Poll: Document color schemes

[Chaotic42]

Maybe it's just that I've calibrated my monitors, but I really hate all of these sites which have pure white or very light backgrounds. It's like looking at the damned sun. I'm particularly annoyed by the MS Outlook Web Application. I know the sys admin can add new themes, but it's more likely that I'd win the lottery and not have to deal with it anyway.

A lot of websites seem to love this theme too. Even the AT forums are a little too bright and it seems like they refuse to add new themes here. Am I just old and longing for the wonderful darkness of the command line?

Which color scheme do you prefer?

 

[KaOTiK]

I like darker colored themes too myself, easier on the eyes. I wish the forums here had a dark theme, my eyes always hurt some at first looking at this forum, especially at night when I go on here it lights up the entire room.

 

[IronWing]

Alcoholics tend to avoid bright lights. OP, are you an alcoholic?

I like the white backgrounds. I even customized the cmd window to be black on white. I keep my desktop black as I have photo wallpaper but otherwise I prefer white backgrounds.

 

[Chaotic42]

Alcoholics tend to avoid bright lights. OP, are you an alcoholic?

I like the white backgrounds. I even customized the cmd window to be black on white. I keep my desktop black as I have photo wallpaper but otherwise I prefer white backgrounds.

No, but I do appreciate realistic dynamic range. Just like in music. There's no reason to have a background which is tens of thousands of times brighter than the text. The same contrast can be achieved by switching and having white on black without the blinding (and the electricity waste).

 

[phucheneh]

It shouldn't be 'pure' white, but I suspect your monitor/driver settings are to blame for your issues. Most people have the contrast too high and the brightness at about 4000% of what it should be.

 

[Chaotic42]

It shouldn't be 'pure' white, but I suspect your monitor/driver settings are to blame for your issues. Most people have the contrast too high and the brightness at about 4000% of what it should be.

Well, I've calibrated it (and it came pre-calibrated anyway). I've always had an aversion to overly bright things. Maybe it's just my eyes. I may break out the calibration device and verify. I deal with print quite a bit and to me (255,255,255) *should* be almost painfully white, because that's what it is. It's the most extreme value possible and should be used sparingly.

Now with print, (0,0,0,0) is more of a transparency concept, but proper paper should also be quite white.

 

[lxskllr]

White text on black, or some variation thereof. My whole computer is dark themed, and I find it easier on the eyes.

 

[Chaotic42]

White text on black, or some variation thereof. My whole computer is dark themed, and I find it easier on the eyes.

Where did you get that dark AT forums theme? I had to make a website for a technical writing class during my undergrad, and the teacher and I went back and forth (in a friendly way) about my use of white text on a black background. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way...

 

[Aluvus]

Reduce the brightness setting of your monitor (they are often set unreasonably high at the factory), then recalibrate colors.

The same contrast can be achieved by switching and having white on black without the blinding (and the electricity waste).

For most computer monitors in use today, the color of what is being displayed has no appreciable effect on power use.

 

[lxskllr]

Where did you get that dark AT forums theme? I had to make a website for a technical writing class during my undergrad, and the teacher and I went back and forth (in a friendly way) about my use of white text on a black background. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way...

It's a Stylish script for Firefox, but it can be used on other browsers with a bit more effort, and perhaps some tweaking. This is the specific script, and there's others too...

http://userstyles.org/styles/22383/anandtech-vb-dark-theme

If you use Firefox/Stylish, you can click on the Stylish buttons, and pick "Find styles for this site", and see if anyone has made anything. You can also write your own. I hacked one together for a site I frequent, but it took a tremendous amount of time, and there's a few bugs, though it works well enough for my purposes.

There's also this addon for Firefox that re-themes sites easily. It isn't perfect, and has some annoyances, but it works pretty well. Easier than writing your own style sheets...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/colorific-1/?src=api

 

[Chaotic42]

Reduce the brightness setting of your monitor (they are often set unreasonably high at the factory), then recalibrate colors.

I did. It's at 5 out of 100 right now.

 

[destrekor]

No, but I do appreciate realistic dynamic range. Just like in music. There's no reason to have a background which is tens of thousands of times brighter than the text. The same contrast can be achieved by switching and having white on black without the blinding (and the electricity waste).

Eh?

On typical LCD monitors, white and black equals the same energy use.
The backlight draws the most electricity, and it doesn't change to accommodate different colors/brightness levels, rather the individual pixels change.

If you were speaking of OLED screens, then yes, dark settings save electricity compared to bright settings, since each pixel actually changes output level (as there are no backlights in OLED).

 

[Chaotic42]

Eh?

On typical LCD monitors, white and black equals the same energy use.
The backlight draws the most electricity, and it doesn't change to accommodate different colors/brightness levels, rather the individual pixels change.

If you were speaking of OLED screens, then yes, dark settings save electricity compared to bright settings, since each pixel actually changes output level (as there are no backlights in OLED).

Interesting. I didn't know that, thanks for the info.

 

[pyonir]

I picked other. I prefer black text, but also darker backgrounds. Everything but the reading space, I prefer dark. I don't necessarily dislike white text, but don't prefer it.

 

[BurnItDwn]

The best is "Hot Dog Stand" theme.

I like a combination of Yellow backgrounds with black foregrounds and red backgrounds with white foregrounds.

It is somewhat berserk and insane, but, it is my favorite in its boldness and power.

 

[xanis]

Black text on a white background is my preferred color scheme for 90% of the text content I want to read. The only time that I prefer a dark scheme is for coding; I use this one. I prefer a lot of contrast in my text, especially with syntax highlighting.

 

[tynopik]

The best is "Hot Dog Stand" theme.

I like a combination of Yellow backgrounds with black foregrounds and red backgrounds with white foregrounds.

It is somewhat berserk and insane, but, it is my favorite in its boldness and power.

the good old win 3.x days

 

[BurnItDwn]

the good old win 3.x days

Indeed, I never really used Windows 1.x or 2.x, so I can't say if it was included there, but, it was certainly included in 3.1. And 2 of my uncles and my father have yelled my name in anger many times for "fixing" their color schemes in the olden times.