Background colorization should use a different heuristic

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I actually thought that the launcher/dash using the wallpaper colour was a bug. It looks awful in my opinion, with all wallpapers I've tried, and can't be controlled.

IMHO, the launcher should not inherit ANY of the colour from the wallpaper because the end result is unpredictably dependent on the user's choice of wallpaper. And it's not configurable. But that's covered by bug 821810...

Put another way... the launcher's colour should not be affected by colours not present under the launcher. It looks wrong.

The launcher colour should only be affected by the local wallpaper colours near it. This would easily be achieved by ensuring the launcher's colour is a shade of grey.

Patch is attached here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/903645
But I'm not satisfied: I'd increase the opacity and reduce the darkness applied by 5%.

Andrea, you patch seems dangerously arbitrary:

- hsv_color.saturation = std::min(base_hsv.saturation, hsv_color.saturation);
+ hsv_color.saturation = std::min(base_hsv.saturation, hsv_color.saturation) * 1.36;

I suggest making this a compiz config option instead, and you can make 1.36 the default value. Anything to do with choosing colours or opacities should be configurable. People won't log bugs if they have the option of changing colours themselves.

@Daniel: indeed 36% more saturation is a value we decided with designers. It's the same if we make it configurable or so, all we need is to set it as default :-) (it seems to work well on different wallpapers too... was tested)

Comment #6 still applies. Just because something was agreed on with designers doesn't change this (or even make it a good design decision IMHO).

I know there will be many people including myself who will hate the fact that colours from the right hand side of their wallpaper are bleeding into the launcher on the left. It really should be configurable for the user. Even if the configuration is buried in ccsm and subject to change in later releases...

@Andrea Azzarone: Do not forget to set the target to the next milestone the bug so that we have an easy list of knowing what is closed. Thanks! :)

we might want to increase the opacity and reduce the darkness

I don't know if gord touched this, I doubt.

What about the device items, that pop up between workspace switcher and trash? They look out of place right now (see screenshot)

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 5.8.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (5.8.0-0ubuntu1) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - New "push mouse offscreen" feature really difficult to get (LP: #923749)
    - unity-2d-panel crashed with SIGSEGV in
      unity::indicator::DBusIndicators::Impl::RequestSyncAll() (LP: #864737)
    - Pressing "Alt+Enter" causes compiz to crash in CompOption::value() from
      unity::UnityScreen::showLauncherKeyTerminate (LP: #960957)
    - SEGSIGV after unplugging external monitor (LP: #962693)
    - Background colorization should use a different heuristic (LP: #865239)
    - compiz+unity3d generates > 50 wakeups a second on idle system
      (LP: #917210)
    - [FFe, UIFe] HUD - The HUD does not respect launcher autohide or icon
      size settings (LP: #921506)
    - clicking on folders in the file lens does not open nautilus
      (LP: #921665)
    - No text inside multirange filters (LP: #927710)
    - can't alt-tab restore minimized uis which have an instance on another
      workspace (LP: #933397)
    - Ubuntu Software Center Unity launcher integration is not working
      (LP: #932280)
    - The line separator between the launcher and the dash is cleared when
      selecting a category (LP: #941082)
    - unity-panel-service crashed with SIGSEGV in g_hash_table_foreach()
      (LP: #937119)
    - Alt-F10 locks up Unity (LP: #948522)
    - multimonitor, launcher: Provide an option to display either a single
      launcher or a launcher on each display in a multi-monitor environment
      (LP: #950136)
    - multimonitor: Please give me a way to turn off sticky monitor edges
      (LP: #946104)
    - Unity 5.6: key bindings (such as Super) don't work on empty workspace or
      on slow/loaded systems (LP: #953089)
    - Alt+arrows keyboard shortcuts don't invoke Back and Forward navigation
      (LP: #953783)
    - HUD is sending 2 menu signals instead of 1 (LP: #956878)
    - 6th item of HUD not fully visible (LP: #957229)
    - HUD: seems to trigger operations more than once (LP: #960503)
    - Launcher gets always desaturated when using HUD on secondary monitor
      (LP: #961169)
    - [5.8 pre staging] launcher is displayed on the left screen, not the
      primary one (LP: #961281)
    - launcher icons do not re-saturate after dash is closed (LP: #961844)
    - Launcher shows arrows for applications on all workspaces (LP: #961977)
    - Dash - Implement overlay scrollbars in Dash (LP: #608124)
    - [UIFe] Dash - No message displayed when no results are returned in the
      Dash (LP: #711199)
    - Dash - "See more..." line should be base-aligned with section header
      (LP: #748101)
    - Dash - Missing category separator line in dash (LP: #850984)
    - Dash and Launcher - As soon as a user starts dragging a file from the
      Dash, there is a 'flicker' before the Launcher icons that are valid drop
      receptacles re-saturate (LP: #863230)
    - Dash - When multiple results have equal string match relevancy ranking,
      those with equal ranking should be then sorted by frequency of use.
      (LP: #871900)
    - Keyboard shortcut - F10 shortcut is used to show m...