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#1337 - Per-Profile Tab Colors.md

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Mike Griese @zadjii-msft
2020-07-31
2020-08-03

Per-Profile Tab Colors

Abstract

This spec describes a way to specify tab colors in a profile in a way that will be forward compatible with theming the Terminal. This spec will be largely dedicated to the design of a single setting, but within the context of theming.

Inspiration

Following the addition of the Tab Color Picker in #3789, we've had numerous requests for the ability to set the color of a tab directly within a profile. While largely we're tracking theming in #3327, including the specification of a tab color, the theming spec (#5772 )is very large and will take a while to revise and approve. This spec is intended to pull a single point out from that spec to make it more easily reviewable, and implement it in a way that will continue working when we add support for themes in the future.

Solution Design

To enable per-profile tab colors, we'll add a single setting: tabColor. For now[1], this setting will accept any #rrggbb color string.

Since each profile creates a Pane with a TermControl, we'll need to store this color not in the Tab, but somewhere below Pane, so that when you switch between Panes in a tab with different tabColors, the color will update automatically. When a new TermControl is created, we'll store this color in the TermControl's Terminal core. This is to support the future possibility of setting the tab color via VT sequences.

A Tab's color will be the result of layering a variety of sources, from the bottom up:

Color Set by
Runtime Color optional Color Picker / setTabColor action
Control Tab Color optional Profile's tabColor, or a color set by VT
Theme Tab Background optional tab.backgroundColor in the theme
Tab Default Color default TabView in XAML

Some examples:

  • Scenario 1: The user has set "tabColor": "#ff0000" in their profile. When they create tabs with that profile, instead of appearing in the default color for the TabView, they'll be #ff0000.
  • Scenario 2: The user has set "tabColor": "#ff0000" in their profile. When they try to set the color for that tab (with the color picker) to #0000ff, the tab's color is updated to reflect this new blue color. When they clear the runtime color (with the color picker), the tab will return to #ff0000.
  • Scenario 3: The user has two profiles with colors set, one to "tabColor": "#ff0000", and the other with "tabColor": "#00ff00". If they open these profiles in two panes side-by side, the tab's color will update to reflect the color from the currently-focused control.
  • Scenario 4: The user has two profiles with colors set, one to "tabColor": "#ff0000", and the other with "tabColor": "#00ff00". If they open these profiles in two panes side-by side, and try to set the color for that tab (with the color picker) to #0000ff, the tab's color is updated to reflect this new blue color. Regardless of which pane is focused, the tab will be blue.
  • Scenario 5: The user has set "tabColor": "#ff0000" in their profile ("Profile A"), and "tab.backgroundColor": "#00ff00"in their theme. When they create tabs with "Profile A", the tabs will appear red. Other tabs (for profiles without tabColor set) will appear green, using the color from the theme.

UI/UX Design

In general, this is going to look exactly like the colored tabs look now.

preview

Capabilities

Accessibility N/A
Security N/A
Reliability No expected change
Compatibility This entire spec outlines how this feature is designed with a emphasis on future compatibility. As such, there are no expected regressions in the future when we do add support for themes.
Performance, Power, and Efficiency No expected change

Potential Issues

None expected.

Footnotes

[1]: When full theming support is added, themes will provide support for setting colors as one of a variety of values:

  • An #rrggbb string
  • The system accent color
  • The current background color of the Terminal
  • A value from a given resource key from XAML

When support for these other types of "smart" colors is added, then the profile tabColor setting will also gracefully accept these values.

Future considerations

  • It's not out of the realm of possibility that someone might want to color each pane's color at runtime. In that case, the runtime color would be stored in the Pane, not the Tab.