Graphic guidelines for the next release

[Mark Smith]

Robin Trew wrote:

>In case too many potential users of Ver 3 find it visually a little 
>fatiguing, and decide to stick with Ver 2, a useful source of graphic 
>guidelines for any redrafts is, of course:
>
>Edward R. Tufte, "Envisioning Information", Graphics Press.

Damned fine book, was reading it earlier myself.

>One useful rule of thumb which it expands on (in relation to visual 
>contrasts) is that using the "minimum effective difference" will 
>usually optimize the signal / noise ratio.
>
>Redundant contrasts, or contrasts which are stronger than required, are 
>pretty much like distracting noise, or excessive volume - they aborb 
>precious mental resources, and make it harder to concentrate.
>
>The problem is often, of course, that marketing departments want to 
>"catch attention", and cry their wares as loudly as possible.

I'm not getting this complaining about OO3 in this respect. I find that visually it gets a lot more right than OO2 did. I'm guessing that you are finding the bluish highlighting of nodes (about which I can see your point, but its not even close to fatiguing for me) and/or the gradient highlighting of sections. In case you don't know, you can control the latter via System Prefs -> Apprearance: highlight colour.