Color scales refinement

[eirikbacker]

• We might need a text-tinted (replaces Lets take a look at our neutral color scale #4543, related: Neutral Link: Use text-default on all states #4542), and keep text-subtle
• We might need a border-tinted, making border-subtle more neutral (replaces Should border-subtle get a sister; border-netural, or, border-ui, border-secondary? #5333)?
• Avoid areas with "dark mode"; instead, use a inverted scale - can this be automatically generated?
• Support standalone colors in light/dark (not full scales, but just add single colors, give name and value of dark/light)(replaces Expand color scale with custom steps #4458)

After testing 15.09.26:
Add:

• --ds-color-border-muted (needed for non-active inputs)
• --ds-color-surface-muted (needed for readonly and prefix/suffix)
• --ds-color-text-muted (needed for readonly)

Rename:

• --ds-color-border-subtle => --ds-color-border-tinted (needed for non-active chip, non-active toggle group)
• --ds-color-background-subtle => --ds-color-background-tinted (alignment to naming convention)
• --ds-color-text-subtle => --ds-color-text-tinted (alignment to naming convention)

Note: Renaming can be made backwards compatible

See exploration:
https://www.figma.com/design/2lHxPS9d5HpR5Gv9NlrTwA/UI-utforsking---Visuelt-rammeverk?node-id=230-2422&t=bnSU6NEzyqlFZx9j-4

[Camulos]

Some notes from BR

Surface-muted
We do not use background or surface defaults for (near-)white for coloured scales, if someone wants a near white surface, they need to use the neutral scale. Having an extra surface colour would allow less overrides for surfaces. We would most likely end up mapping the new surface-muted to the the same neutral-hex for all colours but neutral.

Extreme background?:

• We would perhaps need a background-muted or "background-extreme" for the white/black, and then have the background and surface defaults actually be coloured.

Text-muted:
The text-muted option would allow for a more neutral colour for some text, but we would still need to set neutrl-default text to content within otherwise single-data coloured parts and components. Having a "global default text-colour" as we use the neutral scale for would still be needed.

Links:

• We would also like to have a global default link-colour with its own token, would make work in Figma much easier, I do not think it would make a difference for code?

[mrosvik]

Next step: List how this will affect all components. We also need to do some further research to identify which parts of the components should use muted, understand how consumers want to apply colors, and determine whether this approach would work for their systems.

[eirikbacker]

Some notes from BR

• All discussed and resolved in meeting 01.10.26 ☺️