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element-hq / element-x-android

Android Matrix messenger application using the Matrix Rust Sdk and Jetpack Compose
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Material You #1265

Open bmarty opened 1 year ago

bmarty commented 1 year ago

Material You is a way for the system to override some colors for the application, including the colors used for the launcher icon, on the home screen (if a monochrome icon is provided).

It harmonizes the color experience for the user, by using the same color (from user choice) to all the application that supports it.

Material You is enabled by default, and apparently there is no way to disable it. The user can just enable or disable the "Themed icon", which will impact how the launcher icons render when added as shortcut on the homescreen.

image

You can see in the screenshot below a bunch of launcher icons. We can clearly see which apps are providing a monochrome launcher icon, because they can be colored using the global theme colors:

image

We can notice that Element Android already supports themed icon (added in https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/pull/5936).

Element X Android has to explicitly enable the support of Material You in it's theme to enable it inside the app.

On the cons side, it reduce the color impact of the brand.

We need a product decision to confirm if we want or not support Material You. Some work has been started by a community member at #1213.

I would say at least we should provide a monochrome icon for Element X.

Duvio commented 1 year ago

I would support the decision for Element X to use the new Material You theme. Material You provides the user with a more minimalistic and unified look throughout the entire operating system, allowing them to leave behind the usual unorderliness of all the overblown designs. Having Element X not participate in this, almost universally adapted, standard would leave a bad image.

seankhl commented 1 year ago

I think defaulting to "element-branded" colors is fine if that's important for the product, but I would greatly appreciate and support an option for Material You colors. At the end of the day I want element to feel native on my phone and I think for a good number of Android users it's a make or break feature. Maybe that's a way to achieve the best of both worlds?