There's something interesting with the light mode / default theme I got after downloading and opening on Apple silicon:
Sidebar contrast is too low, yet, spot on for the wrong contrast ratio target (3.0, for fill, versus 4.5 for text/bg).
I'll file an issue on GitHub eventually, feel free to pass along email in my profile if y'all see this and have someone who is already nerding out on this stuff.
Context on why, and before I get more fuzzy/opinionated, why I'm comfortable speaking to this is some quasi-authoritative tone: I built a new color system that ended up being launched as Material You at Google, at its heart is getting contrast while having expressive colors instead of just flat black/white, so I really appreciate the effort here.
Fuzzy/opinionated territory:
Problem with the low contrast here isn't just that it doesn't literally hit a 4.5 ratio. IMHO this isn't strictly verboten, if I thought that it would mean the engineer part of my brain was too in control. There's an argument to be made its good the sidebar isn't distracted. Problem is disabled states traditionally lower the foreground brightness, so it crosses over into "disabled element" territory when you visually parse it.
We'd appreciate the issue and discussion! We've been aware of contrast issues for some time, and I personally have been thinking about switching our color representation from HSL to OKLCH to give us more traction on these problems. But I've been working on Linux and am not a designer, so I haven't had the chance :D
Sidebar contrast is too low, yet, spot on for the wrong contrast ratio target (3.0, for fill, versus 4.5 for text/bg).
I'll file an issue on GitHub eventually, feel free to pass along email in my profile if y'all see this and have someone who is already nerding out on this stuff.
Context on why, and before I get more fuzzy/opinionated, why I'm comfortable speaking to this is some quasi-authoritative tone: I built a new color system that ended up being launched as Material You at Google, at its heart is getting contrast while having expressive colors instead of just flat black/white, so I really appreciate the effort here.
Fuzzy/opinionated territory:
Problem with the low contrast here isn't just that it doesn't literally hit a 4.5 ratio. IMHO this isn't strictly verboten, if I thought that it would mean the engineer part of my brain was too in control. There's an argument to be made its good the sidebar isn't distracted. Problem is disabled states traditionally lower the foreground brightness, so it crosses over into "disabled element" territory when you visually parse it.