gasull
January 9, 2025, 1:30am
1
I thought someone could be interested in how I choose the color for a new qube. It follows some of the defaults of a fresh Qubes OS install.
black: offline vault
gray: almost offline, connected only by qvm-connect
purple: online, 100% open-source software, no cloud services
blue: online, 100% open-source software, trusted cloud services
yellow: online, contains trusted closed-source software
orange: online, contains untrusted closed-source software or I use it for untrusted cloud services
green: firewall
red: untrusted, like sys-net and sys-usb
What trusted/untrusted means: do you trust the cloud service, website, or closed-source software not to spy on your activities and sell your data?
Examples:
multimedia appVM: I use it to listen to Spotify, which spies on me, so its color is orange.
email appVM: I trust my email provider, so the color of this VM is blue.
surfer appVM: I don’t log in into any any web services in this qube, and all data is deleted on browser close, so the color is purple
sys-vpn: I trust my VPN provider, and I use open-source to connect to it, so the color is blue.
debian-12-xfce-nonfree templateVM: contains the closed-source Spotify client, which I distrust, so the color is orange.
cloud appVM: where I log into several cloud services like ChatGPT or Google which sell my data; orange color
social appVM: for social media; orange color
banking appVM: forced KYC that continuously gets hacked and leaked; orange color
3 Likes
It’s a nice idea, but it’s very individual thing.
1 Like
solene
January 11, 2025, 9:15am
4
I think there is a way to disable it, but I wasn’t able to find it back on the forum.
This is a security feature¹ with no simple way to disable it out of the box.
Seems there are no issue in the issue trackers about someone asking for a way to remove colors
¹: the forced color can be used to distinguish windows from one qube to another, but also from qubes windows to dom0 windows. You are not the first person asking how to disable it though, it can be annoying to some people.
1 Like
It is only possible to do it programmatically. The icon effect is via icon-receiver (Python) and the Window borders are via gui-daemon (C Language).
Not with the same title. It is this one:
opened 04:18AM - 30 May 21 UTC
T: enhancement
C: desktop-linux
C: gui-virtualization
ux
C: gui-domain
P: default
C: app menu
_This is a child issue within the epic #6665_
---
**The problem you're addre… ssing (if any)**
Colorized app icons to communicate a qube's color in a user's App Menu, is a longstanding convention in Qubes OS. However, doing as much obfuscates the app's icon. Because the app icon provides visual information users may desire access to in the task of either selecting an app in the App Menu, or a window the Task Bar, this presents a non-trivial usability problem.
The primary "problem" the colorized app icons sought to solve for, is reinforcing with users which colored qube they are about to open an app into, in the App Menu. A secondary problem the colorized app icons solve for, is showing which qube a window belongs to in the Task Bar. A [sibling issue](#6654) I opened to follow-up this up with, proposes updates to the Task Bar buttons, to adjust for this issue's suggestions going in.
Two different solutions to the first problem, [Bessie](https://www.qubes-os.org/attachment/survey/tour-bessie.webm) and [Jackie](https://www.qubes-os.org/attachment/survey/tour-jackie.webm), were developed for the [App Menu Redesign](#5677) project. Solution opportunities have also been explored for the second problem, but those should be discussed in their own issue. With a new App Menu launching with (hopefully!) `4.2` the time is right to make this forced convention optional, with a better solution to the original problem also being deployed.
**Describe the solution you'd like**
It had been my hope to eliminate colorized application icons altogether, in our updated App Menu. However, enough users in the [App Menu Redesign Survey](#6573) felt strongly against that. As such, a compromise to both meet the needs of longtime Qubes OS users desiring colorized app icons, as well as newer users that find colorized app icons to be problematic, is to make the colorization of app icons to be optional.
1. A global "Colorize app icons in menus" control in the Qubes Global Settings panel.
2. If users check this box to turn-on this feature, then the below setting would become enabled in each qube's individual Settings pane. I would suggest placing this control on the Applications tab, and not the first tab, so that as the user chooses different opacity values the icons colorize to that opacity in real-time... thus ensuring the legibility/coloration balance they desire.
**Where is the value to a user, and who might that user be?**
For people who depend upon "visual" information more than upon "written" information, it is frustrating to have the visual information of an icon obfuscated when looking for an app to open in the App Menu, or a window item in the Task Bar.
The design problem that the colorized icons sought to solve for, will be solved for differently when the new App Menu is deployed in `4.2`. Creating yet another problem by forcing the colorized-icons solution upon users, is therefore problematic.
As an example: when I go to open Signal, I look for the cyan ovular icon; when I go to open Firefox, I look for the fire-orange and electric-blue swirly-circle icon; GIMP, is black and gray and an irregular shape. It is a cognitive strain for me to have to read every app name, always—to find an item to select. My own habit, is to first find the icon, and then to read the name to double-check I have the correct app. In Qubes 4.0, I cannot do that.
**Related, [non-duplicate](https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/reporting-bugs/#new-issues-should-not-be-duplicates-of-existing-issues) issues**
Lots about how coloration is done of windows and icons, in Qubes OS, has been discussed in #2523. However, coloring over existing colored information, is not the only solution to the core problem colors seek to solve for, in the context of a user seeking to open an application from the appmenu.
3 Likes
