Add 'neutral' colour/display choices for toolbar icon when there are unread notifications

[0xdevalias]

📝 Provide a description of the new feature

Add a new setting to allow a more 'neutral' (aka: less 'bright' / 'noisy' / 'distracting') colour option for the toolbar icon (when there are unread notifications)

➕ Additional Information

When there are no new notifications, the icon is white or black when no new notifications (depending on the 'Use alternate idle icon' setting):

But when there are unread notifications, the icon shows as a bright green; which makes it stand out very prominently against the otherwise white/neutral icons on my toolbar:

This 'high visibility' colour might be useful in some situations; but I find that it tends to continuously draw my eye in a distracting way; making me feel the need to try and 'process all the notifications' in that moment just to make the 'distracting noise' go away; yet most of the time, the GitHub notifications are pretty low priority compared to what I am actually working on.

It would be nice if we had the option to set this to be something more neutral; as for my needs, glancing up at the menubar and seeing the unread count is more than enough 'signal'; I don't need the colour to also be drawing my eye to it all the time while I am trying to work on other things.

[Bisxsh]

Hey, would love to take this on!

Would we want to allow users to pick a different colour option (predefined options or colour picker?) or make the active icon a toggle instead (so the idle icon would be used, making the unread count the only indicator of notifications)?

[setchy]

@0xdevalias - do you see this also 'neutralizing' the red tray icon when there is an app error?

[0xdevalias]

do you see this also 'neutralizing' the red tray icon when there is an app error?

@setchy I'm not sure I have ever actually seen that 'app error' icon; so I don't have a strong opinion on it personally.

Looking at my other icons currently on my taskbar, there is one current case where a 'globally app breaking error' does use red; whereas everything else is a neutral white; so if that 'app error' is in a 'globally breaking' way, then I would personally be ok with my attention being drawn to it to fix it (assuming it is something I could actually fix as an end-user).

As a guiding 'rule of thumb'; my personal preference is "don't steal my attention with visual noise unless there is a REALLY good reason to be doing so".

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This 'high visibility' colour might be useful in some situations

I was thinking about this a little more recently; and while it might not be something everyone would want; I could definitely see a case for a 'distracting colour' could be if I was explicitly tagged in a comment/etc; as that would imply the notification required my direct action (and therefore may also imply an accelerated timeline to respond); as opposed to many of the other 'casual update / FYI' notifications.

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Edit: Some suggestions/ideas that I mildly iterated on with GitHub Copilot (gpt-5) + curated/refined based on personal preferences:

Settings (small, clear set):

• Unread icon style (single-choice):
  • Emphasized color (current bright green) — default
  • Neutral monochrome (use idle icon; count badge only)
• Priority highlight (optional toggle, off by default):
  • “Highlight when I’m mentioned or assigned” (temporarily uses Emphasized color regardless of the selected style)
• Error state:
  • Always show error in red (not affected by the unread icon style)
• Stretch goal (optional, off by default):
  • Emphasized color customization: allow choosing the Emphasized color (predefined palette or color picker), with basic contrast/visibility guardrails.

Behavior details:

• Neutral monochrome:
  • Relies on the unread count badge as the signal.
• Mentions/assignments priority highlight:
  • When enabled, escalate only for actionable items (e.g., @mentions, assignments, review requests).
  • Temporarily forces Emphasized color even if Neutral monochrome is selected.
  • If color customization is enabled, uses the chosen Emphasized color.
• Error state:
  • Red error icon remains unchanged to preserve critical visibility.

[setchy]

Thanks @0xdevalias 🙏

[0xdevalias]

@setchy No no, thank you! :3