New colors for your posts

colours and posts

[Matthew1980]

Hi there people of the forum!

I have just noticed that there are some new colours associated with the post that you participate in, as well as new colours for new users (I think).

Also, whilst I type, could anyone answer my question about the # number that every user has as the last bit of info on their user stats? Just wondering, I assume as it's member number or something similar.

Cheers,
MRb

[grandpa]

You may also have noticed that from the second post in any thread and continuing forward, your own post in that thread will be a different color (I'm seeing green for my own posts). I can understand where this might be an advantage, but I would personally like the ability to disable the colorization (all of it).

# number that every user has as the last bit of info on their user stats

It appears to be a system [ total number of messages ] counter.

[ken_b]

Which reminds me, how any people are fully or partially color blind?

[brotherhood of LAN]

1 in 12 I think, ken_b

Shouldn't pose a problem of blank text because of colour though, as it's colours on black. Though I do wonder if anyone with colour blindness can see different shades of grey with the new layout.

I believe there's online tools out there to check for that kind of thing.

[StoutFiles]

I like the green for our personal posts, but the OP post color screams to me "Danger!". Any color close to red is a bad choice. I think a light blue would be much better.

[tangor]

I like it (not the color choices but the colorization of posts) because I get immediate feedback that my most recent reply "made it". Might stop some of the dupes we see from time to time... though some of those are unintended because WW slows or appears to stop...I presume other operations are going on and just WAIT until it processes.

Suggest a yellow for first message, green for my reply is fine... but a tad less intense (think pastel) would be appreciated. The color shows where I replied in a lengthy thread...and how many times I replied.

[Matthew1980]

Hi there everyone,

It appears to be a system [ total number of messages ] counter.

I'm not sure about that, the #4130***! number fluctuates up and down from week day to weekend, it was down to #313***! last weekend, I thought as it was member id, but it cant be, it's going to bug me now!

The colours could be done a little less abrasive, especially on the new thread parts. Also another thing I noticed the other day was that if you are participating in a thread and it spans two or more pages, your thread indicator (yellow exclamation mark in warning triangle) doesn't keep there if the pages spanned goes over two. Am I the only one to see this, and therefore do I need another brand of coffee?

Cheers,
MRb

[rj87uk]

I'm pretty colour blind and this is my first post after the changes. The first post to me seems brownish-red however the text is very clear.

I will edit this after I see what colour my post is.

[edit: Its bright green and everything looks very clear.]

Ps. Funny I had an eye test today with letters on a red back ground & letters on a green back ground, I found the green background to be the one that was easier for me to read.

[Matthew1980]

Hi there rj87uk,

Consider that a full A+ pass then, that's exactly what I see too, though I know I am not colour blind ;-p

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Cheers,
MRb

[tangor]

I love interactive... thanks for toning down the colors! Much nicer and less startling. I do hope WW won't go peacock with color, though, that might induce headaches! :)

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, a little live testing there. We are eventually headed towards a template with colorization/fontification by css. So, I'm not real eager to invest alot of time getting the colors just perfect here.

[vrtlw]

Brett, have you considered apply the style of the OP throughout the thread? I was thinking it would be cool to be able to quickly identify the post as a response to their original topic.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, we tested that earlier today. It got pretty rainbow looking and you couldn't follow what-was-what in the larger threads.

> [ total number of messages ] counter.

Message id number. Each msg gets a unique number.

[tangor]

I'd rather have only my post/replies colorized.... tells me where I left off and, conversely, what's been added since. Does speed up going through some of the longer threads (and longer lived threads).

[Swanny007]

That pinkish redish whatever color it is in the first post is very hard on my eyes. Yuck, please give me the option to leave it grey.

[Swanny007]

Ew, and now I don't like the green. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken, Brett. I could handle this a lot more if instead of green you went with a darker grey.

[Matthew1980]

Hi there everyone,

I can live with the colours, I am just thankful that there is no 'avatar' option, I just like the fact that the messages/posts are just text, nothing to detract your attention.

Message id number. Each msg gets a unique number.

Thanks for satisfiying my curiosity there Brett, I should really have thought about that really, pretty obvious!

Cheers,
MRb

[TheMadScientist]

Yuck, please give me the option to leave it grey.

Ew, and now I don't like the green. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken, Brett.

Brett Said:

We are eventually headed towards a template with colorization/fontification by css. So, I'm not real eager to invest alot of time getting the colors just perfect here.

I don't remember when they discontinued the personalized templates or if you remember 'em, but he means they are working on a system to go back to the customization and you'll be able to make the colors as grey or a pretty as you please...

I like the idea of being able to color on my profile again, so I'm glad they're testing... Now if we could just get the stinking ability to indent code out of the tester's hands and into that of the poster's... LOL :) (Yeah, I'll try to not ask again.)

Oh, and +1 on the no avatars.

[Matthew1980]

Hi there MadScientist,

Cool! So I am not the only one who doesn't like them! And as for having tabbing in the textarea's - good idea, though I am kinda used to it now, there is a way to do tabbing, I see it in posts that some of the admin's do (the multicoloured font) so it's there, just need to find it I suppose.

Cheers,
MRb

[ken_b]

I don't get the whole point behind this exercise.

How hard is it to identify the first post in a thread, or to find your own posts?

Surely the members here can manage those tasks without color coding.

[tangor]

The color customization in the last iteration of the board's control panel was quite useful to me. I have cataracts and a white background and small text size makes it difficult to read at times, even with the FF zoom feature employed. Certain color backgrounds and font colors are much easier to read. I also suspect that by the time Brett and co. are through one will not only be able to select "show my posts in color" with "set color intensity" to "use no color customization" or "default colors, no post highlights"

End user happiness is at test here, I believe. And if this is the "next big thing" for Webmasterworld that means a whole lot of more important things behind the scenes have been done, or are wrapping up. Keep experimenting!

[vordmeister]

With the new colours the first post in each thread seem to be tricky to read especially if the post is mostly in the form of a quote.

I have been planning to go in for an eye test so this might just be some feedback about some colours that will be changed from someone who should be wearing glasses.

Previously I had no trouble identifying the first post in a thread. Now I have trouble reading it.

[tangor]

? All I see in new color is the frame of each message, not the text area. Anyone seeing the text area in color?

[Matthew1980]

Hi there tangor,

No, I can't see a change in colour in the textarea, also over the course of today, the colours seem to have dropped in intensity too, but that's probably my eyesight ;)

Well, lets see what the next improvements are.

Cheers,
MRb

[Simsi]

The color-coding is fine but FYI now threads no longer fit horizontally on the screen on a Netbook. The last word of many sentences gets chopped. No biggie as you can just shift the hs bar right but a minor pita. The main forum screens are still fine, it's just threads that are affected.

[TheMadScientist]

@Matthew1980 No, you're not the only one who doesn't like 'em.

I like this site because I can sit and read it. It's a nice refreshing break from most other sites: Simple, clean, easy... quite a bit like a book. Once we can get the color adjustments back, then it'll be one of those 'Choose Your Own Adventures' :)

[StoutFiles]

Really though, the best option would be to allow us to individually choose the colors we want for the OP and ourselves when we're logged in, and have that setting save.

[tangor]

That is what this experiment is about. Getting back the customization which was dropped when Brett and Co. rolled out new features, indexing, etc. Only this time around I suspect the customization will be even more impressive.

I, too, sometimes have issues with width... (see above, cataracts) and zoom sometimes breaks the fluid paradigm.

[TheMadScientist]

Hey, this would probably be some work to implement, but...

IMO It would sure be cool if you could color the last post from our previous visit to a thread different than the other ones if there is another post after it when we return, like a 'you stopped reading here' marker.

So, if I visited a thread EG 'Google Update' at 11am and then visited again at 1:30pm the last post before 11am would be yellow or something, so I know where to start reading to catch up.

[g1smd]

Recording every visit to every thread would be a huge amount of data.

I'm OK with "own posts in different colour". That's good enough.