areas on the logbooks in blue. These are the areas on the logbook where supplemental information is added. The fonts are bold red. That said, our transcribers change these colours to suit their needs. Depending on the logbook and the enhancements needed, a yellow font works better. We need to be able to proofread the entered data and the written data underneath it.Sadly, yellow doesn't show up against the Automatic Document Background which is white. This means we can't see the characters as we're typing unless we look up at the formula bar or wait until the entry is finished. Setting the Document Background to match the colour of the logbook makes the other sheets in the spreadsheet hard to read. And, blue doesn't work for one or two of our transcribers who are colorblind. They can change the outline around the Event areas, but not the colour of the border around the active cell. Considering that we have two people who are colour blind, if it is too difficult to have the colour of the border around the active cell configurable, we understand. Similarly, if it is too difficult to configure the background colour of the cell to be different than the Document Background colour, we understand that also. We are extremely impressed with Calc, and we couldn't use any other tool for this kind of work. The evolution since we started with Version 3 is remarkable. Our work with Calc has been noted in a couple of news stories, a book about the history of notebooks, a poster at a conference on data transcription,and two academics are writing a paper about it.
Thanks for your comment and feedback, this is a very interesting use of Calc! (In reply to Michael from comment #13) > As for Comment 8 which goes back to Comment 5 re: the system accent color. > How do I find/change/test the system accent color? You should be able to change it in Windows Settings > Personnalisation > Colours > Accent colours. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-colors-in-windows-d26ef4d6-819a-581c-1581-493cfcc005fe
@Michael, in addition to some OS's setting, is there any possible LO setting that would work for these users in: LO > Calc > menu Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Application Colors > * In the upper area of the dialogue, there are at least 2 boxes related to Color Scheme. * In the main area of the dialogue (User interface elements), there is a list for _Spreadsheet_ Although there is no "Current/Active cell border" (nor Current/Active cell background) element, perhaps combining some of these settings with the OS's settings / Scheme / Theme would provide a usable helpful result(?). Hopefully the new "Row and Column highlighting" feature will get its own item in this "User elements" list, considering that there are not one but several different color-blind groups. (In fact, this case shows yet another reason to have the possibility of changing settings for the Input box in the formula bar too (for instance, font type, font size, font color, background color), instead of the current one-fits-all.) As for the amount of users affected by the problem, IMHO there aren't _that_ many users that would report accessibility issues. Two users might represent the needs of a lot of (color-blind) users.
RE Comment 16: We tried all sorts of different combinations of settings in Tools/Options. What we need is a editing cell background that can be configurable but separate from the Document Background, and an Active Cell border colour that can be configurable. Right now it is to be Blue and unchangeable.
RE Comment 15: Ah, a Windows setting. I just tried it, but it didn't help. The border around the Active Cell remained blue.
[Automated Action] NeedInfo-To-Unconfirmed
(In reply to ady from comment #16) > As for the amount of users affected by the problem, IMHO there aren't _that_ > many users that would report accessibility issues. Two users might represent > the needs of a lot of (color-blind) users. Users with disabilities are supposed to use system-wide configuration (high contrast, special color theme, etc.). It needs good arguments to allow tweaking of system settings (and I'm not per se against such option for the col/row highlighting and cell focus color taking the system's accent color as the default).
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #20) > (In reply to ady from comment #16) > > As for the amount of users affected by the problem, IMHO there aren't _that_ > > many users that would report accessibility issues. Two users might represent > > the needs of a lot of (color-blind) users. > Users with disabilities are supposed to use system-wide configuration (high > contrast, special color theme, etc.). It needs good arguments to allow > tweaking of system settings (and I'm not per se against such option for the > col/row highlighting and cell focus color taking the system's accent color > as the default). As a user with my own accessibility problems, I have read such comments from LO devs in the past. Since I am already setting some OS's options for my own visual shortcomings, I can confidently say that relying on wide OS settings is not nearly adequate. Examples: areas/boxes that are not prepared for bigger fonts (so I am unable to read the complete text), or UI elements that look even smaller than normal because I have added a screen size factor to the whole OS. There are such problems in the OS itself already, so it is no surprise it happens on individual applications/software too. (OT: the formula bar input box should allow flexibility; having to use a magnifier for it is not necessarily efficient.) Now, MS Windows already has Accessibility settings such as "color filter" (including for deuteranopia, protanopia and tritanopia, among other customization options) and "high contrast" possibilities. Whether these could actually be of any help for this case and usage of Calc, only the relevant users could actually test and provide feedback.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #20) > Users with disabilities are supposed to use system-wide configuration (high > contrast, special color theme, etc.). It needs good arguments to allow > tweaking of system settings (and I'm not per se against such option for the > col/row highlighting and cell focus color taking the system's accent color > as the default). That generally sounds reasonable to me. When I change the accent color in KDE Plasma on Debian testing, the border for the active cell in Calc changes accordingly (tested using the qt6 VCL plugin on Linux), but changing the accent color on Windows has no effect, the border remains blue. So it would indeed be interesting whether using the system accent color would be sufficient or there would still a need to manually set another color. (Against which I'd personally have no objections if that's needed.) Related commit also mentioning that the accent color isn't effectively taken into account yet on Windows, with a link that might be useful when considering to implement it: commit 258686a58f909ab04c7281c05f15882eb400748e Author: Heiko Tietze Date: Wed May 17 16:48:30 2023 +0200 Resolves tdf#145080 - Use accent color for focused cell Accent color added but effectively working only on macOS See inline comments for gtk, qt, and win (In reply to ady from comment #21) > As a user with my own accessibility problems, I have read such comments from > LO devs in the past. Since I am already setting some OS's options for my own > visual shortcomings, I can confidently say that relying on wide OS settings > is not nearly adequate. Examples: areas/boxes that are not prepared for > bigger fonts (so I am unable to read the complete text), or UI elements that > look even smaller than normal because I have added a screen size factor to > the whole OS. There are such problems in the OS itself already, so it is no > surprise it happens on individual applications/software too. These sound like issues that should be investigated/fixed, so are likely worth reporting as separate bugs.
(In reply to Michael Weghorn from comment #22) > ... changing the accent color on Windows has no effect, > the border remains blue. Checked the patch again and it was mainly intended for macOS. Other VCLs still use the highlight color, so nothing has changed for the color. https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/151887 But you convinced me to allow configuration of the default. Or do you want, Sahil?
From what I understand, the user should be able to change the color configuration settings for a) accent color, which is used by both the active cell frame (the blue box), and the highlight (both the selection and the column/row highlighting) b) background color of the cell in edit mode (where we are typing something [sah|<- cursor ])
Yes to both. You can change the background color of the cell when in Edit mode by changing the Document Background color, but that causes other problems. You need to be able to change both those colors independently.
(In reply to Sahil Gautam from comment #24) > a) accent color, which is used by both the active cell frame (the blue box), > and the highlight (both the selection and the column/row highlighting) And the column/row header; ie. all places where GetAccentColor() is used should become something like svtools::ACCENTCOLOR. > b) background color of the cell in edit mode (where we are typing something > [sah|<- cursor ]) Why should this be related to the cell focus / row/col / header color? In any case, the edit mode is not a pure sc function and would affect the application globally.
Sahil committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/4377341dd287b863573bb40ed77e2e2caa92b358 tdf#158891 Make cell cursor more accessible for color blind It will be available in 24.8.0. The patch should be included in the daily builds available at https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More information about daily builds can be found at: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
The cell focus color can now be changed via tools > options > application colors. It's initialized with the accent color on macOS and highlight otherwise. Thanks for the patch, Sahil!
Wonderful, thank you! That will really help two of our color-blind volunteers and, I am sure, many other people who use LibreCalc.