[platform-ui-dev] Full-color Eclipse?

[Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Eclipse currently renders its icons in black and white by default. When the 
user hovers over an icon, it is etched and colored. This behavior is less 
than desirable from both an asthetic and utilitarian perspective.

Asthetically, this lack of color makes Eclipse a significantly more drab, 
lifeless application. A recent "fix" in the debugger serves to illustrate 
this. Pre-M5 builds of the debugger had a problem whereby our icons in the 
debug view (resume, suspend, etc.) were rendered in full color all the time. 
Take a look at the current debug view and notice how much uglier it is today.

Colored icons are also very useful. Human eyes are very good at picking out 
colors. We can pick out colors much better than we can pick out text. An 
example of this is the java creation buttons (new class, new interface, 
etc.). I can move my mouse to the "green" button in a flash. But to go to the 
"C" button, I have to either memorize its location on the screen or read each 
button.

Frankly, I feel like I'm insulting everyone by explaining why colored icons 
are preferrable to black and white. It seems like such an obvious choice. Can 
anyone explain why our icons *aren't* colored today?

Thanks,
- Jared