# Help - New Blinding look?



## MacMathan

I have come on to ENWorld today to be confronted with a mostly white blinding layout.

Is there a setting that got changed? Is there something I need to do to go back to the low energy and easy on the eyes darker look?


Thanks


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## Dannyalcatraz

MacMathan said:


> I have come on to ENWorld today to be confronted with a mostly white blinding layout.
> 
> Is there a setting that got changed? Is there something I need to do to go back to the low energy and easy on the eyes darker look?
> 
> 
> Thanks




Ditto that!


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## Siberys

I had that, but then I went to my settings and set the theme back to black.

No prob since.


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## Umbran

MacMathan said:


> I have come on to ENWorld today to be confronted with a mostly white blinding layout.
> 
> Is there a setting that got changed? Is there something I need to do to go back to the low energy and easy on the eyes darker look?




Scroll down to the bottom of any of our pages.  Way down, the very bottom.  In the lower-left corner there's a dopdown menu.  Select "Black".


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## JamesonCourage

Umbran said:


> Scroll down to the bottom of any of our pages.  Way down, the very bottom.  In the lower-left corner there's a dopdown menu.  Select "Black".




While I like the new look, I do like the mellow look it had before. Additionally, I could easily spot which threads I'd visited, and if I'd looked at the newest page. Thanks for helping me get that look back, Umbran. I appreciate it.

As always, play what you like


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## Maggan

Umbran said:


> Scroll down to the bottom of any of our pages.  Way down, the very bottom.  In the lower-left corner there's a dopdown menu.  Select "Black".




Thank goodness and Umbran. Sanity is restored!

What prompted the whiteout? 

/M


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## Morrus

Maggan said:


> Thank goodness and Umbran. Sanity is restored!
> 
> What prompted the whiteout?




Complete mistake on my part.

But I might leave it for a few days and see what people think of it.


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## Maggan

Morrus said:


> Complete mistake on my part.
> 
> But I might leave it for a few days and see what people think of it.




I'd wager a guess as to what people will think. 

/M


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## Morrus

Maggan said:


> I'd wager a guess as to what people will think.




A heck of a lot of people complain about the black background.  I'm curious to see now it's more in line with most other sites on the web.


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## Jasperak

I'd be interested to know why people don't like the black. I find this site is easier to read than most others.


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## Alzrius

I'll add my voice to those who prefer the black background. Black is the new black!


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## jaerdaph

Morrus said:


> A heck of a lot of people complain about the black background.  I'm curious to see now it's more in line with most other sites on the web.




Cool! Now the other half of the membership can complain.


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## Maggan

Jasperak said:


> I'd be interested to know why people don't like the black. I find this site is easier to read than most others.




There are a lot of interface elements, such as buttons, and images, that are still made to look good in black, even if the background is white. That will strain the eyes and create a dissonance with the reader.

I am not opposed to a white design, but it needs to be designed for white, not merely slapped on.

IMO and all that.

/M


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## Umbran

Jasperak said:


> I'd be interested to know why people don't like the black. I find this site is easier to read than most others.




Aside from how many of the other elements are designed for black, there's a very simple reason...

Most of the "legitimate" things one might be reading at work have a white background.  White is camouflage!


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## James0235

Loving the new look. I can actually read things now. The black was just too dark.


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## Scott DeWar

Morrus;
My personal opinion on the 'light color sceame' is that it gives me a splitting headache. I see we have the option to return it, so if you keep it this way, I have the option of returning back to the dark order.


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## Jasperak

Umbran said:


> Aside from how many of the other elements are designed for black, there's a very simple reason...
> 
> Most of the "legitimate" things one might be reading at work have a white background.  White is camouflage!




Doesn't work for storm troopers though.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Jasperak said:


> Doesn't work for storm troopers though.




Oh yeah?  Try shooting a Stormtrooper in a big flock of sheep during a blizzard!


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## darjr

I did. Aamazingly I keep hitting them in droves.


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## SparqMan

*Missing: Dark ENWorld*

How do I get the site back to its dark glory? Sorry if this has been covered many times.


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## Relique du Madde

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and change the setting of the pulldown box to "black"


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## SparqMan

My eyes thank you.


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## Arkhandus

Ugh, I preferred the classic black look.  Time to change my settings I guess.   Probably still gonna be this obnoxious bright white/yellow/lilac color whenever I visit though, before logging in each time, since I don't stay logged in 24/7.  My first impression was that the new look was as obnoxious and ugly as Gleemax.


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## nedjer

The black helps to brand/ distinguishes the site and gives a real good contrast. The white at #fffff0 is kind of blinding. Ghost White: #F8F8FFis a variant often used to reduce glacier burn.


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## Scott DeWar

Ghost white

vs

retina burn

 lettering wise there seems to be little difference.


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## OnlineDM

I think I prefer the white background overall, but I agree with Maggan that everything needs to work with it. The bar along the top with Profile/Settings, Forum, etc. looks strangely floating, and my status text is bright green on a blue background now, which is hard to read.

But for reading threads, I'm digging the dark text on a white background. At the very least, it's a good option to have available, even if the default is switched back to black.


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## Umbran

Scott DeWar said:


> Ghost white
> 
> vs
> 
> retina burn




{announcer voice}
Sunday, SUNday, sunDAY - Ghost White vs Retina Burn in a brutal all-out match for the title!  
{/announcer voice}


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## jaerdaph

Scott DeWar said:


> Ghost white
> 
> vs
> 
> retina burn
> 
> lettering wise there seems to be little difference.




Just be thankful Morrus rejected my Butt Hurt skin design...


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## the Jester

Yeah, I gotta say, both of the bright schemes are awful. 

The black is great- easy on the eyes, highly readable, mellow.

That said, I appreciate the need and reason for a white background version of ENWorld, hope what there is now works well enough to get by for those that need it and hope that you guys come up with a less eye-shocking version in the future.


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## Morrus

CSS editing is not something I'm clever enough to do.  This is just one of the two themes made in this thread.

I'm more than happy to try other schemes, but it needs someone to provide me with the CSS code, just like in that thread.  If you want to try and edit one of them and make it a little less bright, feel free!


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## jeffh

Other predominantly-white sites aren't _all_ blazing white, _everywhere_. There needs to be some contrast here and there. I'm not opposed to predominantly white colour schemes in general, but I'm very much opposed to this particular one.


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## Walking Dad

I just wanted to say that I prefer the black, but a second 'working' brighter color scheme as an alternative would be nice. Nearly everything white is a bit much...


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## renau1g

When I loaded the site I was reminded of a certain clip from the Simpsons.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juFZh92MUOY[/ame]


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## Tilenas

Thank the powers I'm back in black. And for the record, most of the sites I frequent are done in a black colour scheme: metalstorm, gamebanshee, ultimate guitar, you name it. You know, all kvlt and tr00, but also easier on the eyes, I think.


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## Orius

Morrus said:


> Complete mistake on my part.
> 
> But I might leave it for a few days and see what people think of it.




I switched it right back to black.  I like the classic ENWorld look.

No problem with other skins if people prefer them though.  I just don't want to use them.


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## IronWolf

Orius said:


> No problem with other skins if people prefer them though.  I just don't want to use them.




Yep. Choice is always nice!


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## Pseudonym

I'm reading on my iPad now and thought for a moment that someone had developed a mobile version of the site. I like it.


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## Ashtagon

I had thought it was a server glitch that was causing the normal css to not load. Good to see it was merely a human error. I've switched it back to the normal black look now.


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## JRRNeiklot

Yeah, I can't stand the new white look.  I'm going to complain about it as soon as I get my eyesite back.  Doc says it could be any day now.


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## Plane Sailing

It's worth noting that light text on black was very popular a decade or so ago (like when ENworld started), but that the majority of sites with a large amount of text have moved to dark text on a light background because it has greater legibility, especially on modern monitors and at smaller type sizes.

For those people who have said 'argh my eyes', I have to wonder where you go on the internet nowadays!

Also, as Umbran said, a black background isn't exactly the kind of thing which you are likely to be reading at work, so the stealth/disguise aspect is important for some people.

For people for whom the whole thing is too light, a scheme that put a darker colour or background behind all the threads would probably be more appealing. At one point in the past we had a 'PHB' theme, which was very much pale yellow and light brown and was quite appealing.

Cheers


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## IronWolf

Plane Sailing said:


> At one point in the past we had a 'PHB' theme, which was very much pale yellow and light brown and was quite appealing.




Loved the PHB theme back in the day!


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## DragonLancer

The black is far better both on the eyes and in appearance. The white is just too much.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Tilenas said:


> Thank the powers I'm back in black. And for the record, most of the sites I frequent are done in a black colour scheme: metalstorm, gamebanshee, ultimate guitar, you name it. You know, all kvlt and tr00, but also easier on the eyes, I think.




Ultimate Guitar?  The UK site?  It's black on pale grey for me...


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## Glade Riven

Ow...that burnt my retinas.

Without going into too much color theory, the blinding white and high contrast are great for smaller screens (tablets, phones) cheap screens with a poor backlight, and some folk with really bad eyesight; yet it is lousy for really nice larger screens like what I have hooked up to my desktop (with a 20K to 1 contrast ratio, I've already turned the darn thing down quite).


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## Ashtagon

Yeah, it probably isn't the sort of colour scheme associated with workplace-approved websites. But let;'s face it -- this isn't the sort of site you should be browsing at work anyway, unless you work in the games industry of course. The "work-safe" scheme should be the option, not the default.

As for modern sites, the majority these days (even some sites I have to use for work) seem to favour some kind of grey-on-white scheme, which I find almost impossible to read. I frequently find myself having to telephone their offices because I can't read their websites because of their choice of colour scheme.

Finally, if you are going to change colour schemes drastically, bear in mind that the icons will all need subtle changes to fit in with the backgrounds.


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## Walking Dad

On the PBP sub-forum, we use often 'speak' colors to make it less difficult to distinguish between different players.

These are the most favorite and they become hard to read on white. This would affect everyones abilities to read old threads.


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## Tilenas

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Ultimate Guitar?  The UK site?  It's black on pale grey for me...




I don't use their forums, just the news page, tabs, and of course van Hammersmith...


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## wingsandsword

Another poster here in favor of the black color scheme.

I was gone all weekend at drill with my National Guard unit, and came home and wondered what the heck had happened to ENWorld.  I was thinking it was my computer at first (since if my connection is glitchy, ENWorld will load with a white background, probably since the backgrounds and style information didn't load).

If you want it to be white in overall color, it really does need a total chance to the interface and design, not just a quick palette swap.


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## GandalfMithrandir

Just my personal opinion:

I hold the same philosophy as my cat: change is bad.

Aside from that, the white background really hurts my eyes on the 22 inch monitor I have, which wouldn't be so much of an issue on a smaller screen. I also think a little more contrast would be a good thing.

HOWEVER I'm happy that I have the option to switch it back to black so I won't complain about it too much


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## Umbran

There is usually a tendency for folks to respond instantly, and then the message is "change is bad".

I'm going to try living with the white for a couple of days, and then decide what I think of it.


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## Crazy Jerome

What are the chances that the CSS file had something in it besides color changes?

Reason I ask is that I was away from the site for a few days when the switch happened. When I came back and found the switch, I also stopped getting screen freezes and other glitches, that had been plaguing me with ENWorld for some time. (It isn't just ENWorld. But the other sites that do it are obviously using heavy scripting or CSS.) My browser is usually IE 8 or IE 9.  I had assumed previously that my troubles were because of the usual Microsoft bloat.

I have a hard time believing that a simple color change could be that drastic in performance. Of course, it could simply be coincidence, but I doubt it. ESPN still freezes me out something awful. 

For whatever reason, I'd sure like to have the option to continue using this scheme going forward. Faster loads makes up rapidly for a bit excessive brightness.


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## IronWolf

Crazy Jerome said:


> What are the chances that the CSS file had something in it besides color changes?




The CSS is in this post I believe.


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## Siberys

I wouldn't think CSS would do that. It's a formatting language, it only changes how things look. PHP might, though...


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## UnknownAtThisTime

Strangely, on my laptop, my background is still the same black it has always been, and I have never knowingly altered any settings for it.

However, on my iPad, the forum did go white a few days ago, and still is.

So I have been reading both ways for the last couple days.  Still prefer the black, which is somewhat strange since I normally like reading on white backgrounds.


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## GameDaddy

+1 on the new whiteboard look. The editor is still inblack though...


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## Baumi

I thought the site is broken at the moment and cannot load completely 

Anyway, I like when sites change from time to time (keeps things fresh) but at the moment it looks wrong.


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## Jupp

The bright background with dark text is certainly better to read on my tablet. Especially when sitting on th balcony with alot of ambient light on a bright sunny day.


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## jaerdaph

Having a choice between color schemes is great, but having that choice remembered between logged in sessions would be even better.


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## Tharian

Count me among those in favor of the dark color scheme.  It's much easier on my eyes, particularly since I tend to visit the site late in the evening and frequently have the overhead lights off.  The bright white caused a lot of eye strain when it first loaded and was quickly changed back when I learned of the option to specify the darker scheme.


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## ssampier

I actually like the new white background. I think some of the reaction can stemmed from "change is bad". Also most corporate websites have white backgrounds, so having a black background is a bit of a hobbyist or anti-corporate message (En World is very much the former, not as much as the latter).

For me, although I like the white, the site now has too much blue. Links are blue, text is blue, headings are dark blue, etc.

I think the hyperlink colors should be changed to something other than blue. Or, better yet, change most text to regular black (hexadecimal #000) or very dark gray (#333 looks okay).


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## Dannyalcatraz

> I think some of the reaction can stemmed from "change is bad".




Some, yes, but my retinas were BURNED, sir!  I'm now reading & typing this on my iTouch by eBraille (_*shhhh*_ don't think about it) while awaiting the arrival of some new retinas to transplanted from specially cultivated orangutans!


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## Dannyalcatraz

Jupp said:


> The bright background with dark text is certainly better to read on my tablet. Especially when sitting on th balcony with alot of ambient light on a bright sunny day.




Huh- I'll give that a try sometime when I'm stuck waiting for my mom to come out of the umpteenth store on the 3rd shopping trip of the week!


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## Scott DeWar

good thing you love your mom!


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## RangerWickett

After several days of trying out the two options, I much prefer the original color scheme, and would love it if it were set as the default, because my campus's computers don't save cookies.


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## Scott DeWar

perhaps sunglasses?


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## Siberys

The old theme is more consistent, too. If the white theme had the same level of care put into it, then it might be preferable, but as it is it just looks bad.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Scott DeWar said:


> perhaps sunglasses?




I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
Read ENWorld
Without wrecking my eyes
And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
Keep track of the XP on this site...


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## Walking Dad

Siberys said:


> The old theme is more consistent, too. If the white theme had the same level of care put into it, then it might be preferable, but as it is it just looks bad.




This. Also selecting some inter active parts turn them white = invisible on a white screen.

I prefer black, but bright is fine, but not just white without any consistent color scheme.


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## Dannyalcatraz

You know why they say...once you've gone black, you never go back!*









* for backgrounds, of course- what did you think I meant?


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## Baumi

Will the color-sheme be fixed? It is in this state for quite a while now and it still looks like it the Website is "Under Construction" with nearly all the links just floating around.

I don't have anything against a brighter colore-sheme, but it needs to be worked over with some lines, alternate row-backgrounds or something, so that it looks more like it has some structure.


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## PaulofCthulhu

I've currently reset my view back to black but lighter colour schemes don't have to be dazzling.


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## IronWolf

Baumi said:


> Will the color-sheme be fixed? It is in this state for quite a while now and it still looks like it the Website is "Under Construction" with nearly all the links just floating around.




You can change back to the Black theme in the drop down box on the lower left of the page.


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## Morrus

Thanks for all the feedback, guys - it proved useful!

The feedback was overwhelmingly against the new white theme (with a few exceptions), so we're going back to the default black!

Thanks again for letting us know what you thought!  It helps us make these decisions.


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## AeroDm

Morrus said:


> Thanks for all the feedback, guys - it proved useful!
> 
> The feedback was overwhelmingly against the new white theme (with a few exceptions), so we're going back to the default black!
> 
> Thanks again for letting us know what you thought!  It helps us make these decisions.



I generally dug the white. Then I hit refresh and the black came storming back and I realized I actually sort of missed the black. Long live black.


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## Baumi

Thanks!


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## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> Thanks for all the feedback, guys - it proved useful!
> 
> The feedback was overwhelmingly against the new white theme (with a few exceptions), so we're going back to the default black!
> 
> Thanks again for letting us know what you thought!  It helps us make these decisions.




[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Av9SSPuzE&feature=youtube_gdata_player]AC/DC - Back in Black - YouTube[/ame]


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## Arkhandus

Huzzah!  My retinas will thank you as soon as they've recovered from the searing white background.

At least now the brighter colors used by some of us in PbP and other threads over the past several years will no longer be invisible, with the good ol' dark background restored.  Needing to change my background settings every single time I visit the site was gonna be tediously annoying.


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