Did the forum change styles?

[vicky_molokh]

Post selection colour seems fixed. Thanks.

[beetle496]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

If the text colour is #000000, and the background colour of posts is #181200 … then webaim estimates the contrast ration as 1.12…

I am so chuffed to see WebAIM mentioned on this forum! But @Polydamas, that WCAG contrast metric ranges from 1:1 (for same color used for foreground and background) to 21:1 (black-and-white). You had the right idea, but such a low number would mean that the text is all but invisible.

A contrast ration of 4.5:1 is widely regarded as a bare minimum. A couple caveats though:

1. 4.5:1 is sometimes not great (see this WebAIM explanation).
2. 4.5:1 is (mathematically) just about the best one can do for three colors. That fact is why WCAG settled on 4.5:1 as the minimum.
3. For readable body text, one really wants 7:1.

Two pieces of good news though:

1. The metric/algorithm accounts for all common color vision deficits. If a designer uses the WCAG formula, there is not an additional need, for example, to account for red/green color blindness.
2. WebAIM also has a three-color tool.

Originally Posted by Aleph

If you find anything particularly difficult to read as far as text contrast and such, please let me know in this thread.

Thank you @Aleph for giving this all due care! Your are in a tough spot! Here’s the confounding factors I see:

1. platform limitations;
2. the design needs to complement the color scheme of the SJG all-seeing pyramid;
3. said logo uses orange and brown, and those two colors happen to be two of the most difficult use online;
4. as a matter of practicality, for the flexibility, you need a background color that provides good contrast for body text that is either black or black.

Here are three tests (curtesy WebAIM), demonstrating why orange and browns are not suitable as a background color for both black and white text. The third test shows just about the only choice for an orangish-brown background that works with both black and white foreground text.

1. black and white text on orange background
2. black and white text on a brown background
3. black and white text on an ochre background

Note that, mathematically, it is not possible to have four colors all with 4.5:1 contrast against each other. For example, consider a middle-gray background with black and white text. What color do you use for links? Yellow will provide good contrast against the gray, but many people will not be able to distinguish between yellow text and white text.

[vicky_molokh]

While we're at it, is there a way to make the alpha channel work properly on the avatar images?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

Does that just reset now, or save forever?

The Edit Options saves forever.

Pretty sure they do the same thing.

[hcobb]

There are accessibility (and performance) concerns with putting the CSS on the page like this.


https://www.nomensa.com/blog/css-inl...-accessibility

[Aleph]

Thanks for the link to this contrast checker. While adhering to all best practices is great, sometimes the limitations we work with prevent it. We are well in the 16-18 range on those tools for contrast on the text posting areas of the site, and just shy of the minimum contrast for links if the links were not underlined to differentiate them, which they are. I'm happy enough with that.

Originally Posted by beetle496

Here are three tests (curtesy WebAIM), demonstrating why orange and browns are not suitable as a background color for both black and white text. The third test shows just about the only choice for an orangish-brown background that works with both black and white foreground text.

1. black and white text on orange background
2. [url=https://webaim.org/resources/linkcontrastchecker/?fcolor=000000&bcolor=964B00&lcolor=FFFFFFblack and white text on a brown background[/url]
3. black and white text on an ochre background

Note that, mathematically, it is not possible to have four colors all with 4.5:1 contrast against each other. For example, consider a middle-gray background with black and white text. What color do you use for links? Yellow will provide good contrast against the gray, but many people will not be able to distinguish between yellow text and white text.

[Aleph]

We have no control over how the forum software chooses to generate the css it uses for the settings we make.

Originally Posted by hcobb

There are accessibility (and performance) concerns with putting the CSS on the page like this.


https://www.nomensa.com/blog/css-inl...-accessibility

[Aleph]

To focus the discussion here, I am interested in reports of people who are experiencing problems using the forums with the new theme. I am not particularly interested in further discussion of web design theory or best practices.

Consider this the 'playtesting' phase, not the 'design' phase.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Aleph

To focus the discussion here, I am interested in reports of people who are experiencing problems using the forums with the new theme. I am not particularly interested in further discussion of web design theory or best practices.

Consider this the 'playtesting' phase, not the 'design' phase.

It is functional and readable now. It's not as functional and readable as it was, for me, but it works, at least for short periods of viewing. The biggest struggle is the extreme contrast of the black background against the now much brighter content, but that goes away as soon as you scroll down from the top so the impact is minimal/controllable - once the black is removed the required dynamic range to view is reduced and becomes less of a strain.

I'll stick with the old version for so long as you make it available at this point.

[Armin]

I find it readable now, and I am using it.