Gcylc - dependency graph display panel - poor constrast between text and background

Cylc Cylc Support
1

Hello,

A very good way to get an overall view of the dependency graph of a suite is to use gcylc’s functionality to display dependency graph. This is done using the menu, Suite -> Graph -> Dependencies.

On my Linux box running Ubuntu in the graph display panel texts have very poor constrast against background and so labels are unreadable. However when I move my cursor to within the box of a task or family the background colour and the colour used for the text change, and so labels are clearly legible.

Can someone suggest how I can improve the constrast between texts and background in boxes in the depenency graph display panel without having to move my cursor around?

Thank you.

Regards,

Jin

2

Hi Jin,

I think you should be able to fully customize the graph using the settings under [visualization] - https://cylc.github.io/doc/built-sphinx-single/index.html#suite-visualization

Though I will admit I never changed the defaults, but am aware of it since we have an issue for the Cylc 8 web GUI to support something similar.

Hope that helps
Bruno

3

Hi Jin,

Note you can also get the same static graph visualization via the separate cylc graph command.

As per Bruno’s reply, even in the worst case scenario you can style the graph nodes, edges, and text, for better visibility, via the suite.rc visualization section.

That said, the default colors are taken from your desktop theme and therefore should work well with both light- and dark-themed desktops, but it seems almost impossible to get that right for all systems. Perhaps your desktop or window manager has some quirk that doesn’t play well with cylc graph. (For info, here’s the repository Issue where we last tweaked those settings: https://github.com/cylc/cylc-flow/pull/3047)

Regards,
Hilary

p.s. note you can style by task family (including root) so you don’t have to do it separately for all tasks

4

Hi Bruno and Hilary,

Thank you for your suggestions. Just on [visualization] section: can I put it in my Cylc user configuration file so that the dependency graphs of all my suites have the same look?

Cheers,

Jin

5

Sorry, no - it’s suite-specific.

6

Thanks. I’ll see what I can do. Much appreciated for your help.

Jin

7

Out of curiosity (I use Ubuntu on my home machine) what theme do you have your desktop set to?

8

Hi Tim,

Pardon my ignorance. How do I check what theme I’m using?

Jin

9

If you don’t know I imagine that you are using the default theme, but:

  • On vanilla Ubuntu (Gnome) settings pressing the control key and searching for appearance.
  • If you have tweaks (control key, search for tweaks) there is a themes section.
10

Hi Tim,

It looks like I’m using the “System” theme.

I tried various themes and the one that allows sufficient contrast so that I can read the labels within boxes on dependency graph display panel is “High Contrast Inverse”. Bu this theme is pretty aweful to look at. I might have to customise my theme or install a new one that works.

Thank you very much for your help in narrow the problem down.

Cheers,

Jin

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