During panel configuration, allow for a specific color, instead of preset values

[Mark G.]

During panel configuration, instead of presets of DEFAULT, SUCCESS, WARNING and DANGER, simply allow the user to choose/enter a specific color, as shown below.

*** Updated *** Or is there a way to simply change the DEFAULT, SUCCESS, WARNING, etc. labels somewhere in the system to the actual colours?
I've looked at all the entries in the Label Manager, but I'm not finding those specific labels.

*** Resolution *** The colour names may be changed in LayoutManager.json. See image below.

[yuri]

This would be not theme-friendly. And one more personal thing why I don't like this, people will abuse it making their espo look really ugly. It's ok, because its thier CRM, do what you like. But once I looked at screenshots on some marketing article and espo looked so ugly because of colors picked for panels, not the way I supposed espo should look like, It really frustrated me.

[Mark G.]

Thanks for your feedback, Yuri. It was just a suggestion.

However, "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder and aside from aesthetics, practicality and usability are also relevant.

On my monitor, the preset colors for Danger, Success, etc. are very subtle and if you take that outside on a mobile device in sunlight, you would be hard-pressed to see. In some working environments (or for users with less than optimum eyesight), a high-contrast color-configuration would be very useful to have.

Also, with respect, you still see your baby, Espo, as only a CRM. But Baby Espo has grown up and is now a highly-capable, highly-customizable, web-enabled application, with usability in many other areas outside of the CRM arena.

[yuri]

I like the approach of having different color schemes, so that there will be themes with more contrast. But currently we can't implement because of limitations of the current CSS framework. Technically we can, but it will create a burden for us to support. Maybe in the future I will try to redesign the framework so that color schemes would be possible.

[Mark G.]

Then, could I suggest a (hopefully) simple workaround option to accommodate a block of custom CSS code, that overrides existing settings in whatever theme you are using?

It's not about changing a whole theme, but just elements of it ... e.g. a more compact page layout, higher-contrast, etc. This would simply be another line on the Administration page, which presents a blank screen in which to add custom code. This unsupported code would be the responsibility of the Admin user and would presumably also be upgrade-safe.

e.g.

body{
font-size:13px;
font-weight: 600;
line-height:1.20;
color:#000;
}


Customization

Entity Manager	Create and edit custom entities. Manage fields and relationships.
Layout Manager	Customize layouts (list, detail, edit, search, mass update).
Label Manager	Customize application labels.
Template Manager	Customize message templates.

Custom CSS............ Customize CSS code

[yuri]

Any change made in the Administration panel should be upgrade-safe, and work the same way after the upgrade. By allowing to specify custom CSS we break this concept, or create a burden to never change the html layout (that is impossible).

[Mark G.]

Thanks for your response.

My thoughts behind a custom CSS capability was not for making extensive changes to an Espo theme/layout, but just minor tweaks that would then be applied across-the-board to any theme selected by user. For example:

body{
font-size:13px;
font-weight: 600;
line-height:1.20;
color:#000;
}

would simply make the lines more compact and the characters darker (higher-contrast) in any theme selected.

The way I have handled this locally is to just replicate these lines of CSS code in every theme available on my system (including the Dubas Light and Dark themes), but it would be very nice to put that code in one place only ... in Espo's Customization section.

Unless the authors ever make extensive future changes to the existing Espo CSS/HTML structure, these minor CSS adjustments should be quite upgrade-safe and obviously, unsupported custom CSS changes would be an Admin's responsibility to re-adjust (if needed) in future releases of Espo.

[yuri]

You can utilize this method to add a custom CSS https://docs.espocrm.com/development/custom-css/

[Mark G.]

It worked ... thank you, Yuri!

So much easier to have just one file of custom CSS adjustments (that apply across all themes) to make Espo pages more compact and higher contrast for outdoor (i.e. bright-sunshine) tablet use.

[Mark G.]

And one more personal thing why I don't like this, people will abuse it making their espo look really ugly. It's ok, because its thier CRM, do what you like. But once I looked at screenshots on some marketing article and espo looked so ugly because of colors picked for panels, not the way I supposed espo should look like, It really frustrated me.

I just wanted to mention that different colors have different meanings, around the world. Therefore "ugly" is a subjective opinion and what is ugly in one place, is beautiful elsewhere.

I once worked for an international travel organization with offices in the US, UK, EU, Hong Kong and Latin America. The company's colors were a palette of blues, so any corporate marketing materials were created using those colors. However, our Hong Kong office would produce their own version of those materials for use in Asia ... replacing the blues with a bright, garish shade of RED! The reason: blue is a funeral/death color in parts of Asia ... so for a travel organization, that is a bad omen ... and the Chinese are superstitious! However, red is a "lucky" color in Asia, which is why most Chinese restaurants around the world use a lot of red and gold ... red signage, menus, napkins, etc. Red represents luck and gold represents wealth.

"Samsonite" once produced a suitcase that had a purple trim as part of the color scheme. Interestingly, the suitcase did not sell in Mexico. The reason: purple is a funeral color in Mexico.

I would bet there are Espo installations in some parts of the world that have some interesting colours in themes.

[item]

interesting to learn color say something different in the world and his importance.
Thanks for sharing your world knowledge.