Use one global color picker

[flachware]

trafficstars

Use on global color picker in the main toolbar (instead of color pickers in the sidebar and popups).

[dstillman]

This isn't what we decided on. We said there would still be a color picker for a clicked highlight in the popup, and in the sidebar the color option could be behind a menu so it doesn't have to appear by default with every entry.

You shouldn't need to go up to the menu bar to change the color of an existing highlight. Having a global picker would also create the weird situation where the global picker would need to change temporarily when you click on an existing highlight and then revert back to the default color when you click away, even though you might be clicking away directly to highlight something else, which would be in the default color.

[dstillman]

(Or depending on what the color indicator is for sidebar entries, clicking on that could allow changing. Depends if that's an element or a background color.)

[flachware]

Sorry, I must have missed that conclusion.

The color indicator should be an element, probably a small circle or something like that. I think we could use it to change the color in the sidebar.

[lightnin]

Thanks to all who contribute to this excellent software. I feel that the use of the color picker for each highlight should be redesigned, in spite of the challenges described above.

In breaking down the activity of highlighting to its constituent elements, it is as follows:

1. Place cursor at start of text to highlight and click. (2 actions)
2. Move cursor to end of highlight, release click. (2 actions) (pop-up menu with highlight color options appears)
3. Move cursor to desired highlight color in pop-up menu and click. (2 actions)

Alternative: Allow the user to select a highlight color and remember that "state" - assuming that all future highlights use the same color until the user selects a different one.

Arguments:

1. Many users primarily use only one highlight color, so asking them to choose colors each time is asking them to constantly make UI choices that are not useful and communicate no new information. For users who mostly use yellow highlighting, they are essentially being forced to say "Again, I choose yellow, again, I choose yellow, etc. etc."
2. By removing (3) in the above list of actions, you decrease the number of physical actions for each highlight from 6 to 4. If you highlight 100 sections of text per day, this change would decrease the number of actions from 600 to 400 - 2/3rds. This is a significant decrease in demands on tired hands and wrists.

Thanks for your consideration!

[mrtcode]

@lightnin You can pick color in the split button, in the toolbar. Isn't that enough?

Also please post in Zotero Forums the next time.