Override Modern color scheme's highlight color to Blueberry 2

[fushar]

Related to: pfsHM7-1qe-p2#comment-1787

Proposed changes:

We would like to propose updating the Modern color scheme, so that the highlight color, which is present in the admin bar and sidebar, becomes blue (Blueberry 2) instead of green:

Before	After

The color is chosen to follow the navbar menu item's active state color in the WordPress.org website:

This PR is to have the change faster in dotcom. If we like it, we can propose the change back to dotorg.

Other information:

• Have you written new tests for your changes, if applicable?
• Have you checked the E2E test CI results, and verified that your changes do not break them?
• Have you tested your changes on WordPress.com, if applicable (if so, you'll see a generated comment below with a script to run)?

Jetpack product discussion

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

Testing instructions:

1. Patch this to your site.
2. Go to wp-admin/profile.php.
3. Select the Modern scheme and click Update.
4. Verify that the hover text color in the admin bar and sidebar is now blu-ish as per screenshot above.

[github-actions]

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[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WordPress.com Simple site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin, and enable the update-modern-scheme branch.

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[jasmussen]

Color can work, sure, I'd like to defer to another developer like Riad on whether this is the right approach.

My instinct is that this is a local hack, that can be okay to have temporarily assuming we contribute the change to WordPress core itself as well. So it might need a core trac patch as well.

[youknowriad]

Same thought as @jasmussen Can we make this a core patch?

I was also checking this with @richtabor and he mentioned the possibility of not using a third color (or just reusing the same blue color for second and third colors)

[lsl]

Is the !important necessary here?

[fushar]

I was afraid it loses to Core's, but it turns out it works out just fine, removed!

[lsl]

LGTM

[fushar]

I was also checking this with @richtabor and he mentioned the possibility of not using a third color (or just reusing the same blue color for second and third colors)

@youknowriad @richtabor I tried reusing the second color but it makes the text somehow unreadable on hover due to bad contrast against the black background, see:

I'm not a designer but my gut says to keep the third color, what do you think?

This PR	Reusing second color

[fushar]

this is a local hack, that can be okay to have temporarily assuming we contribute the change to WordPress core itself as well. So it might need a core trac patch as well.

Same thought as @jasmussen Can we make this a core patch?

Yup, I'll make an upstream Core patch after we agree on the colors.

In dotcom, we need to update the color scheme on Calypso as well anyway, so I think it's better to update dotcom first (we can control the deployment timing). Then after Core patch is merged and shipped, we revert the hack.

[jasmussen]

Then after Core patch is merged and shipped, we revert the hack.

Do you have a process for tracking this, so the drift doesn't build up over time?

[arthur791004]

In dotcom, we need to update the color scheme on Calypso as well anyway, so I think it's better to update dotcom first (we can control the deployment timing). Then after Core patch is merged and shipped, we revert the hack.

IMHO it would be better to update Core first to avoid inconsistency because it's not a bug and it might take time to discuss whether it makes sense to change the color of Modern in Core 🤔 People may love to use “Modern” because of the green color...

[nuriapenya]

@youknowriad @richtabor I tried reusing the second color but it makes the text somehow unreadable on hover due to bad contrast against the black background, see. I'm not a designer but my gut says to keep the third color, what do you think?

If we want to reuse the Blueberry, we could consider using it as a background color + white font, as we have it in an active state on the navigation items. It ensures consistency and accessibility, but it's quite heavy on sight as an interaction. So I am not sure 100%, but just as an alternative:

[fushar]

If we want to reuse the Blueberry, we could consider using it as a background color + white font, as we have it in an active state on the navigation items. It ensures consistency and accessibility, but it's quite heavy on sight as an interaction.

Thanks @nuriapenya for the alternative solution! I just checked all existing color schemes, and I found none of them have this pattern of using the same hover background color as the active menu background color. So, not sure if we want this 🤔

[fushar]

Hi folks, I think I just discovered a conclusive solution. So if you are logged in to WordPress.org, you will see the Blueberry 2 (#7b90ff) font color as the hover state, which is exactly what is being proposed in this PR:

Let's go with this. I guess as the next step I'll propose a patch in Core and stop overriding in dotcom as suggested here pfsHM7-1qe-p2#comment-1790.

[fushar]

Added a Core patch: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62219

@youknowriad / @jasmussen let me know if this patch is good; I've never landed a patch in Core! 😄

Do you have a process for tracking this, so the drift doesn't build up over time?

I'll keep this parent issue:

• Modernize Modern color scheme as the default scheme for all new sites wp-calypso#95334

open until that patch is accepted, and most likely will just close out this PR soon.

[youknowriad]

Patch is great, we might want to wait a few days to land it because I believe we're in beta period for 6.7 and we didn't branch yet (create a dedicated branch for 6.7) which means trunk is closed for enhancements at the moment.