poor contrast of text selection

[jdw13]

It has been difficult to see things of interest after going to Tahoe, the frustrating opposite of 'just works.'
I don't mind the eye-candy, but this makes doing my work more difficult.

I have most of 'Liquid Glass' off as much as possible and in dark mode but getting text selection to stand out is evading me.
Is there some way to adjust how selections are now hard to see?

Here is example of Mail and you can see email selection with Subject "Confirmed: Identity verification complete"

However, if I select another window in Safari, so the Mail application is no longer in focus (other app in foreground), the display is reasonable:

The problem is worse in something like Numbers, here the cell with "Repeat" is selected and if you look very carefully the font is slightly darker font and the box has light green or yellow box*.

Something like this should not regress with change of User Interface, especially on MacOS which is supposed to 'just work' and be easy to use. All I want is to clearly see what I have selected, especially if I am about to cut/paste or copy/paste.

Thanks in advance....


* Note I am red-green colorblind but have Display / Color filters OFF with Filter type with "Red/Green filter (Protanopia) selected", but I think this setting doesn't do much for me.

 

[01cowherd]

FYI, Numbers (and Pages/Keynote) aren't updated for Liquid Glass yet. So that will likely only get worse.

 

[FNH15]

Do you have "Differentiate without color" turned on? Might help.

 

[thebart]

in system settings > appearance, you can try changing theme color and text highlight color and see if that helps

 

[jdw13]

Thanks to both FNH15 and thebart. I have tried the "Differentiate without color" and it does not seem to do much with what I see with my settings but the "theme color" got the selection in Mail easily visible, but also changed folder icon color in the Doc because I had folder color on Automatic, but I can live with that.

Even though I am color blind, I can see that the colors shown in the Appearance panel do not agree well with the text.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It’s so disheartening to read these reports.

Apple is just trashing their reputation with this thoughtless forced visual refresh.

 

[jdw13]

Yes, very sad. From working with some people who do it professionally, I know the design of a good, effective GUI is much more difficult than it appears. The real pros will sometime test by sitting behind a one-way mirror and watch people try to use their software without any instructions or prepping. {What you as a developer think is intuitive and obvious is often neither intuitive nor obvious to others.}

However, it makes one wonder how much actual unbiased testing was done on these changes when the actual work you are trying to do becomes so hard to see when you update and do no tweaking to your settings. The default is unusable.... Disheartening indeed!

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yes, very sad. From working with some people who do it professionally, I know the design of a good, effective GUI is much more difficult than it appears. The real pros will sometime test by sitting behind a one-way mirror and watch people try to use their software without any instructions or prepping. {What you as a developer think is intuitive and obvious is often neither intuitive nor obvious to others.}

However, it makes one wonder how much actual unbiased testing was done on these changes when the actual work you are trying to do becomes so hard to see when you update and do no tweaking to your settings. The default is unusable.... Disheartening indeed!

My guess is "none" ... it was "we are way behind and need SOMETHING" .. Get this puppy shipped, ASAP.

 

[Sciuriware]

Yes, very sad. From working with some people who do it professionally, I know the design of a good, effective GUI is much more difficult than it appears. The real pros will sometime test by sitting behind a one-way mirror and watch people try to use their software without any instructions or prepping. {What you as a developer think is intuitive and obvious is often neither intuitive nor obvious to others.}

However, it makes one wonder how much actual unbiased testing was done on these changes when the actual work you are trying to do becomes so hard to see when you update and do no tweaking to your settings. The default is unusable.... Disheartening indeed!

You got it wrong: WE ARE THE TESTERS!
As usual.
;JOOP!

 

[maxoakland]

However, if I select another window in Safari, so the Mail application is no longer in focus (other app in foreground), the display is reasonable:

View attachment 2567054

This is insane design that goes against everything reasonable. More contrast when something is out of focus? I can't stress the absurdity of that concept

 

[jdw13]

I am using BenQ MA320U display connected via the USB-C connector directly from my 2020 M1 Mac mini, and have found a solution to my visibility problem. Now, I can even see the examples in my first message above. The solution:

turn OFF the System Settings/Display/High Dynamic Range

and the Mac changes the BenQ display mode from "HDR:On" to "Color Mode: M-book."

I can finally see what I am doing!
My particular monitor settings from the System Information are shown in attachment, if you are interested.

 

[FNH15]

I am using BenQ MA320U display connected via the USB-C connector directly from my 2020 M1 Mac mini, and have found a solution to my visibility problem. Now, I can even see the examples in my first message above. The solution:

turn OFF the System Settings/Display/High Dynamic Range

and the Mac changes the BenQ display mode from "HDR:On" to "Color Mode: M-book."

I can finally see what I am doing!
My particular monitor settings from the System Information are shown in attachment, if you are interested.

No wonder you were having issues. The UI isn't designed for HDR monitors - it crushes all of the colors.
Glad it's resolved.