Four buttons at top of /payroll/ currently mix 3 treatments (outline + solid btn-primary one-off). Design swaps all 4 to a unified .btn-action-soft base class with per-button colour modifiers (Lookup=blue, Pay=amber, Add=green, Price=mauve). Reuses existing --badge-*-bg tokens for the Add + Price buttons; adds 2 new token pairs for Lookup + Pay. Removes the shadow-sm / btn-sm / fw-bold one-offs — the new class handles sizing + weight. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
4.9 KiB
Payroll Action Buttons — Pastel Soft-Fill (24 Apr 2026)
Origin
Konrad on the 4 action buttons at the top of /payroll/:
"Can you use your top notch design skills and make this look better and more uniform with also some pastel colors"
Current state: Worker Lookup (btn-outline-info), Batch Pay
(btn-primary — the odd one out, solid dark blue), Add Adjustment
(btn-outline-success), Price Overtime (btn-outline-warning). Three
treatments, four colour families, visually inconsistent.
Scope chosen: A — pastel soft-fill. All 4 become solid pastel fill, no border, with darker text in the same colour family. Each retains a colour hint for its role; all look like siblings.
Design
Base class
.btn-action-soft — shared shape for all 4 buttons:
display: inline-flex; align-items: center; gap: 0.4rempadding: 0.4rem 0.9remfont-size: 0.875rem; font-weight: 500border: none; border-radius: 0.5remtransition: filter 150ms, transform 80ms- Hover:
filter: brightness(1.08) - Active:
transform: translateY(1px) - Focus-visible:
outline: 2px solid var(--accent); outline-offset: 2px
Removes both btn-outline-* and btn-primary from the template — the
new class is self-sufficient, doesn't layer on top of Bootstrap's
.btn family.
Per-button colour — reuses existing --badge-* tokens where possible
| Button | Modifier class | Tokens used (reused) |
|---|---|---|
| Worker Lookup | .btn-action-lookup |
new --btn-action-lookup-bg/fg (soft blue, similar to advance family) |
| Batch Pay | .btn-action-pay |
new --btn-action-pay-bg/fg (soft amber — brand-adjacent, marks it as primary) |
| Add Adjustment | .btn-action-add |
reuses --badge-bonus-bg/fg (green — "adding money" matches Bonus semantic) |
| Price Overtime | .btn-action-price |
reuses --badge-overtime-bg/fg (mauve — matches the Overtime adjustment badge) |
Four new CSS variables per theme (--btn-action-lookup-bg/fg,
--btn-action-pay-bg/fg) plus two reuses of existing badge tokens. Net
- 8 CSS vars (4 × 2 themes), + 5 CSS classes, – 4 Bootstrap class applications in the template.
Dark theme palette
--btn-action-lookup-bg: #3e5c7b; --btn-action-lookup-fg: #d7e5f2;
--btn-action-pay-bg: #7a4d1a; --btn-action-pay-fg: #fae0c3;
/* add: reuses --badge-bonus-bg (#5b8260) / --badge-bonus-fg (#e8f3ea) */
/* price: reuses --badge-overtime-bg (#a16881) / --badge-overtime-fg (#fce4ec) */
Light theme palette
--btn-action-lookup-bg: #c7d9e8; --btn-action-lookup-fg: #243b56;
--btn-action-pay-bg: #f5d6a8; --btn-action-pay-fg: #633e0e;
/* add: reuses --badge-bonus-bg (#d7e8d9) / --badge-bonus-fg (#385640) */
/* price: reuses --badge-overtime-bg (#f3d1dd) / --badge-overtime-fg (#703347) */
Template change
core/templates/core/payroll_dashboard.html — find the 4-button group
with class payroll-actions (near the top). Replace each button's
class list:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
btn btn-outline-info shadow-sm btn-sm btn-md-normal |
btn-action-soft btn-action-lookup |
btn btn-primary shadow-sm btn-sm btn-md-normal |
btn-action-soft btn-action-pay |
btn btn-outline-success shadow-sm btn-sm btn-md-normal fw-bold |
btn-action-soft btn-action-add |
btn btn-outline-warning shadow-sm btn-sm btn-md-normal |
btn-action-soft btn-action-price |
Shadow and size modifiers come from .btn-action-soft itself — no
need for shadow-sm / btn-sm. The fw-bold on Add Adjustment was
a workaround for the faint outline treatment; the new class has
sufficient presence without it.
Out of scope
- Extending this treatment to buttons elsewhere in the app — defer to a future "app-wide button pass" if this looks right
- Changing the icons or labels
- Moving or reorganising the button row
- Button ordering (it stays: Lookup / Batch Pay / Add Adjustment / Price Overtime)
Risks
- Contrast on the soft-fill pastels might be borderline in light mode. Implementation will spot-check each with WebAIM contrast-check logic (target: WCAG AA for UI elements — 3:1 minimum for icon/text against background).
- One-off
fw-boldon Add Adjustment — the current template has it to compensate for the faint outline. Removing it with the new class is intentional; if the new.btn-action-addreads too lightly, re-applyfw-boldor bump the text weight in.btn-action-softbase. - Batch Pay "is this still the primary?" — it now wears soft
amber instead of solid dark blue. The amber is slightly more
saturated than the other three, which preserves a visual hierarchy.
If Konrad wants stronger emphasis, we can deepen
--btn-action-pay-bgfurther or add a subtle 1px--accentring.
Rollback
Single commit, git revert <sha>. No data, schema, behavioural
change.
Next step
Generate a brief implementation plan via writing-plans → execute via subagent-driven-development. Auto mode active, no checkpoints — this is a 1-2 task implementation.