Radified Community Forums - White Text on Dark Background

WizeOwl

Ex Member

White Text on Dark Background
Jun 19^th, 2004 at 3:36am

I have been reading the Ghost manual and I am impressed with the innovative approach to this site's white text on dark background. It makes so much more sense than the paper simulation approach. It is so much easier on the eyes.

I used to use DisplaySet to change my computer color scheme to achieve this, but that was on ME. Now it seems XP does not allow custom color schemes. I believe that if enough people request it, MicroSloth might actually follow their lead.

I would like to hear ideas about how to bring the rest of the online community up to speed on this. This site is definitely a welcome reprieve.

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crazyman

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Posts: 80
San Fernando Valley,So Cal

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Re: White Text on Dark Background
Reply #1 - Jun 19^th, 2004 at 11:58am

Quote:

I have been reading the Ghost manual and I am impressed with the innovative approach to this site's white text on dark background. It makes so much more sense than the paper simulation approach. It is so much easier on the eyes.

I used to use DisplaySet to change my computer color scheme to achieve this, but that was on ME. Now it seems XP does not allow custom color schemes. I believe that if enough people request it, MicroSloth might actually follow their lead.

I would like to hear ideas about how to bring the rest of the online community up to speed on this. This site is definitely a welcome reprieve.

maybe I don't understand what exactly you mean,but in my XP partition I can easily go into "display properties" and change just about anything in colors in "appearance",
is that what you are talking about?

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WizeOwl

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Re: White Text on Dark Background
Reply #2 - Jun 19^th, 2004 at 10:28pm

Thank you for that tip, Crazyman! I guess I'm still finding my way around XP. I am now able to view the preferred color scheme on many applications, Outlook, Windows Explorer, Word, etc. Unfortunately, apps like 'Folder Options' and 'Internet Options' contain invisible text or check boxes. Definitely a sloppy work-around.

White on Black
In Internet Explorer when the background is white, the white text disappears. I compensated by using a light gray text color and highliting text I need to see more clearly with ctrl+A.

Internet Web Sites
Most web sites use dark text on light background. So, my grudge still applies there. It would be nice to change the online community mind-set about this. Microsoft isn't much help on this, as far as I can tell. Other input still welcome.

Thanks again for the ideas,
-WizeOwl

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Dan Goodell

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Posts: 552
N California

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Re: White Text on Dark Background
Reply #3 - Jun 20^th, 2004 at 1:34am

Quote:

Internet Web Sites
Most web sites use dark text on light background. So, my grudge still applies there. It would be nice to change the online community mind-set about this.

It's not a webdesigners' mindset, it's a compatibility issue. The problem is there are a lot of systems that aren't able to print such web pages. Backgrounds are normally not printed, so printing white print with no background results in a blank page coming out of the printer. If your webpage is not supposed to be printed, that's one thing, but otherwise you need to be careful not to expect that every browser and printer combination works like yours.

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WizeOwl

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Re: White Text on Dark Background
Reply #4 - Jun 20^th, 2004 at 4:33pm

Dan makes an excellent point about browser compatibility. I believe that if enough folks in the web community are simply made aware of the difference between the two schemes, then the desire for a solution, or at least workaround, to many of the obstacles can be found.

To the invisible ink issue, for example, add a *Print* button. This site and others already do that so you don't waste ink on all the non-text content.

If this site is any indication, then there are probably enough people who feel strongly enough to put some energy into it.

I would be interested to hear from the author(s) of these radified.com pages how much extra work it is to provide web pages for both color schemes.

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