Improvements to high contrast mode support

[Dão Gottwald]

Scanning for hardcoded colors is likely unfeasible. Realistically we can't
replace all of them, and if used carefully they shouldn't be a problem.

mozscreenshots potentially supports testing in high contrast mode, but
alas, that's currently not enabled:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129456

2016-10-20 8:11 GMT+02:00 Tim Guan-tin Chien <timdream at mozilla.com>:

> Great write-up and nice work!
> I wonder what more we could do than "...keep this in mind when writing and
> reviewing patches"? Can we scan for hardcoded colors in tests? Do a
> screenshot comparison?
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 4:05 AM, Mike de Boer <mdeboer at mozilla.com> wrote:
>
>> \o/ Nice work, Dão! I really like the before/ after screenshots, they
>> really show the improvements made for the share of users that are,
>> unfortunately, visually impaired.
>>
>> I’ll be keeping this in mind and will probably reach out to you soon for
>> your advise in making sure the findbar highlighter supports high contrast
>> modes properly too ;-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Mike.
>>
>> On 12 Oct 2016, at 14:02, Dão Gottwald <dgottwald at mozilla.com> wrote:
>>
>> Over the last quarter, I've been focused on making Firefox properly
>> support high contrast mode again. The tracking bug for this is <
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1016556>.
>>
>> In case you didn't know, high contrast mode is a collection of Windows
>> themes tailored for users with not so good eyesight:
>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13862/windows-use-h
>> igh-contrast-mode
>>
>> There are four high contrast themes available, three of which have black
>> as their base color and one black-on-white variant:
>> http://thewindowsclub.thewindowsclubco.netdna-cdn.com/wp-con
>> tent/uploads/2015/01/high-contrast-themes-windows.jpg
>>
>> High contrast mode considered an important accessibility feature.
>> Formally we have always supported this, but in reality our support has been
>> far from perfect and in many cases gotten worse over the years.
>>
>> Here are a few screenshots to illustrate what kinds of bugs we've fixed:
>>
>> Menu bar, search bar and about:home (before): http://imgur.com/vMXgZMm
>> Menu bar, search bar and about:home (after): http://imgur.com/a4Volo5
>> Menu panel and customize mode (before): http://imgur.com/iBXWbeA
>> Menu panel and customize mode (after): http://imgur.com/n881M4v
>>
>> As you can see, issues range from text being completely illegible and
>> icons disappearing, over icons and text lacking contrast, to some parts of
>> the UI not adjusting at all to high contrast themes.
>>
>> Support still isn't perfect but a lot better than it used to be. Going
>> forward we as a team will need to remind ourselves that high contrast mode
>> is a thing and that we're committed to supporting it. Please keep this in
>> mind when writing and reviewing patches. Please test your features in high
>> contrast mode.
>>
>> You might want to take a look at the fixed bugs to get a sense of what's
>> needed to support high contrast mode. It often comes down to picking
>> platform colors instead of hardcoding color values, or carefully picking
>> color values that don't assume that everyone is using the same default OS
>> theme. If you're unsure what's needed to make your feature properly support
>> high contrast mode, feel free to ask me for feedback.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Dao
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>>
>>
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>
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