Why color should be disabled ...

I truly believe that color should be disabled in forum posts because it really hinders the usability of the site. For example, links throughout the site are blue, text is dark grey, headings are purple , ... all standard throughout the site. So much effort was put into the font color, for example. (Remember the font size thread where one shade of grey made such a difference?) It really does bother me when members have the freedom to just screw up all of the effort I put in, not to mention money paid to designers who specialize in color theory. I think that my point can be proven in the fact that there are links to three different search engines in this post.

And don't go trying to tell me that the moderators should make sure things like this don't happen and that color is only used when it aids comprehension. Dave Sinkula uses blue font all the time, which is just about the one color I am the most against because it can so easily be confused with a link, especially because links on this site don't have underlines.

Red used to be synonymous with links, which is why I avoid it.

I once tried to follow the old line of blue=add, red=delete, green=change. This predates forums by a long shot. Red was links, green was hard to read, blue was left.

Magenta became my DON'T for lack of others.

Screw with prior art all you want; what the hell, the next generation knows nothing of this.

Color is the single most useful way that one can actually highlight things in text. BIU rather suck.

> Red used to be synonymous with links, which is why I avoid it.
On CProgramming, maybe. Never here, or any other site I know of other than CProgramming. Blue is standard for links.

> I once tried to follow the old line of blue=add, red=delete, green=change. This predates forums by a long shot.
My point exactly: that color scheme was never designed with forums in mind, and clearly isn't optimal for forums when links are blue.

> Color is the single most useful way that one can actually highlight things in text.
I disagree. I can use bold or the bbcode just fine, as I did here. And doing so will ensure that it will always be design-safe and usability-safe while still standing out just as much.

I also just want to throw in that I'm just opening this idea up to discussion and have no plans of going any further until everyone has voiced an opinion. As you know, one of the toughest parts of trying to run a forum is trying to please everyone. It was just last week when ~sos~ commented that DaniWeb "should strive to become like Google Groups where simplicity is of paramount". It's been my experience that there are just as many people who want color as who don't, so I want to really get a raise of hands without rehashing old arguments. My first post of this thread pretty much summed up my reasons for being against color, so now I just want to get a count of who agrees and who disagrees. Hmm ... guess I should add a poll to this thread, eh? :)

> Red used to be synonymous with links, which is why I avoid it.
On CProgramming, maybe. Never here, or any other site I know of other than CProgramming. Blue is standard for links.

> I once tried to follow the old line of blue=add, red=delete, green=change. This predates forums by a long shot.
My point exactly: that color scheme was never designed with forums in mind, and clearly isn't optimal for forums when links are blue.

> Color is the single most useful way that one can actually highlight things in text.
I disagree. I can use bold or the bbcode just fine, as I did here. And doing so will ensure that it will always be design-safe and usability-safe while still standing out just as much.

I also just want to throw in that I'm just opening this idea up to discussion and have no plans of going any further until everyone has voiced an opinion. As you know, one of the toughest parts of trying to run a forum is trying to please everyone. It was just last week when ~sos~ commented that DaniWeb "should strive to become like Google Groups where simplicity is of paramount". It's been my experience that there are just as many people who want color as who don't, so I want to really get a raise of hands without rehashing old arguments. My first post of this thread pretty much summed up my reasons for being against color, so now I just want to get a count of who agrees and who disagrees. Hmm ... guess I should add a poll to this thread, eh? :)

For example, the most prominent part of this post was this: I disagree. Color had much to do with it.

And I used the bbcode to generate it. I have nothing against using the bbcode.

My main problem with color is that you can pick from any color you want so, not only is there no consistancy, but people use blue (or worse, underlined blue) which is very easily confused with links, and other colors which conflict with my site design.

I would be estatic if everyone used green to represent something good and red to represent something bad or to highlight something, for example.

And I used the bbcode to generate it. I have nothing against using the bbcode.

I am well aware of that.

Tell me, if you search for a term, how is it rendered?

What distinguishes the search term from a highlight?

Or ought we not search?

Preferably, a searched-for keyword would be black bold with a yellow background, like the Microsoft Word highlighter function. In other words, it would have a background-color around the word that couldn't be accomplished with bbcode, once again to add to the usability. Right now it IS confusing when people use bold red text in their posts. I want to fix that.

I'm assuming that Dani isn't trying to remove all color from the site, just to standardize the colors. That is, people will not be able to color their post text, but search results or tagged code segments would still be colored as they currently are. I never use colors in my posts, and I find it moderately distracting when other people do. I'm used to CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis or even italics, and most people on the 'net usually understand their importance. Of course, there are a few who tend to post with their caps-lock on, but it's somewhat less annoying than posting in bold, red text.

My $.02 :)

I am well aware of that.

Tell me, if you search for a term, how is it rendered?

What distinguishes the search term from a highlight?

Or ought we not search?

Wow ... totally didn't realize that the bbcode automatically used whatever highlighting the search function used. OK, skip trying to get people to use bbcode then :) On that note though, what do you think of what I changed the highlight text to look like?

My $.02 :)

What if your choice for emphasis were changed after the fact. Would it suck? Or be hunky-dory?

[edit]Besides, I've read RFCs. They suck to read.

My honest opinion is: I don't care one way or the other. So I was unable to vote in your poll.

I don't think that if that document was half red and half blue, it would suddenly make it a much easier read. :)

I don't think that if that document was half red and half blue, it would suddenly make it a much easier read. :)

You're stretching.

If the most important items were highlighted in color, would you find them easily?

It was a joke. I meant to say that there was nothing that would make that particular document any more of an easier read for me :)

BTW, I really wish you'd go with a beta.daniweb.com so that context doesn't change during a conversation.

Dave, I think you're missing my point. You don't have to keep trying to convince me how important color is to you. I get it. It's not important to me, and it's not important to a lot of people on DaniWeb, but it is important to a lot of other people on DaniWeb.

Basically, the only point I have to make here is that just the way you avoid red text because that's what cprogramming uses for links, I want you to give DaniWeb that same consideration, and avoid blue because that's what we use for links.

But not just you, Dave. I want everyone to not color things blue, or bright pink, or pale grey, or any other crazy color combination just for the sake of wanting to use the color palette. If there has to be color, I want to be in control of what colors won't negatively affect the work I've put into DaniWeb.

BTW, I really wish you'd go with a beta.daniweb.com so that context doesn't change during a conversation.

It's vBulletin's fault - I had no idea that the bbcode was attached to the search function. I thought I was just changing the look of highlighted keywords when people did searches.

It was a joke. I meant to say that there was nothing that would make that particular document any more of an easier read for me :)

And at the same time it's not a joke. It's where you plan to move with your site.

In a direction which might be difficult-to-read techno-jargon, which you must admit a lot of it already it. Or something that the layman might read.

Usability. Can a techno-phobe pick out the wheat from the chaff?

It's vBulletin's fault - I had no idea that the bbcode was attached to the search function. I thought I was just changing the look of highlighted keywords when people did searches.

All righty. Here is where you have finally found the most salient point.

Without realizing it, and after the fact, you will make changes that render another's hard work and patient persistence at detail irrelevant.

After realizing what I inadvertently did, I did a search of the database for all posts that use bbcode, thinking it wouldn't be very many since I never publicized anywhere that that bbcode exists.

A total of 20 posts on all of DaniWeb have the phrase [highlight] in them, with 7 of them being this thread, and an additional 4 being posts I made. A total of 9 posts were affected as a result of making highlighted search keywords no longer interfere with bbcode that members can post.

After realizing what I inadvertently did, I did a search of the database for all posts that use bbcode, thinking it wouldn't be very many since I never publicized anywhere that that bbcode exists.

A total of 20 posts on all of DaniWeb have the phrase [highlight] in them, with 7 of them being this thread, and an additional 4 being posts I made. A total of 9 posts were affected as a result of making highlighted search keywords no longer interfere with bbcode that members can post.

And the number using color responsibly?

[edit]And do you even have an accurate sample after previous changes?

If you ask me, zero :) In all seriousness, I am going to sleep on the best way to handle color moving forward while still preserving the time people put into coloring their posts. I have to head off to sleep now though ...

If you ask me, zero :)

Would that happen to be a similar number you thought about wiping out fonts? Which contributed to a number of tutorials from a member worked on now being deleted?

I want everyone to not color things blue, or bright pink, or pale grey, or any other crazy color combination just for the sake of wanting to use the color palette. If there has to be color, I want to be in control of what colors won't negatively affect the work I've put into DaniWeb.

I can gaurantee, you or the only member of this forum that thinks that colored text in posts somehow interfers or negatively affects the design of Daniweb.

Honestly, you're starting to sound a little over caffienated. Go to sleep. Your pillow is calling to you, sleep.....sleeep.......sleeeeeepppppp.........

If you ask me, zero :) In all seriousness, I am going to sleep on the best way to handle color moving forward while still preserving the time people put into coloring their posts. I have to head off to sleep now though ...

LOL. I think thats a good idea.

I think using color looks good,everything isnt just 1 color....

I don't like color in people's posts -- its too distracting. If I want to emphasize someting I normally make it bold or italic or both. Only in very rare occations will I use RED when posting/correcting C/C++ code and then only to show suggested changes.

#include <stdio.h>

int main ( void )
{
  printf ( "Good line\n" );

  printf ( "Bad line\n" );

  [B]printf ( "Bold doesn't stand out at all\n" );[/B]

  [I]printf ( "Italics don't stand out enough\n" );[/I]

  [U]printf ( "Underlining makes the code harder to read\n" );[/U]

  [highlight]printf ( "Highlight only has one appearance\n" );[/highlight]

  return 0;
}

That's my take on color. I don't use it for anything else.

Personally it doesn't bother me; I think that moderators should warn people (and edit their posts accordingly) if they use poor contrast or a bad combination of colours excessively.

As for the highlight bbcode tag I didn't know it existed! I may use it more often from now on

I haven't seen a lot of occurrences of colors being misused here and neither do I make extensive use of it. Putting your point across without using fancy coloring techniques is something one must know so I wouldn't mind if you disabled the colors though they don't bother me a bit.

PS: Ever wonder how the newsgroup folks put across their point without colors -- yes thats what it should be like.