Please Consider Adding Pane Colors To Connection Windows

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Webyogis,

For a number of years hardly a day goes by during which I do not have SQLyog running as a “must have” tool in my development toolkit. Admittedly it is not the only MySQL tool in my kit. I also rely on the EMS SQL Manager. Each does some important things very well and there is not a lot of overlap between them. That said, SQLyog simply does some things better, faster, and in a lot of ways is the only good choice for doing tasks that involve cloning and updating databases, etc.

With all this routine near daily use, there is one thing that gives me a “gotcha” to myself more often than I like to think. That is, when working very actively during the development cycle between a local DB server and the remote/public server, I sometimes get “out of rhythm” and think I am looking at the local version when I am looking at, or sometimes frustratingly, working on the remote and vice versa. In the older days of small(er) monitors and slow(ish) performance, this didn't happen so often.

But with today's computers, fast Internet connections, and LOTS of screen real estate, there is a great tendency to keep fonts relatively small so as to see and do as much as possible when looking at and editing grids of data, etc. In turn, however, this means that the visual clues as to which database you are on effectively gets small and less easily recognized. (These visual cues are largely limited to the “fine print” of the window titles and the topmost “root” of the Object Browser pane.)

FEATURE REQUEST: It would be GREAT if you would add a checkbox in the Preferences control panel to “Add a light color tint to each open connection window.” This would not need to be overly customizable. I don't really care to set the colors that these tints are, a simple small number of light color tints that each new connection would pick up the next available from this array of choices would be great. While this tint could be applied to all panes in each connection, that would not be necessary either. If just the Object Browser pane had a colorful tint, that would be a help. (For the colorblind among us, this could be a small number of gray-scales that accomplish the same thing.)

I can honestly say that if this simple feature was added to an upcoming release, I would be able to more quickly and confidently use your already fantastic product.

Regardless of whether this feature gets folded into an upcoming release, thank you for all your good work to date. I look forward to your continued innovation and great products.

–Sohodojo Jim–

http://www.Sohodojo.com

http://www.SoyaWax.com

http://www.FunFunFundraising.com

etc.

[navyashree.r]

Hi Jim,

Thank you for your interest in our great product SQLyog and for your valuable comments.

Your feature request is most valid one and already in our issue tracker which is requested by many users,

http://code.google.com/p/sqlyog/issues/detail?id=894

We have most important feature 'Schema Optimizer' and other trivial and non-trivial fixes in our upcoming 8.2 releases awaiting shortly in near future say by next week or so (BETA is available publicly). So, we are running short of resources. We will discuss regarding this feature and prioritize accordingly.

Regards,

Navya

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Thanks, Navya. I know this is not a “big feature” request. And I appreciate the always growing and improving set of core/important features of this excellent product. I am not surprised that others are asking for the same or similar UI enhancement. I know that “operator error” due to mistaken assumptions about which DB/host I am on is the single biggest source of errors that I make (sometimes too frequently and mostly when I am tired/rushed). And having to interrupt my train of thought/activity to double/triple check this reduces my productivity. I will look forward to a future release that includes this small-but-useful feature.

And, finally, thanks for and congratulations on moving to the “Ultimate” version and product-line simplification/clarification. While I understand that some folks don't need the Ultimate (paid-for) features or cannot afford to purchase (yet), I strongly encourage folks to support your good work by buying SQLyog Ultimate. It's a great product from a great company! 🙂

Thank you,

–Sohodojo_Jim–

[Khushboo]

Hi Jim,

“Colored interface based on connection”, we have prioritize this feature in 8.3 Beta and you can expect this to be available by next week. Now for every connection you can choose different colors for object browser and the color for that connection will be saved in SQLyog.ini file.

Thanks & Regards,

Khushboo

[navyashree.r]

Hey Jim,

We are glad you liked our SQLyog product and you simply made our day… 🙂

As my colleague said we are releasing this useful feature in couple of days.

We will update here when we make the release. Thanks for your kind support.

Regards,

Navya

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Khushboo and Navya,

This is GREAT news! Thank you so much and I will be looking forward to the update. Again, as I've said repeatedly, I know this is not a “Gee whiz, mega-techno” feature… just a “lowly” UI enhancement… but in practical, everyday terms, it is going to be great.

My prediction is that folks who haven't even thought about this much will thank you for this new feature when they see that they'll be able to work quicker and easier because of it. 🙂

Thank you again and enjoy keeping up the good work!

–Sohodojo_Jim–

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Khushboo and Navya,

I am sure you good folks have been busy with your new Gmail plugin product release. That is great. Building a portfolio of quality products is so important to having a sustainable company future.

That said, I do keep a daily vigil on my “Check For Updates…” dialog in anticipation of the pane-coloring release of SQLyog. I know it is such a little and non-tech-impressive feature. But having a visual cue as to which connection I am manipulating will make me more confident (AKA less paranoid about making a too-quick* mistake) and my daily work easier.

Thank you again and enjoy keeping up the good work!

–Sohodojo_Jim–

[navyashree.r]

Hi,

Thank you for your wonderful support.

This feature is already developed and its given for testing. We may release this “Colored interface based on connection” along with other major features within few days say by next week (Friday).

Regards,

Navya

[Khushboo]

Hi,

We have released SQLyog 8.3 Beta1 with this feature, which is available publicly!

Added an option to define a ‘color code’ for a connection. The color will be used as background color in the Object Browser.

Please refer to:

http://www.webyog.com/blog/2010/02/18/sqlyog-mysql-gui-8-3-beta-1-has-been-released/

Thank you.

Regards,

Khushboo

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Khushboo and the WebYogis!

Hooray! Three cheers! Congrats and thank you!!! 🙄

I know that this is not a Big Bang Wow Techno-challenging new feature… but it is one that will impact my daily use. Having that color code visual cue of which connection I am using is going to make life much easier.

I also like how you added the Advanced tab to the connection set-up dialog which will be useful for future new optional features.

The only sustantive feedback I have is that (at least on my monitor from the angle that I view), the default background colors shown in the drop-down listbox are so light/faint, that I immediately went to the “Other colors…” drop-down choice to select/set my preferences. As we all know by looking at the clothes folks wear and the cars/cycles they drive, color preference is a very personal choice. I would recommend that the color choices in the default drop down alternate between a light/faint choice and a complementary darker/brighter variation so folks can see the range of potential choices. (I actually think that this approach is as much about accommodating the differences in display/monitor rendering as it is about personal preference.)

This minor feedback aside, again, thank you and congratulations/hooray for the upcoming 8.3 release!

–Sohodojo Jim–

A Dedicated SQLyog Daily User

Cedar Rapids, Iowa USA

[Khushboo]

HI,

Thank You for your feedback and valuable comments.

The colors which we selected for the dropdown are the colors which were looking good with SQLyog interface and ofcource they were mostly light colors.

But we will discuss about your request of “Adding two or three dark colors to the dropdown”.

Regards,

Khushboo

[Sohodojo_Jim]

Khushboo and the Webyogis,

You _know_ I love the Object Browser and Connection select-box color coding cues for making daily use easier*.

And, as always, your incremental adding of new features on point and major releases is much appreciated and always anticipated. That said, I find one of the new 9.x 'tweaks' to the handling of the UI color-coding sub-optimal (that is a nice way to say I _really_ do not like it) is this from the release announcement:

Quote:

* A foreground color for text display contrasting a defined background color is now automatically provided by SQLyog in Object Browser and Connection tab.

All you have to do is look at what color combinations people wear and interior/exterior combos that folks select for their cars, etc. to know that automatically selecting color combinations is 'thin ice' when it comes to making folks happy.

When I installed 9.x and fired it up this morning, wham!? Same much-appreciated background colors as usual, but What The Heck… was I going blind or something. The auto-selected foreground colors for the text in my colored panes was, well, painful. My eyes literally cannot focus and see what has always been perfectly clear and easy to read.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE in a very near future point update add a Preferences dialog option to toggle on/off the auto-selected foreground text color. When toggled off, I believe the default should be to revert to the original behavior which is black text.

If this new feature is permanent, I will honestly have to consider reverting to the 8.82 version as I need black text for readability in color-coded panes more than (at this point as far as I see) I need any of the new 9.x features.

As always, thank you for your continued and excellent work to make SQLyog better and better.

–Sohodojo Jim–

* As is evident in my developer-oriented customer testimonial from the recent 'Customers Speak' contest.

P.S. Similar to this issue is the basic post color scheme here in the updated forums. Basic posts here are styled with a #676767 color attribute in the body tag that is 'dark grey' or something. On whatever monitor you folks are using to make this choice, it may look great and/or stylish. But what I see is a washed-out and harder to read page. Again, this is not just personal preference. A long history of typographic research and user testing confirms that most folks like strong contrast in print material. (That is, the actual text to be read. Color and imagery is great in supplement to text. I am referring here to significant chunks of text to be read as text, not as headline/ornamental features.) In this regard, too, I urge you to revert either to black text as the default/universal body style, or provide a page-view widget or user-account preference to let folks adjust the display text color to be best for his or herself. Thanks, Jim

[ashwin]

Hi,

We will consider your request and discuss with team and update here.

Thanks for your suggestion.

[Sohodojo_Jim]

'ashwin' wrote:

We will consider your request and discuss with team and update here.

Thanks, Ashwin.

After of day of squinting and blinking, I will truly look forward to the option to keep black text in background-colored panes. ITMT, I think I'm heading back to 8.82…

–Sohodojo Jim–

[ashwin]

Hi,

We have added this in our issue tracker: http://code.google.com/p/sqlyog/issues/detail?id=1639

We will be implementing this once our developers complete the features they are implementing currently. Thank you for your suggestion.

[Sohodojo_Jim]

'ashwin' wrote:

Hi,

We have added this in our issue tracker: http://code.google.com/p/sqlyog/issues/detail?id=1639

We will be implementing this once our developers complete the features they are implementing currently. Thank you for your suggestion.

Hi Ashwin,

Thanks for the update… this is very good news. Rather than back-slide to version 8.x, I have kept using (and squinting, too) with 9.x. This settings feature will be a very welcome enhancement. I believe that color perception is a _very_ personal and variable area. Not to mention hardware display variation, etc. So there is not likely a 'one-size-fits-all' solution to this kind of feature.

Looking forward, as usual, to upcoming point releases.

–Sohodojo Jim–

[Jan.S]

This feature (to select text color/foreground color) will be available in 9.1 to be released shortly. 🙂

Regards,

Janani

[Sohodojo_Jim]

'Jan.S' wrote:

This feature (to select text color/foreground color) will be available in 9.1 to be released shortly. 🙂

Regards,

Janani

Hi Janani,

You folks continue to be super customer-aware! 🙂 Thanks for the update (and for adding this user config feature to the upcoming update). Most appreciated. (And my eyes will surely thank you, too, when 9.1 is released.)

–Sohodojo Jim–

[Jan.S]

Hi Jim,

We have released 9.1 with this option, and a few other features.

You can take a look at the SQLyog 9.1 Release Blog and download the latest version. 🙂

Thank you for your suggestions and feedback.

Regards,

Janani

[Sohodojo_Jim]

'Jan.S' wrote:

Hi Jim,

We have released 9.1 with this option, and a few other features.

You can take a look at the SQLyog 9.1 Release Blog and download the latest version. 🙂

Thank you for your suggestions and feedback.

Regards,

Janani

Hi Janani and the Webyogis,

I and my eyes thank you all so much. Grabbed the update and immediately set the Object Browser foreground to 'Default' (black text) and clarity re-entered the room so I can now 'focus' on the other great new features… especially interested in exploring the potential uses of the re-introduced and enhanced Data Search.

Thanks again… Back to work (and rebooting my Wish List priorities),

–Sohodojo Jim–

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