Show received bitcoins in green

shaavan commented at 6:11 pm on September 27, 2021: contributor

We, humans, have an age-old notion of associating the color green with acceptance and growth. It is pretty common to see the received money displayed in green while the deducted money is red. This property was not utilized till now in GUI, though, which showed deducted coins in red while received in black. This PR changes the color of received coins to green to make them look more natural and increase user-friendliness.

Master	PR

I made sure to use a darker shade of green to boost contrast with the background, increasing the text visibility. Here is the contrast report for the added green. Screenshot from 2021-09-27 23-37-04

qt: Show received bitcoins in green

The color green is symbolized with acceptance and growth. This symbolism
is aptly true while you receive bitcoin. This commit changes the color
of accepted bitcoin from black to shade of green.

93448e6177

jarolrod added the label Design on Sep 27, 2021

jarolrod added the label UI on Sep 27, 2021

shaavan renamed this:
~~qt: Show received bitcoins in green~~
Show received bitcoins in green
on Sep 27, 2021

jarolrod commented at 7:01 pm on September 27, 2021: member

I’m not opposed to this change, and it makes sense to me so Concept ACK

The contrast between background and color isn’t great when the background is dark. The background can be dark when on macOS dark mode or when using a custom theme on linux:

“Show received bitcoins in green”

We should then also update the color in the Transactions tab

katesalazar commented at 7:58 pm on September 27, 2021: contributor

I’m halfway sure that, at this maturity, imposing green is not a good idea. But I think experimenting with green it’s a good idea, specially allowing users to opt out by using a preference.

Circumstantially, accounting often uses red and black (or white), while red and green is often seen in a shorter term trading displays.

jonatack commented at 5:22 am on September 28, 2021: contributor

The contrast between background and color isn’t great when the background is dark. The background can be dark when on macOS dark mode or when using a custom theme on linux

This. Useability with a dark theme was my first concern as well.

hebasto commented at 9:06 am on September 29, 2021: member

NACK on hardcoded colors. They could easy break the GUI on Linux-based systems with customized desktop themes.

shaavan commented at 12:48 pm on September 29, 2021: contributor

@hebasto

NACK on hardcoded colors. They could easy break the GUI on Linux-based systems with customized desktop themes.

This makes sense. But isn’t the same also valid for the ‘red’ color in which the negative amount is displayed?

hebasto commented at 12:49 pm on September 29, 2021: member

But isn’t the same also valid for the ‘red’ color in which the negative amount is displayed?

Yes, it is. Unfortunately.

katesalazar commented at 1:52 pm on September 29, 2021: contributor

NACK on hardcoded colors. They could easy break the GUI on Linux-based systems with customized desktop themes.

But isn’t the same also valid for the ‘red’ color in which the negative amount is displayed?

Yes, it is. Unfortunately.

Could we somehow have red know what’s the exact grey it has behind, and do some HSV magic so that it fixes itself, independently of the varying color scheme, using only a handful of formulas?

bitcoin-core deleted a comment on Sep 30, 2021

meshcollider commented at 3:49 am on September 30, 2021: contributor

Green and red are also the most common colours affected by colour-blindness. I’m also not greatly in favour of more hard-coded colours.

laanwj commented at 6:02 am on September 30, 2021: member

FWIW, at one of my previous jobs using both red and green in a status overview was referred to as “Christmas light effect” and considered something unnecessary and bad. You generally need only one highlighting/signalling color, there can be exceptions, but opposite colors for opposite statuses, instead of giving a clearer distinction, tends to become too busy.

Green and red are also the most common colours affected by colour-blindness. I’m also not greatly in favour of more hard-coded colours.

Yes, it’s a bad combo for most color-blind people.

shaavan commented at 12:03 pm on September 30, 2021: contributor

@katesalazar

Could we somehow have red know what’s the exact grey it has behind, and do some HSV magic so that it fixes itself, independently of the varying color scheme, using only a handful of formulas?

This sounds like a fun idea to experiment with! @meshcollider

Green and red are also the most common colours affected by colour-blindness. I’m also not greatly in favour of more hard-coded colours.

I was not aware of the Green-Red Colorblindness problem. And hardcoded color seems like a problem, though, as @hebasto pointed earlier. @laanwj

using both red and green in a status overview was referred to as “Christmas light effect” and considered something unnecessary and bad. You generally need only one highlighting/signalling color, there can be exceptions, but opposite colors for opposite statuses, instead of giving a clearer distinction,

To be honest, “Christmas light effect” sounds like a cool effect, though :D. But in all seriousness, I can understand your point.

Earlier I was thinking of experimenting with changing shades of green, based on the background color similar to @katesalazar’s idea. But now, understanding the color-blindness issue and too much highlighting problem, I don’t think it would be worth it.

So on common consensus, should I close this PR?

P.S.: I was just wondering, if the red-green highlighting pair had so many problems associated with them; why is it so frequently used in digital product designing, especially transactional related?

promag commented at 1:05 pm on September 30, 2021: contributor

+1 to ditch colors.

katesalazar commented at 1:54 pm on September 30, 2021: contributor

+1 to ditch colors.

Not so fast:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/2d8e0c0c3c0d3c4cee7bb52d1edf501f40c53463/src/qt/rpcconsole.cpp#L891-L893

This is written in red, if your remove red, at least consider adding bold and underline.

promag commented at 2:19 pm on September 30, 2021: contributor

@katesalazar indeed, I didn’t mean to do it right now, just that I approve that decision.

shaavan commented at 6:42 pm on September 30, 2021: contributor

I shall be closing this PR for now.

shaavan closed this on Sep 30, 2021

bitcoin-core locked this on Sep 30, 2022

Show received bitcoins in green #437