Colors reversed from typically-expected meanings in Variable Explorer "background color" mode, leading to cognitive dissonance

Problem Description

At least where I’m from (the US), warm colors (reds, etc) are almost universally used to mean high values (e.g. temperature) when used in contrast with cool colors (blues) to mean low values, and this is in fact where the term “heatmap” comes from, the “warmer” areas being those with more of a certain quantity (which is essentially what the colors are supposed to show in Spyder). However, for some reason, the colors are “backward” from this standard convention, leading to constant cognitive dissonance when evaluating the data using the otherwise useful pseudo-heatmaps, and there is no means to reverse it.

Unless this is common in many parts of the world, which I not been able to find much evidence of in my limited searches, then the default should be reversed for sanity’s sake. Opinions/feedback are, of course, welcome before we proceed.

Package Versions

• Spyder version: 3.2.8
• Python version: 3.6.4
• Qt version: 5.6.2
• PyQt5 version: 5.6
• Operating system: Windows 8.1

Dependencies

pyflakes >=0.6.0 :  1.6.0 (OK)
pycodestyle >=2.3:  2.3.1 (OK)
pygments >=2.0   :  2.2.0 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1  :  0.22.0 (OK)
numpy >=1.7      :  1.14.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6   :  1.7.2 (OK)
rope >=0.9.4     :  0.10.7 (OK)
jedi >=0.9.0     :  0.11.1 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0  :  5.3.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3    :  1.1.1 (OK)
cython >=0.21    :  0.27.3 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.2.0:  4.3.1 (OK)
IPython >=4.0    :  6.2.1 (OK)
pylint >=0.25    :  1.8.2 (OK)

[jnsebgosselin]

its just out of scope of this one, which is to fix an issue with the existing color table rather than adding new ones.

I agree. I took the liberty to brainstorm a little bit around the idea since this is an issue and not PR. I’ll open a new Issue to propose the idea of adding more colormap choices to the variable explorer.

[…] although even just the first three would take up somewhat more space than the existing Background Color checkbox, limiting the minimum window size for dataframes.

If we add this in a combobox, there is no reason for this to take up more space than the actual checkbox. But like I said, let’s discussed this a a new issue.

[CAM-Gerlach]

I agree. I took the liberty to brainstorm a little bit around the idea since this is an issue and not PR.

No worries! Good ideas.

If we add this in a combobox, there is no reason for this to take up more space than the actual checkbox.

You’re totally right, silly me! I was still thinking of radio buttons for some reason. I guess the downside of that would be that its much less quick to toggle on/off—maybe a combobox with the colormaps and a simple checkbox to its left to enable/disable it? But like you said, we can discuss in another issue.