Why Do The Forums Have Pale Blue & Gray Text ... When Black Text Is Better ?

cascaderailroad

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Why Do The Forums Have Pale Blue Text ... and gray text ... When an all over Black Text Is Better ?

Uncomplimentary colors are very annoying.
And those who are responsible for choosing the Pale Blue ... over Pitch Black ... it's just idiotic to chose Pale Blue ... What were you thinking ? ? ? ?

The text is GRAY

All text should be Black ... all Pitch BLACK

The only thing I can think of is, that the person in charge of overseeing the workers who were making the forum changes ... never even checked and OK'ed his stamp of appoval of the new radical uncomplimentary colors scheme.

Or they were just trying to be fancy schmancy playing with odd colors ... when common sence would dictate ALL BLACK TYPE.

I think I'll just start typing in Pale Blue and Gray text from now on ... just to tick people off.
=============================================
PS: Make the all black font, bolder, or a bigger font ... Please
 
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I did ... but why should 60,000 other people have to fiddle with fixing, idiotic, rude, uncomplimentary colors ... that the fancy schmacy forum creators thought up ?

I did ... but why should 60,000 other people have to fiddle with fixing, idiotic, rude, uncomplimentary colors ... that the fancy schmacy forum creators thought up ?

I did ... but why should 60,000 other people have to fiddle with fixing, idiotic, rude, uncomplimentary colors ... that the fancy schmacy forum creators thought up ?
 
The grey text is much more preferable on the white background, using pitch black text on a white background means that the contrast is greater, thus making it harder on the eyes.
Not all users of this forum are youngsters with 20/20 vision, some of us are getting near or are over retirement age & our eyes have had a lifetime of use, this makes high contrasts difficult to deal with for medium to long periods of reading.
 
I think I have a temporary solution that does not need me to adjust my set or download any addon's to fiddle with. I now have a pair of my children's sun glasses handy just for this web site. :wave:
 
Oh I see: Every other webpage world wide uses Pitch Black type font ... But Trainz chooses to use Pale Blue and Gray type font

Oh I see: Every other webpage world wide uses Pitch Black type font ... But Trainz chooses to use Pale Blue and Gray type font

Oh I see: Every other webpage world wide uses Pitch Black type font ... But Trainz chooses to use Pale Blue and Gray type font

Now it is ever so clear (unclear).

Did you ever hear of "Clear Type", where it adjusts you PC so that the characters are more clear and black (more contrasting).

Black on White is a worldwide standard ... now Trainz has made up it's own little unique, non-complimentary, non-contrasting color scheme of Gray type on White ?

Silly Fancy Schmancy Pants ! See: --->
http://blogs.smarter.com/blogs/cm1.jpg
 
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The softer tones are better on your eyes. The Jet-black on white (or even light grey). Tends to be to harsh on people eyes and can cause things like headaches, blurred text. The Sharp contrast may be better in print, however on screen it's considered a no-no. At the very least it make it harder to stare at the screen for any long period of time (like reading a thread).

And before you say that "every one else uses black-on-white" they don't Google, Facebook, Yahoo & many others use a dark grey (#333333 to be exact); Microsoft uses #4f4f4f, which is a dark grey as well.

This "fancy schmacy forum creators thought up" is well tested & proven theme to be soft on the eyes, cause less issues then B-on-W, and is easier to read. It's an industry standard because it works.

peter
 
If a large group of people have the same problem with these color combinations then perhaps it is not a good industry standard........:o All of us cannot happen to have the same exact eye problems, or lack there off in some cases.
 
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All joking aside I do seem to have less trouble reading the Forum than I did on the first couple of days after the change.

The font appears darker than the original grey and the main background seems to have been changed to a slightly darker shade of pale blue.

I don’t think it all in the mind. I reckon they’ve done something to make it a bit more restful to read.

I reasonably happy with it now and I’m certainly not bothering with any tweaking of font, colours etc. I’m bound to mess something else up in the process!

Cheers
Casper
 
Psych studies show why

It has been proven through intense studies done as the psychology branch of CATU (Crazy About Trains University) that long term exposure to black and white makes every train look like it belongs to Norfolk Southern, New York Central, Norfolk & Western or worst of all Penn Central. This tends to drive mad fans of other railroads and causes strange behavior. :p
 
If a large group of people have the same problem with these color combinations then perhaps it is not a good industry standard........:o All of us cannot happen to have the same exact eye problems, or lack there off in some cases.

In design you will ALWAYS find someone who finds whatever you made had to read, stressful to read, cause other issues, etc. The point in design is to make something that is both visually appealing and is readable to the majority. In the case of this forum; there is about half a dozen (maybe a dozen) people who claim that they don't like the theme; I wouldn't be surprised if half of them are then "jumping on the band wagon" with some sort of placebo effect. However a 12 people (giving you guys the benefit of a doubt), out of the 4,260 active members (that statistic is at the bottom of the forum home page), is a very small group; not the "large group" you think you are.

It should also be known that the people with an issue (with anything) are more likely to say something then the people without. Go read some user reviews of stuff online (amazon books for example); you'll find that most are written by people who have issues with it.

peter
 
G'day,

I have my background set to a pale green with black text, because white screens hurt my eyes, I almost never use the original website colours if I can avpoid it.
There seems to be a fashoin over the last few years to use ileginle colours on a white background. The forum colours are not too bad compared with other sites I've seen. Some have pale gteen, pink, red etc.

Have a good one,
E.C.
 
Still there is a percentage there. It is not hard to incorporate several themes(4 tops, with 3 being the best mix) So the people can decide which is the better of the 3 or 4 evils for THEM. Not all be forced to view something that some cannot tolerate. Streamlining is not the solution, it is hard to keep people in the community who have the problem and most of of who the problem it seems have been the ones that have contributed a lot to the community. The fact that people have to tweak settings in such as screen brightness to view the site is bull, or have to turn to browser add ins/plug ins for the same effect is also bull.
You say people may be jumping on the band wagon to say it is terrible, but you fail to say that the reverse is also true. People could be jumping on the pro change band wagon just as easily for whatever reason, the fact that you never see 4,260 people actively voicing there opinion you cannot assume anything, weather they are for or against. Only the ones who have stated there opinions. It is like saying 90% of the people like the change when only 10% were actually asked or voiced there opinion. How do you know what the other 90% actually think? Sure you can get a rough estimate by calculating how many said they like it and how many say they didn't, and apply that logic to the 90%, but it is still only a educated guess at best.
 
I suppose like many things that change after being used to them we will in time get used to this one too? And in due time when another change happens we will be doing Ground Hog day again- of course?!
 
Sure you can get a rough estimate by calculating how many said they like it and how many say they didn't, and apply that logic to the 90%, but it is still only a educated guess at best.

No different to elections where not every citizen votes, Mr. Obama (like our government over here) was only a guess at what the people actually wanted, ;) ......... but in a "democracy", it's the best we can hope for. :)
 
No different to elections where not every citizen votes, Mr. Obama (like our government over here) was only a guess at what the people actually wanted, ;) ......... but in a "democracy", it's the best we can hope for. :)

A little Off topic, but wasn't the people in the US a little dissappointed over Obama when he came to power?
 
That was my point, there will always be people who aren't happy with this or that, but all you can do is try & get the best compromise for the majority.

Maybe a poll could be taken on these boards by those in charge, to see whether more people like it than don't.:)
 
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