This is trivial, but it is catching me out more and more.
Ok, the buttons
They are depicted as active when UP, yet you click on them by pressing the mouse button and therefore (to me): they are DOWN. (You have just pressed the mouse button on it and by pressing it is DOWN, not UP.
Am I being too petty on that?
Maybe a slightly better contrast between the in/active buttons also?
You've addressed a fundamental ambiguity for which what seems "natural" likely depends on your native language as much as anything.
But I do agree better contrast between states would be welcome. The modern trend to low contrast pastel color schemes is aggravating to these old eyeballs!
I think you have put your finger (sorry) on something that has been vaguely confusing me for some time.
I agree that the button should show down and not up when it is active. The picture is emulating a real-world row of buttons, and it is conventional for such a row of buttons to sit in the up (or level with the surround) position when not active. Pressing one of the buttons pushes it in and activates it and any other buttons that are in, pop out. The shadow along the bottom of the active button should be along the top, not the bottom, as our brains expect the light to be coming from above.
Like the top of a biro you mean? Lots of panel buttons use the press-in press-out technique. The issue here is that the convention is that, when selected, a button is usually in the In position and disabled when in the Out position.
But as I am seeing it: the contrast is poor and the button looks raised when active.
It is just something I wanted to mention as it is tripping me a lot more nowadays.
I'm using the default colour scheme.
If it is too difficult, so be it.
Just now - as you can see - I have enough other problems at this point in time.
Those buttons started life as tabs. When you have a row of tabs, the active one is more prominent and the inactive ones are in the background. That is the effect we're going for here.
The thicker line under the active button is not implying depth or it being pressed or any other 3D effect. It is mere a highlight to reinforce which is the active one given the backgrounds are as highly contrasting as they might be.
That maybe the intention, but the effect is that of a raised button. If it were along the top it would look like a depressed button. (Marvin, I am sure, knew all about them).