Allow users to change the color of their names

[ghost]

Description

I think the user should be able to change the color of their own names (which would be enforced serverside, unless another user's client option overrides it), and I also think that users should be able to force a client side color for all names they see. There should also be an option to choose a random color for each user on the client side. Why should this be done?

• being able to change a color will let users express themselves more
• the random color option will help people identify others faster
• being able to change other colors clientside will make it easier to read for people with cheap/bad monitors, with poor vision and/or in bright environments.
• it's also nice for people who simply don't like the color they see.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you consider my suggestion!

Logs being sent: no, it's not needed

Version information

• Riot-web: 1.5.6
• OS: Debian 10
• (applies to https://riot.im/app/ and Riot-android Ver. 0.9.9 as well)

[t3chguy]

being able to change other colors clientside will make it easier to read for people with cheap/bad monitors, with poor vision and/or in bright environments.

Most colours people will choose will not play well with themes.

This also begins to feature creep, what if someone wants an animated rainbow name?

[ghost]

being able to change other colors clientside will make it easier to read for people with cheap/bad monitors, with poor vision and/or in bright environments.

Most colours people will choose will not play well with themes.

You quoted the clientside part of my suggestion. If the colours don't work with their themes, then they can change it themselves.

This also begins to feature creep, what if someone wants an animated rainbow name?

we politely tell them no.

[t3chguy]

Given you want this enforced server side this is in the wrong repo, it should be in matrix-doc and should probably be structured as an MSC, riot is one client of many for the Matrix protocol.

[ghost]

Given you want this enforced server side this is in the wrong repo, it should be in matrix-doc and should probably be structured as an MSC, riot is one client of many for the Matrix protocol.

Good point. Though, can you tell me what an MSC is? I'm not too familiar with this stuff.

[t3chguy]

https://matrix.org/docs/spec/proposals

[ghost]

thanks, I'll check that out later today. Sent from ProtonMail mobile

…

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On Jan 10, 2020, 10:02, Michael Telatynski wrote: https://matrix.org/docs/spec/proposals — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, [view it on GitHub](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/11816?email_source=notifications&email_token=ANQJ5RO7B3AZX6IOLMZ6JJ3Q5CLZHA5CNFSM4KFJJQUKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEIUL5OA#issuecomment-573095608), or [unsubscribe](https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ANQJ5ROWSKK6W3W4LDUB4ITQ5CLZHANCNFSM4KFJJQUA).

[Kommynct]

You could limit the colors to a selection, and have that selection change based on whether or not the person is using the dark theme. That'd keep it usable, make it a useful nice bit of personalization, and would allow us to accent things based on their choice of color.

[krisrobinson]

You could limit the colors to a selection, and have that selection change based on whether or not the person is using the dark theme. That'd keep it usable, make it a useful nice bit of personalization, and would allow us to accent things based on their choice of color.

Agree. Limit the pallet but give people the options to change. Half our chat right now is orange and the other is purple, if anything, it's just confusing to what it means, are they mods? why are they purple? Oh its random? We can't change it?

[ElykDeer]

I'm just gonna throw my thoughts in here; it's hard to distinguish users in a chat with similar length names of the same color at a glance...handles tend to be pretty static for people across platforms, colors serve as a nice way to distinguish. Would be nice to have.

In the meantime, is there an admin way to do it on the backend? Wouldn't mind changing it manually for a couple of my users atm.

[t3chguy]

No, the colour is never stored, it is a function of the hash of the username.

[ufgkirk]

+1 on this feature request... I've had several users on my new Matrix server ask me for this feature.

[immanuelfodor]

It would be a relief if I could change the color just for myself, or for anyone in my client with or without backup. I wouldn't care what default color they could see then via id hashing, I just don't like being Mr. Pink :(

[LoneWolfHT]

I hate purple. I want a greenish name :P

[Panquesito7]

Sounds like a neat idea 👍 I also wanna change my name color; thought this was possible, as others had other colors. 😄

[vranki]

I'd vote against this. Users have different themes and the palette used by Element should be compatible with the used theme. Allowing users to set custom colors would allow unusable colors to be chosen and restricting this would make implementation quite complex.

[makoConstruct]

Using the nearest color in the theme to the user's chosen color (user.display_color = theme.colors.argmin((c)=> (user.chosen_color.as_vec3() - c.as_vec3()).magnitude())) would not actually be complex.

[Kommynct]

Allowing you to choose from the presets does not stop you from creating a theme with a different color set.

Your green doesn't HAVE to be the same as mine, users don't need to be given full hex control over their colors.

[immanuelfodor]

That's why I suggested everybody change colors just on the client side for a current session. This way I could get my favorite color just as I want it, and it wouldn't mess with anyone's theme, it's changing my color only for me. This way I could also change any user's color on the client side, they wouldn't notice it. If this setting would be backed up, it could be transportable between sessions, otherwise, I would be hapy to set it up everytime when I log in for myself.

[Kommynct]

porque no las dos?

We could have both, it could be set initially by the user, and you could change it permanently for individual users if you wanted. Like nicknames could have color functionality added onto it. That'd be easy to add onto the feature, you could even add defaults incase you don't like people having them. Or you want it to be based on their role in the group.

Would that not be fair?

[mitchnull]

I've submitted a PR for element-android for part of this issue (overriding the colors by the user on their local clients): element-hq/element-android#2614
If this is accepted, I'll try to add the same to element-web and element-desktop, too.

[masscream]

Besides all of the reasons of a kind "I don't like the color for my eyes or/and with the particular theme", I've been asked by one of the users of my matrix-server instance, if it is possible to change the color because she types a lot with someone else whose color looks (almost) same by look and therefore it makes the conversations kind of "messy". It's an accident because both users have totally different username. I went through the settings of Element for the variety of platforms and for desktops I can clearly see a lot of possibilities for customizing the font, size, etc, so color shouldn't be missing imho. Thanks for the consideration and your work.

[t3chguy]

Themes can specify the username colors, e.g https://github.com/aaronraimist/element-themes

[masscream]

I've realized, that I've probably put my answer onto the wrong place. I've meant to address it more to Element as a global client, my friends I've mentioned use the android version the most. Never mind, the request has been sent that way. Sorry.

[valdeniomarinho]

Please add this feature ASAP!

[kittykat]

We could do with a minor change to this PR for this issue to be closed. If anyone is interested in adding a commit to make the final changes, that would be really helpful!

[amytimed]

This should really be added, otherwise you're stuck with a color, again and again, forever.

[turt2live]

As an update: we are very much looking to do this, particularly considering you can on mobile but not web, however the team is stretched a bit too thin to take it on ourselves at the moment. We would really appreciate a PR, likely building off the existing work, which adds the functionality so we can get cross-platform compatibility here.

If folks would like to take this on, please do - there's no need to ask for permission ;)

[Yersi88]

I would be very excited to see this feature implemented, I'm particularly looking forward to more advanced color schemes perhaps gradient of two colours or different effects. I don't think there's a reason to limit ourselves to one colour when it comes to names.

[turt2live]

There's a point where the usability of the app becomes severely affected - I'd encourage PRs which focus on solid colours for now.

[ghost]

Matrix spec issue: matrix-org/matrix-spec#835

[OdinVex]

Not sure what this has to do with clients specifying their own colors for others. I'd set color profiles and export/import to my own devices, much like IRC clients have been doing for 32 years. Took them only two years to come up with communicable colors in an RFC spec but clients had client-side color configuration from near day one.

[OdinVex]

(I'm under the opinion I should be able to override someone else's color locally because I don't like certain colors, and/or for accessibility reasons.) None of this requires RFCs or Matrix-protocol specs so it could be implemented now and can later be meshed to any spec that may or may not ever come.

[InklingGirl]

Any update on this?

[Baertram]

Yes, please at least consider client color changes possible. I got so many users with similar colors where I'd love to recolor myself and some of them to cleary see at a glance which user is writing.
Currently I can only "kind of see" that via the chosen user image, and even those often look similar and are hard to distinguish.
Many thanks