Hi Bert, and all -

Yes, the rationale behind different colors had to do with different functions in a busy screen, especially useful for partially obscured or collapsed windows.  I found this important as a developer, but I never dreamed of inflicting the panoply on end-users.

With regard to the choice of colors, I did not attach any great significance to it except the obvious red for errors and, by association, the debugger.  In choosing green for the browser I think I was thinking of the pale green used for some graph paper;  I didn't want anything too contrasty (after having tried that for a while).  And the workspace color was an allusion to parchment for useful notes;  I recall the first post-its being yellow too.

The shades are not the best (someone once mentioned Necco Wafers).  I know they replulse some people, but they have always been changeable.  All that nice ability to change "themes" was put in by other people.   I can only take credit for making things bad enough that the community came forth with the necessary improvements ;-).

	- Dan
--------------------------------------
>Hi Dan,
>
>were the colors just random, or do you remember picking e.g. the browser's green consciously?
>
>- Bert -
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Helene Bilbo <thereluctantprogrammer at fastmail.fm>
>> Date: 20. Februar 2011 23:53:56 GMT-08:00
> > To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> Subject: [squeak-dev] Re: What was the idea behind the colorful windows?
>> Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>>
>>>
>>>> i heard in some esug video that there had beed an idea and a system behind
>>>> the colorful windows. Is there some place where i can find information
>>>> about
>>>> it?
>>>
>>> Not sure if it was an idea behind it but one obvious advantage of having
>>> different kinds of tools use different colors is that it makes it much
>>> easier finding them when you have a whole stack of overlapping windows
>>> to dig around in - (which btw is a very common Smalltalk "disease" since
>>> we have too many shortcuts that spawn new windows). For example,
>>> something pink sticking out there? Aha, a debugger.
>>>
>> yes, of course. i meant to ask, if certain colors do have specific meanings?
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/What-was-the-idea-behind-the-colorful-windows-tp3315326p3316923.html
>> Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>