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Author Topic: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod  (Read 3154 times)

glynor

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ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« on: April 24, 2018, 12:04:22 am »

I'm not a big fan of the new ModernCards Grey default skin because it is too bright and not contrasty enough. However, I do like, quite well, the ModernCards Dark skin. It only has one major flaw that was keeping me from using it.

The highlighting wasn't good. It is very difficult to distinguish which items were currently selected (as opposed to the mouseover highlight, etc). So, up until tonight, I'd been sticking with Noire, but I'm not pleased with that anymore either as it looks fairly old.

So, I got irritated and fixed it tonight. Here's the result, if anyone wants it:
[URL Removed]
Note: See note below in this thread about why these were pulled down.

Examples:


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StFeder

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2018, 04:41:16 am »

Oh, thanks for that one!!

I'm using ModernCards Dark skin for quite a while and the only thing I really disliked was exactly that little thing! Because of its clean, polished look I loved the skin enough to use it anyway, but not without finding myself from time to time hovering around with my mouse to find out if I have selected all files I wanted. So I can't wait to test your mod. Unfortunately it'll take some time till I get back at my MC powered PC  :-[
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2018, 05:35:23 am »

I like it. IMO, this could be pushed to the main skin itself as an update. Is it just main.xml edits?
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Hendrik

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2018, 06:39:19 am »

I like that as well. And I largely agree with glynor about the lack of contrast in the Grey skin, so maybe I should get used to the dark skin instead. :)
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glynor

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2018, 10:58:49 am »

I like it. IMO, this could be pushed to the main skin itself as an update. Is it just main.xml edits?

No, it isn't just main.xml alterations. I thought so at first, and it was driving me crazy, but the tree and list panel highlights are actually bitmapped (that's how Noire has a 3D, reflective effect on the highlights, which is part of what makes it look old).

The modifications are to:
main.xml - a few small tweaks, other than the name of the skin itself so as to not overwrite the original).
List_Selection.png - the original in the skin is just fully transparent
Tree_Selection.png - identical to List_Selection.png

It would be easy enough to tweak the highlights in the others, if anyone cares. I don't like either of the others much, though, so... Meh. Something in-between the current Dark and Grey skins would be, I think, the best all-around default. Dark is nice, but is actually a bit too dark on screen when you're trying to use it in a brightly lit room. But the current Grey is garish, particularly at night.

I don't think I'm into it enough to do that much tweaking, though. Plus I feel bad about all the work of the original author, unless they specifically gave it an open license (which I didn't see).
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glynor

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2018, 11:08:49 am »

PS. The MC icon itself also looks fairly out-of-place with the new flat-skin. You guys should really consider tweaking it to remove all the glinty, curved surfaces.

If you don't want to wait, here's a tweaked version of the icon I made a few years ago:


It is still glinty, but it is black and grey instead of blue and grey. You might like it better.
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glynor

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2018, 02:45:36 pm »

In using my mod to Modern Cards Dark today, I decided that it really was a bit too difficult to use in brightly lit conditions. While it was fine at night, there isn't quite enough contrast on the text for it to really work during the day, at least at my house.

So, I tweaked it a bit further. The changes are mild. I bumped up the contrast on most of the text, and tweaked gridlines and other things a bit. This is the one I'll be using, for now at least. If you want it:

[URL Removed]
Samples:


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glynor

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Re: ModernCards Dark - Highlight Mod
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2018, 10:18:15 pm »

Changes from this thread, and more, are now incorporated into the main ModernCards Dark and ModernCards Grey skins included with MC, starting with 24.0.25.

If you happen to hate the new skin versions, sorry, but it seemed most everyone else agreed. However, here are links to the original versions from before these changes, and I'll keep them up:
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