Improve status for colorblind users

[laktak]

Could we improve the status for selected, 'copied' and 'moved' files in the status line (bottom right)?

At the moment the only way to identify what is what is the color. Because they are only shown when >0 the position does not help either.

I'd suggest to add a prefix/suffix with either a symbol or the letters s, c and m.

[gokcehan]

@laktak You mean only change in the bottom status line? But then it might still be an issue in the columns. Wouldn't it be better for a colorblind users to use easily distinguishable terminal colors instead? Are you actually colorblind or just speculating?

[laktak]

You mean because some items in the columns have a different color? I noticed that but it didn't bother me as I can see the information in the status (file mode/links).

I have remapped the colors so that they are readable in most common combinations. But this is a different problem - while I can see that you are using a different color when more than one is visible, I can't really remember which is used for what.

[gokcehan]

@laktak I meant the colors on the left side of file names when you select, cut or copy:

here
 |
 v
[ ] foo       100K
[ ] bar       200K
[ ] baz       300K
...

These are the same colors shown in the right side of bottom status bar (i.e. ruler):

magenta => select
red     => cut
yellow  => copy

You only mentioned statusline so that's why I wanted to ask. We could add some letters but then we could only add a single letter and the meaning would still not be too explicit. For example, I don't know what you meant with s, c, and m. I asked whether or not you are actually colorblind because it felt like this was not actually a technical issue but rather a cosmetic preference.

[laktak]

I can't say if it's due to my color blindness or something else but I fail to associate the colors with what they should represent.

I used s for select, m for move and c for copy - that is what it was called in the code. I see that you use toggle, copy and cut in the documentation. Since unicode is probably not supported everywhere how about a config option similar to promptfmt?

IMO the colors on the left are not that important. Usually you will do an immediate action on them anyways (cut/copy/delete/etc).

[gokcehan]

@laktak Sorry, s-m-c actually seems fine. I don't know how I didn't think of those names in the first place.

Having fmt options to configure these things seem inevitable in the end as it has also been requested before. I agree colors are arbitrary and opiniated. However, I don't see how your immediate action argument does only apply to the statusline but not to the columns. I think it would be better to be consistent in both places. This could be implemented by limiting fmt options to a single character (or icon) or alternatively without any length limit but only showing the first letter in the columns (e.g. a value select would be shown as select n in the statusline and s in the columns).

If options are added, we could also discuss tweaking the defaults to add some text in addition to the colors.

[laktak]

Well, as I tried to explain, I mark something and then do something. When I delete the markers are gone and when I move/copy I don't see the markers either because I'm in a different directory. So I never see those 'later' when I could wonder what they mean.

But the ones in the statusline do matter because I might want to double check that I have no open selections (when marking files for a new operation) or to check if I did move or copy when pasting.

If you want to have them in both places I wouldn't mind though. If we make it configurable I would probably go with unicode symbols instead of text.
e.g. ☑ 2 ⧉ 3 ✄ 2

[joelim-work]

This is now possible with the rulerfmt option added in #1386 (I forgot to link this issue before).

For example to use s for select, m for move and c for copy:

set rulerfmt 's: %s|  c: %c|  m: %m'