# Feature Request: Color-ratchet **URL:** \ **Category:** Bugabee\ **Created:** [January 30, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-color-ratchet/4851 "2019-01-30T21:23:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zedmango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@zedmango](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/zedmango)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-color-ratchet/4851/1 "2019-01-30T21:23:27Z")
@dreev’s objection to the safety buffer idea, which I agree with, was: > [@Feature request: store safety buffer](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-store-safety-buffer/227/14): > > I’m becoming more convinced that tricks akin to setting your clock 5 minutes fast are wrong for Beeminder. Beeminder should always be brutally honest with you. But several other users have noted it’s really the colors that matter: > [@Giving me a reward to motivate me to Retroratchet!](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/giving-me-a-reward-to-motivate-me-to-retroratchet/744/1): > > Beeminder is all about rewards and punishments. Rewards by seeing your lovely blue color or even better the green, which works really well for a lot of users (I saw topics here in this forum, for how is the red color and the orange color made a psychological attachment to our brains of fear and motivates us by merely seeing an orange task). **Color and safe days is all what motivates me and many other users I think.** > [@Colors More Motivating Than Money?](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/colors-more-motivating-than-money/559/1): > > Do any of you find yourselves having a much more visceral reaction to the prospect of waking up to a red day simply because it’s red than you do to the prospect of forfeiting $5 or $10 or even $30? … **The assaultive red and orange squares in the first one fill me with a sort of creeping existential panic** , while the peaceful blues and greens in the second one makes me feel like I’ve got everything pretty well under control. > [@Colors More Motivating Than Money?](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/colors-more-motivating-than-money/559/5): > > I’m such a sucker for this tactic that **seeing little red dots on my Quora and Facebook phone icons almost compels me** to go clear the new notifications. > [@Feature request: store safety buffer](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-store-safety-buffer/227/32): > > To me, storing safety buffer is _exactly_ trying to trick yourself, but you got the specifics all wrong ! It really goes “I’m not really in the orange, but please make me think I’m in the orange.” **(To me) the whole point is the colors. I know I’ll react to red 95% of the time, so please, even though it’s blue, make it look like red** (without the 5% chance that I’ll miss that I’d get by retroratcheting). Of course, this is only meant to be used _sometimes_ , when I’m most likely to react to red, but wouldn’t feel like making progress on a green thing. > [@Feature request: store safety buffer](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-store-safety-buffer/227/18): > > Possible (partial) solution - **for me, at least part of the extra motivator for eep days is the red colour on the graph.** _Maybe you could get some of this by letting the user set the amount of time remaining each colour represents on a per-goal basis?_ That’s also be good for goals where you explicitly want X days safety buffer because you know you might miss weekends etc. This is kinda like amesha’s script, but for me the colours would be really important. So I’m advocating for @Tarn’s suggestion here (but without the U in color please 🇺🇸 😉 ), because… > [@Feature request: store safety buffer](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-store-safety-buffer/227/10): > > **I think i’m just more excited for orange -\> blue -\> green than 4 days -\> 5 days -\> 6 days, for whatever reason.** _Why not both?_ Let’s have a color-ratchet setting that would make the motivating colors appear earlier. That way, if you’ve saved a few days of buffer and want to keep the buffer instead of retro-ratcheting, you could color-ratchet so that orange → blue → green would correspond to 4 days → 5 days → 6 days, but beeminder would still be displaying the correct number of days and would remain brutally honest. Also see: > [@Feature request: Configurable safe day coloring.](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-configurable-safe-day-coloring/1015/1): > > **It would be nice if you could chose on a per-goal and per-color basis how many days safety buffer was considered red/orange/blue/green.** ---
**Author:** ![dkvstrien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dkvstrien](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dkvstrien)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-color-ratchet/4851/2 "2019-02-02T00:10:54Z")
The other option would be to add a couple of more colors. that way red always means due today. But purple, say, could mean over a week. Pink could be over a month. ---
**Author:** ![zedmango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@zedmango](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/zedmango)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/feature-request-color-ratchet/4851/3 "2019-02-02T00:16:18Z")
Well the easiest way to implement would be to make use of the “lead days” setting. That way there would not need to be any new settings - instead, you just base the colors on the lead days for the goal. So for instance: > Default: Lead Days 4, Blue 2, Orange 1, Red 0 but if you change Lead Days to 6, everything else gets bumped up 2: > Lead Days 6, Blue 4, Orange 3, Red 2 But eventually there could be a detailed color configurer where you could specify which colors the goal would become at which days. As seen in the quotes, people seem to respond strongly to red, so I think it’s important to allow red to be color-ratcheted.