Like the Layout, Hate the Colors

[John Hollenberg]

I like the layout, looks pretty good. However, the text is hard to read due to the colors. Please kill the "coffee with cream" colored text and pick something easier on the eyes. I didn't see a way to change this in the user profile. If I have missed it, my apologies in advance.

--John

[Asher Kelman]

I like the layout, looks pretty good. However, the text is hard to read due to the colors. Please kill the "coffee with cream" colored text and pick something easier on the eyes. I didn't see a way to change this in the user profile. If I have missed it, my apologies in advance.

--John

John, your comments are much appreciated. Michael Tapes has already let me know he agrees with you! The contrast has to be better. BTW, what screen are you viewing it on?

Asher :)

[John Hollenberg]

I have a Mitsubishi 2070SB CRT.

--John

[Asher Kelman]

I have a Mitsubishi 2070SB CRT.

--John

Well, that should be no issue at all. I think you have a good point and we need to work on this.

While your at it, feel free to comment on anything else or to post.

It's my B'day, so i'm off to dinner. Read about meta.editorials. I'd love your comments and feedback on that if you might have the time!

Asher :)

[John Hollenberg]

Read about meta.editorials. I'd love your comments and feedback on that if you might have the time!

Not sure what you are referring to here.

--John

[Uwe Steinmueller]

Asher,

the text is really a pain to read.

Uwe

[Nicolas Claris]

Like the Layout, Hate the Colors
I like the layout, looks pretty good. However, the text is hard to read due to the colors. Please kill the "coffee with cream" colored text and pick something easier on the eyes. I didn't see a way to change this in the user profile. If I have missed it, my apologies in advance.

--John

I heard you!
in the hurry I missfitted a color code.
Now it is the same as our front page as it should always have been.
Hope you'll hate it a little less...

[John Hollenberg]

I heard you!
in the hurry I missfitted a color code.
Now it is the same as our front page as it should always have been.
Hope you'll hate it a little less...

Nope. I hate it just as much :eek: IMO the entire color scheme needs
a radical change. For an example of easy to read forum colors, see:
www.colorforums.com

--John

[Nicolas Claris]

please try to empty your browser cache...

[Winston Mitchell]

I have to agree with John; the contrast is way too soft. Viewing with a 21" Sony CPD-G520P. Resolution 2048×1536.

[Guy Scharf]

I agree the color choices are problematic. The low contrast slows my reading speed as I have to go over the text more closely to read it.

Guy

[Michael Tapes]

Nope. I hate it just as much :eek: IMO the entire color scheme needs
a radical change. For an example of easy to read forum colors, see:
www.colorforums.com

--John

John, Welcome to OPF. Great to see you here, But if you keep this tone up you will be the first to be banned!:D

[scott kirkpatrick]

I also vote for stronger, more primary colors. I don't know what it was like during the first complaint, but I find the present brown text unpleasant to read. I have 20-20 vision and a T43 Thinkpad with 1600x1200 px. The monitor is calibrated, don't know about the eyes.

scott

[Nicolas Claris]

I also vote for stronger, more primary colors. I don't know what it was like during the first complaint, but I find the present brown text unpleasant to read. I have 20-20 vision and a T43 Thinkpad with 1600x1200 px. The monitor is calibrated, don't know about the eyes.

scott
Need your feed back now as color of text have been darken seriously.

And no, Scott, I don't agree with you, this is not the triumph of Design over readibility, if you can't read, design is faulty, then it is bad design.
Besides of photography I run an advertising agency and I spend a lot of time to explain our designers that design is for the service of what we want to transmit, it is not an ART, it must help to be understood.

[Brian Lowe]

Yes monitor is calibrated and all the other blah blah stuff. How about some other themes to choose from?:eek:

Anyway, I welcome the new form to hang out in and hope to participate. Happy to be a new member too.....:D

Brian

[Asher Kelman]

Yes monitor is calibrated and all the other blah blah stuff. How about some other themes to choose from?:eek:

Anyway, I welcome the new form to hang out in and hope to participate. Happy to be a new member too.....:D

Brian

Thanks Brian for your joining us. We hope to be great hosts to you. BTW, Nicolas is a very generous and non-pretentious man and also happens to be a most talented photographer. He rides the waves or hangs from a helicopter to chase $10,000,000 super yachts for their portraits!

Look forward to you posts!


Asher :)

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

1. In all the posts I see, the main text is in a light brown color. (The HTML is too complicated for me, so I can't see why!)

2. If I try to enter "extended" characters (using the Alt+0nnn) keyboard procedure, as soon as I strike the first "0" something funny happens (different funny things at different times). Is this something about this BBS I don't yet know how to run? (I was going to describe the text color as "cafe au lait", but as soon as I tried to enter the "e accent aigu", the system went nuts!)

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

[Kyle Nagel]

Yes I agree, it is a little hard on the eyes, it does need some contrast.

Kyle

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi, Doug
the brown color of text is not an issue, it is normal and goes with the design of the site.
However if, as some other, you don't like it, you may thru http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/index.php down below the page, on the left side, or within your profile choose another style called "NC Black text".
This is for your point 1

As far as your point 2
I assume you're on PC and I have to admit that I don't know much about this. On Mac we can extend caracters with command+ or - if we wish to lower the size of caracters. I've tested it and it works well.

We need some other Windows users to test and we'll be able to see if it is your software/stetings or a general error due to our system.

Anyway I'm sure this issue doesn't come from the color as the color is set thru a CSS (a style sheet) and does not interfer with caracter coding.

We definitively needs other users test on this in order to identify the culprit!

On a French keyboard this is an é accent aigu and this is an è accent grave.

Can you read them correctly?

Thanks for pointing to bugs, this is the only way for us to be aware of them though we've done intensive tests.

Best regards

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

choose another style called "NC Black text"
That worked fine. Thanks.

I can enter e accent aigu (é) etc. fine if I pick them in the character palette and paste them in. But when I trt and use the Alt+0nnn keyboard entry, something strange happens that doesn't happen in any other application, including using the same browser on several other forums.

I don't want to try it here (in case it blows up), but I'll test some more on another test post.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas.

This will be a test of the keyboard entry of extended characters.

E accent aigu:

Nope. I held Alt and as soon as I entered "02" (the code is Alt+0233) I exited the editing screen. I was able to get back where I was with the Back button on my browser.

Here is a centered dot (code Alt+0149):

Nope - after the Alt+01, I popped out of the editing screen to the forum index. Again, I was able to get back where I was with the Back button on my browser.

Again, this does not happen with the use of the same browser with other forums (using different BBS packages, of course).

I'll do some more playing with me in different parts of this forum system, and let you know what I find.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

[Nicolas Claris]

Ok Doug
we'll dig this in the BBS code.
What is you default encoding for caracter?
What Browser/version do you use
What OS?

sorry to be so intrusive but we may have to be able to reproduce the issue...


Thanks again for your tests!

[Nicolas Claris]

Yes I agree, it is a little hard on the eyes, it does need some contrast.

Kyle
I Kyle
you may thru http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/index.php down below the page, on the left side, or within your profile choose another style called "NC Black text".

hope that will make your visits easier!

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

Evidently, when in this BBS system, Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+4, and Alt+5 are shortcuts that take me to some place in the forum (like the FAQ). This is aparently decoded even when it is part of theh sequence "Alt+01 . . "

Evidently the software that is in effect here as part of my being in the BBS system isn't smart enought to realize that when it sees "Alt+0" (all the special sequences begin with "Alt+0", it should ignore other Alt+ codes for a while.

It's not a big problem, as I can put in all the special characters by picking them from the character map and pasting them in.

But it would be nice if that curiosity could be disposed of!

Best regards,

Doug

[Michael Tapes]

I have no problem.

Michael Tapes®

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

OS here is Windows XP Pro SP2
Browser is Mozilla Firefox v. 1.5.0.3
Default encoding is Western - ISO 8859-1

I will access the forum thrtough Internet Explorer (Oh merciful God, forgive me) and see if I have the same anomaly.

Best regards,

Doug

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

Browser now is IE 6.0.

I can enter é, è, ç, ±, etc in the usual way with no problem. Zut alors!

Go figure!

Curse you, Bill Gates!

Best regards,

Doug

[scott kirkpatrick]

Need your feed back now as color of text have been darken seriously.

I've set things to make all the text black. But the color chosen for the site is one that I (and perhaps others) just don't care much for.

A little thing. If you have some control over the forum software, can you include "all" as well as specific page "1-2-3" so that when a thread gets impassioned I can just keep scrolling? The Pixmantec forum does this. I've started looking at the threaded view as well, but that obscures a lot.

Final, really OT question -- Have you gotten any shots of Jim Clark's latest enormous yacht? It was comissioned in Amsterdam a year or so ago, and was the state of the art in automation for a (mostly) sail vessel.

scott

[John Hollenberg]

However if, as some other, you don't like it, you may thru http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/index.php down below the page, on the left side, or within your profile choose another style called "NC Black text".


This does improve readability significantly, but would still prefer to see the text on a white background (or gray). I find the pastel blue very distracting, perhaps because I can't quite tell if it is gray or blue. Don't mean to complain for my first post here (OK, I do mean it :D ), this is just the first thing I noticed that really bothered me about the site. Everything else looks great!

PS to Michael - how is that for stepping back from being banned? ;)

--John

[Asher Kelman]

This does improve readability significantly, but would still prefer to see the text on a white background (or gray). I find the pastel blue very distracting, perhaps because I can't quite tell if it is gray or blue. Don't mean to complain for my first post here (OK, I do mean it :D ), this is just the first thing I noticed that really bothered me about the site. Everything else looks great!

PS to Michael - how is that for stepping back from being banned? ;)

--John

John,

Welcome once again. BTW, I understand Michael's reaction. Actually it is one of the special feautes of this Professional Forum, that we don't want to see people banned or posts deleted. However, the other side of the coin is that we have to let the plumber, who's bent under the counter, put in the kitchen faucet, without driving him nuts!

I certainly appreciate the feedback on type face, the choice of having just black and the testing of French accents (and please someone: the German accents too) on our text writer.

I'll write a little later about the choice of color for the OPF website. It was no accident. Not quite the "Da Vinci Code", but still not a random choice.

Asher :)

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi, Nicolas,

Browser now is IE 6.0.

I can enter é, è, ç, ±, etc in the usual way with no problem. Zut alors!

Go figure!

Curse you, Bill Gates!

Best regards,

Doug
Well
Im' happy that you did find the way to go...
Compliance with all OS and browsers is the everyday headache for the web developper...
Hence this is not our part but Vbulletin work we'll certainely make your remarks about that issue be known to them.

I understand your comments about Bill G. (remember, I'm a Mac user!) why don't you give a try to Netscape?

Thanks again

[Nicolas Claris]

I've set things to make all the text black. But the color chosen for the site is one that I (and perhaps others) just don't care much for.

A little thing. If you have some control over the forum software, can you include "all" as well as specific page "1-2-3" so that when a thread gets impassioned I can just keep scrolling? The Pixmantec forum does this. I've started looking at the threaded view as well, but that obscures a lot.

Final, really OT question -- Have you gotten any shots of Jim Clark's latest enormous yacht? It was comissioned in Amsterdam a year or so ago, and was the state of the art in automation for a (mostly) sail vessel.

scott

Hi again Scott
Sorry to be late but we do not live in the same clock area!

To simplify your browsing, in reagrds to each forum, you have on the right hand side a small buton (like this (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/images/OPF_buttons/collapse_tcat.gif) or like this (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/images/OPF_buttons/collapse_tcat_collapsed.gif) ) clicking them may let you to collapse or spread the list of topics.

Your final question is REALLY OT !!!
however, no I've not been involved in this project, you may see a lot of pictures on the shipyard website http://www.royalhuisman.com/p_mi_athena.htm

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

Compliance with all OS and browsers is the everyday headache for the web developper...
Indeed! An irritating reality to an old standards guy like me!

Hence this is not our part but Vbulletin work we'll certainely make your remarks about that issue be known to them.
Sounds good to me.

why don't you give a try to Netscape?
Oh, I normally use Mozilla Firefox, of which Netscape is the bastard child.

Best regards,

Doug

[Nicolas Claris]

Oh, I normally use Mozilla Firefox, of which Netscape is the bastard child.
Doug
Yes, but sometimes the bastards are not that bad...

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

Yes, but sometimes the bastards are not that bad.

Bien sur!

Best regards,

Doug

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Doug,

Written with Firefox 1.5 Mac:
&é§èàïîôâê

FYI!

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Nicolas,

Hi Doug,

Written with Firefox 1.5 Mac:
&é§èàïîôâê

FYI!
Well! No need to curse!

Seriously, if that was supposed to be:

&é§èàïîôâê

then it worked fine.

(Of course I had to put those in from the Character Map applet.)

Carla (Ka-la Tsu-la Gi-go-ge) says it is a shame that the BBS system doesn't support any Cherokee syllabary font!

Thanks.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Hi again Scott
Sorry to be late but we do not live in the same clock area!


Actually, we do. I'm an hour east of you (but 4+ hours by plane). Maybe I was writing late on second shift.

Your final question is REALLY OT !!!
however, no I've not been involved in this project, you may see a lot of pictures on the shipyard website http://www.royalhuisman.com/p_mi_athena.htm

I've seen those. They are very staid, so perhaps that is the purpose of the ship and the life she will lead. But with all that sail area and a 80+ meter waterline, Athena is practically a Clipper ship. Think what she would look like going as fast as possible in a good 30 knot wind.

regards,

scott

[Jason Anderson]

Well
Im' happy that you did find the way to go...
Compliance with all OS and browsers is the everyday headache for the web developper...
Hence this is not our part but Vbulletin work we'll certainely make your remarks about that issue be known to them.

I understand your comments about Bill G. (remember, I'm a Mac user!) why don't you give a try to Netscape?

Thanks again

I shudder when I have to use IE, but I shudder even more with the idea of Netscape. Mozilla/Firefox seems to have become the de facto alternative for Windows users while Mac users default to Safari. SUpporting the aging Netscape users on campus is a daily nightmare for me because there is quite literally no support for Netscape and ajax applications act very wierd in it. When I design my sites, I check cross-compatability in IE, Firefox, and Safari (Opera tends to behave the same way as Safari - plus those three browsers encompass roughly 99.2% of the internet community).

In terms of the color scheme, I like it but I also find the black text easier to read. Higher contrast for text is much easier than lower contrasts.

As to the BBS code and special characters, is this an incarnation of phpBB? While I've heard of the VBulletin line, I was not sure if that was associated with the phpBB crowd. Anyway, the phpBB modifies nicely to include special characters off the character map, anda the entire site is also easily modifiable to several themes should the admin decide to let the users change as they see fit. (I did not go that route on my forum, as I wanted the users to all see things essentially the same way. Nice to know the customization is there though should I ever want to make it more feature rich.)

Here, OS really flip flops depending on what I am doing (at work) but I use the 10.4.3 flavor of Mac, and Windows XP Pro.

At home I have a Dell (sorry - can't afford the Mac yet), with a 1907FP monitor and the standard 15" LCD for all my tool pads (start menu, PS palletes, etc.)

Man, that was a long tangent:

My main point was that when I uploaded a jpg to test, it worked, but displayed as a link, not an image. This in and of itself is fine, but I would venture to guess that people would prefer to see images inline. I went ahead and changed it form a desktop upload to an embedded image and it displays inline now, but this also would require users to have an online image archive area already. Granted many do at places like smugmug, pbase, dpreview, and a host of others (my own little pond of ppl in SC have unlimited use of the gallery for the time being), but anyway, the ability to embed images from other sites might not be had by all. Just some food for though. (And don't go over to that thread to view image - it's a lame workup that went awry in many regards. Just figured I'd test an image and since that was the most recent one I was working on, it was the victim of the test.)

[Peter Gregg]

I just joined and the colors look like Carmel colored borders with type that is a light version of the border color. They type is hard to read because of the lightness of it. Possibly a black type or a contrasty blue would make it seem a more solid color type font color to make it easier to read.

Peter

[Nicolas Claris]

Bonjour Peter
welcome to OPF!

Read a little above and you'll find how to get easily black typing when changing of style.
Have great time here!

[Daniel Harrison]

I also find the brown text disturbing, I have changed to balck and it is much better. I also did not know that you were supposed to use your real name as your user name- I don't suppose there is a way to change it?
Thanks!

[scott kirkpatrick]

just send an email or private message to michael tapes (listed as a founding moderator) -- he can dig into the database and fix things for you. Apparently the forum software makes this irreversible at the user level.

[Asher Kelman]

We take all suggestions and put them in the pot for any future rework of the interface. We have had great feedback!

After June 7th, we'll close this particular room," OPF, Look Feel and Vibe"! So any new ideas are welcome until then here and then afterwards from the front page.

Asher

[paulhodson]

Nope. I hate it just as much :eek: IMO the entire color scheme needs
a radical change. For an example of easy to read forum colors, see:
www.colorforums.com

--John

Or Fredmiranda.com which I find very relaxing to view:)

[Nill Toulme]

Testing.²

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

²Alt-0178 seems to work. Doug, you remember that you have to use the keypad for these, not the top row numbers, yes?