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The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

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edbarx
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The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#1 Post by edbarx »

I am the only one who complained that the new "look" is causing me trouble. The problem is that the contrast between successive posts have been greatly reduced, impacting readability. The point that I want to make is that, the new setup is worse than the previous one, because one is assuming that one must have a very good eyesight to view this forum :shock: :?, and this is totally unjustified.

Now, those who feel offended by me expressing my opinion and concern, can start their rituals of insults as usual.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#2 Post by Red-guy »

OK, I have to admit, while I am very happy that the forum is once again up, I am less than impressed with the new look. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for all the work that was done to not only fix/configure/save the forum, I find the new layout uncomfortable and difficult to follow......
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Tadeas
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#3 Post by Tadeas »

It's just a matter of getting used to IMO. All changes are difficult in the beginning :) . After several months of working with this we'd find the original forum difficult to read.
However I'd like to have choice to select a new board style as well, but I'll understand it if the admins have better things to do...
Because let’s face it, the unfortunate aspect of software development is that it involves humans. Mewling, disorganized, miserably analog humans. Sometimes they smell bad.

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#4 Post by Soul Singin' »

edbarx wrote:one is assuming that one must have a very good eyesight to view this forum :shock: :?, and this is totally unjustified.
There's a "Change font size" button in the upper right-hand corner, just below the search bar. Maybe you'll be able to read the fonts better if you increase the font size. :?:

Just a suggestion.
.

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#5 Post by julian67 »

I have trouble reading the new board. It is nothing to do with font size, which is unchanged from the boards earlier form. There are two factors. First the text is no longer black, it is grey on a grey blue background (how fsking stupid is that?) and secondly the avatars etc are on the right instead of the left. It makes a difference. Unless you grew up with Hebrew or Arabic or another right to left language then it is incredibly distracting to have all the margin transposed to exactly the opposite of where it should be. And the margin is now huge, it takes up far too much space. The important stuff is the text, not the avatars so this is a mistake. Even the text in code boxes has gone from an appropriate and highly legible green to some eye-challenging aquamarine.

Example:

Old board:

Image

New board:

Image

It seems that the new board also automatically crops images which agin is fscking stupid. It has lopped off a huge chunk of each of the images I uploaded, which were deliberately 1:1 to illustrate the legibility and margin differences. Fsck fsck fsck idiot fsck cretin fsck moron fsck design :shock:

There's a reason why for thousands of years paper has been bleached white before being written to. It makes the text legible!!

Image

Let's have BLACK TEXT!!!


Whoever is responsible at phpbb for a grey text on blue background default theme should have chillies rubbed in his eyes.

Meanwhile are there any other styles which can be made available?
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#6 Post by jheaton5 »

Julian67 are you upset or is it just me? :mrgreen:
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#7 Post by mzilikazi »

julian67 wrote:There are two factors. First the text is no longer black, it is grey on a grey blue background (how fsking stupid is that?)
Not here. Text is black on a white background (in code boxes) and black on blue for posts .
and secondly the avatars etc are on the right instead of the left. It makes a difference. Unless you grew up with Hebrew or Arabic or another right to left language then it is incredibly distracting to have all the margin transposed to exactly the opposite of where it should be. And the margin is now huge, it takes up far too much space. The important stuff is the text, not the avatars so this is a mistake. Even the text in code boxes has gone from an appropriate and highly legible green to some eye-challenging aquamarine.
I agree - the text is the importnt stuff which is why (to me) it makes sense to put the avatars on the right.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#8 Post by mzilikazi »

edbarx wrote: The problem is that the contrast between successive posts have been greatly reduced, impacting readability.
Can you perhaps elaorate on that? I'm colorblind but I see 2 different colors for posts with alternating blue/light blue background colors. Very simple to see the transition from one post to another here using Iceweasel.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#9 Post by panas »

For everyone that dislikes the new style,
add one of this extension to firefox
Stylish,
Greasemonkey
And after choose one availble styles from,
http://userstyles.org/styles/search/phpbb3
or even better make your own and give us a link.

The default style from phpbb is prosilver, and the subsilver2 is not gone
be supported on the new editions.

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#10 Post by MALsPa »

Not having any trouble reading stuff here. The text here is black. Oh, well the topic titles are blue, maybe that's difficult for some people to read. I'm assuming that would be simple enough to change. The overall blue color scheme isn't all that attractive to me, but it doesn't really bother me, either. As for the placement of the avatars, some forums put them on the left and some on the right and it doesn't matter to me one way or another.

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#11 Post by panas »

here is an minimalistic example with this style,
http://userstyles.org/styles/6821
Attachments
here is an minimalistic example
here is an minimalistic example
debian-forum.png (97.05 KiB) Viewed 28567 times

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#12 Post by julian67 »

mzilikazi wrote: Not here. Text is black on a white background (in code boxes) and black on blue for posts .
So how is this configured? In Control Panel>Board Preferences>Global Settings>My Board Style there is only one 'option' which is prosilver. There is no other place I can find where this might be changed and I am using default settings, as I did with the earlier incarnation of the board. I'm logged in using Epiphany and I've also checked from Iceweasel without being logged in and it's the same. Perhaps as an administrator you have options not available to regular users? I certainly have no way to change these settings.
mzilikazi wrote: the text is the importnt stuff which is why (to me) it makes sense to put the avatars on the right.
Convention in European languages (for hundreds of years) is for the margin to be on the left, and in Arabic and Hebrew and other right to left languages for it to be on the right. Your perception that it makes more sense to have the margin on the right is highly unusual. Excellent examples of easily legible and navigable websites are http://www.debian.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page which use black text on white/plain backgrounds and have a modestly sized margin to the left.

As the conversation on this board is conducted in English, and because the board should be as inclusive as the main Debian site i.e. easily usable by people with less than perfect eyesight, can we please return to convention?

At the very least some Board Styles which allow the users to make the site legible for everyone should be available and ideally the default should favour clarity, convention and legibility over style or anyone's personal preference.

edited: typo sight to site
Last edited by julian67 on 2009-04-25 15:24, edited 1 time in total.
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panas
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#13 Post by panas »

Your request for avatars on the left,
http://userstyles.org/styles/13645
and for your custom style,
http://forums.debian.net/posting.php?mo ... 9#pr225209

As per the images
Is not the style that crops the images, probably the images are larger than what they should have been in first place.
it would require a custom mod in order to automatically crop them to the percentage that fits to the style and our screen.
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avatars on left side
avatars on left side
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hkoster1
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#14 Post by hkoster1 »

@panas: I love what you're saying, even if some of it is Greek to me...
Debian is all about choice, and we should resist attempts to have some
"convention" imposed. "If your right eye bugs you, so rip it out", or words
to that effect (I don't have the Aramaic source handy), but leave others
to enjoy (or merely try) something new with full 20-20 vision, please.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#15 Post by Telemachus »

I posted a very minimal guide to using Stylish in the HOWTO section. Panas's advice here is probably fuller and better, but I figured I would mention it anyhow.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#16 Post by julian67 »

These greasemonkey scripts don't work in Epiphany. I have other greasemonkey scripts which work fine but these ones seem to be Firefox only. Here I am at Debian User Forums using the default Gnome browser and I feel like I'm browsing a 'works best with IE' site with Firefox.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#17 Post by panas »

You have to edit the scripts and change every appearance of third party domain with
forums.debian.net

The examples have been modified for my use,.
On http://userstyles.org/ are the originals witch you should modify
as i did.

prosilver Profiles on left side

Code: Select all

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(forums.debian.net) {
.postbody {float: right !important; border-left: 1px solid #fff!important; padding-left: 10px !important }
.postprofile {float: left !important; border-left: none !important ; width: 180px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; }
.online {background-position: 140px 0 !important; }
}
Minimalist Prosilver theme

Code: Select all

@-moz-document domain(forums.debian.net) {

.corners-top, .corners-bottom, .headerbar, .linklist.rightside,  page-body > ul, #page-body > p, #page-body > h3, #page-footer, span + .topiclist, dl.icon dd, .announcement, .sticky, .postprofile dd, .backtotop, .signature, .postprofile, form#jumpbox, #smiley-box, #format-buttons, h3#review
{ display: none !important; }

.post.bg1 { background-color: #eee !important; }
.post.bg2 { background-color: #ddd !important; }

.profile-icons * { display: inline !important; }
.profile-icons > li { width: 100px !important; }

body, body * { background: none !important; }

.postbody { float: none !important; width: auto !important; }

.row dt { width: auto !important; }

dl.icon > dt { padding-left: 5px !important; }

dl.icon { border-left: thick solid deepskyblue !important; }

#topicreview { height: auto !important; }

code, .attach-image { max-height: none !important; }

* { max-width: none !important; }

p.author { margin-top: .5em !important; }

.author strong { font-size: medium !important; }

dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_read_hot_mine.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"], 
dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_read_mine.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"]
{ border-left: thick solid blue !important; }

dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_unread_hot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"], 
dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_unread.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"], 
dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/forum_unread.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"]
{ border-left: thick solid red !important; } 

dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/forum_unread_subforum.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"]
{ border-left: thick double red !important; }

dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_unread_hot_mine.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"], 
dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/topic_unread_mine.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"]
{ border-left: thick solid darkred !important; }

dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/sticky_read.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"], 
dl.icon[style="background-image: url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/sticky_unread.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat;"]
{ border-left: thick solid darkgreen !important; }

}
Last edited by panas on 2009-04-25 15:35, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#18 Post by julian67 »

hkoster1 wrote:@panas: I love what you're saying, even if some of it is Greek to me...
Debian is all about choice, and we should resist attempts to have some
"convention" imposed. "If your right eye bugs you, so rip it out", or words
to that effect (I don't have the Aramaic source handy), but leave others
to enjoy (or merely try) something new with full 20-20 vision, please.

Not everybody has full 20-20 vision.

A board which is difficult to read for many people is a really terrible situation for any support board but especially for an entity as ethical and inclusive as Debian. It's really important that people are not excluded or presented with obstacles. "If your right eye bugs you rip it out" is not an appropriate stance when it comes to making the site accessible to people with eyesight problems, and conventions are important in this context, even if they are not kewl.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#19 Post by Telemachus »

@ Julian: I agree that ideally the forum would provide multiple styles for users to select from. However, there must be some way for users to set their own styles in Epiphany. We just have to figure out what that way is.

A smaller note to Julian and anyone else with a pixellated avatar. If you resave your avatar (use the same one), that should clean it up. For some reason, when the forum rebooted my avatar grew and became pixellated, but a resave fixed it right up.
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Re: The new format makes it unduly difficult to read posts.

#20 Post by panas »

i edited the above message and added the scripts for use on debian forum.
julian67 wrote:A board which is difficult to read for many people
You can't argue with numbers, prosilver has been adopted by thoose
who want to promote phpbb.
But lucky for us, you and everyone can choose what suits best to his eyes.
A win win situation by open source programmers for ope source users.

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