Contacts App generated colors are too bright

[elioqoshi]

Some of the randomly generated colors for contacts in the contacts app are too bright and the text can hardly be read (it's white).

It would be great if we could use one of the 500 colors of Google Material Design (20 different colors) so it's safe to use with white text:
https://material.google.com/style/color.html#color-color-palette

Discussed this with @jancborchardt and he agrees that this should be refreshed

[jancborchardt]

cc @nextcloud/designers and @skjnldsv @MorrisJobke @georgehrke @icewind1991 who worked on the color generation (right? :D)

[skjnldsv]

Well, I created this color generator! :p
But the contact app isn't in http://github.com/owncloud/contacts?

[skjnldsv]

@elioqoshi Are you suggesting we only use 20 colors?

[elioqoshi]

@skjnldsv Yep, that's what I'm suggesting (@jancborchardt agreed as well I think)

[skjnldsv]

Well, the generator is integrated on core now. So changing the behavior change it for every app that use it (mail, calendar, contacts...) So we need to be sure. 😕
For now your idea is compatible with the calendar app, since @jancborchardt and me chosed to limit the number of colors available. BUT the app just re-enabled the random color button, so this will break the wanted behavior (random amongst 20 isn't really useful 😉 )

That being said, I would agree with you that some colours are hard to see. But I strongly disagree about going back to a range of colours. We could adjust the panel of hsl colours we agreed with before (on numerous conversation from owncloud core). I think this will be better.

Refs: owncloud/core#23638
owncloud/contacts#261
owncloud/contacts#306
owncloud/contacts#432

[skjnldsv]

Ps: 😜

Cool, definitely more readable and less intense! 👍

@skjnldsv can you then make sure that anywhere we use generated colors (Mail app account colors, Contacts, profile picture placeholders, etc) this new generator is used?

— @jancborchardt, owncloud/core#23638 (comment)

[skjnldsv]

Okay, I did some researchs, and we possibly could improve the current generator by using this: http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/iwanthue/index.php

[jancborchardt]

@skjnldsv the problem is that with the Hue-approach we definitely get some greens and yellows which will be difficult with black text. If we just go with 20 set colors that will not be a problem, they will be fine everywhere. And using material colors ensures that they are tried and true. (Also, not sure we really need the random button in the Calendar app ;)

[skjnldsv]

I know, I know! I still find it unsuitable to limit an algorithm to only 20 colours when this algorithm had the possibility to be used on much more things than just contacts headers... 😕

You forgot the main focus here. If we dropped the colors list before, was that anyone could generate a color from a hash that would have had the same property than any other colours we could encounter on owncloud. It was a great purpose. I hate being limited to something like customisation. And that's why I created the random colour (because you didn't wanted to let the user choose is own colour IIRC). That's why I created this algo. And that's also why you asked me to implement it on all other apps, contacts, gallery, calendar, mail...

So as always, this is an opensource app, so we can do whatever we want. But this does feel like a great step backward. 😞
(But we're only talking on the colors generator point of view. Obviously, this isn't really as dramatic as I make it sound, it's only an algorithm! 😄)

[elioqoshi]

It's actually a step forward UX wise. You look at it from the technical side which I understand, but to the end user it doesn't have much value. Limiting it to 20 colors definitely ensures it works well and is accessible. In this case keeping it simple is helpful.