(Discussion) Text Colors...

[Pbartender]

This is something that's important enough to me, at least, to want to highlight it with it's own topic...

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like to request that people stop highlighting spoken text with color... Or at the very least pick the colors that they use a little more carefully. I myself am having two big problems with colored text...

First, like so many gamers, I've got bad eyes. It is a strain to read text off a computer screen to begin within, but changing the text colors to something unusual can quickly make it almost painful to read. The result is that I have a tendancy to skip over and disregard anything I can't easily read... That's not good for a judge and a DM.

Second, when I browse the ENWorld boards at work, I usually use the 'stealth' mode style to be a little less conspicuous. Text colors that work well with a dark grey background rarely work well with a white background, and vice versa.

Now, while I don't have a problem with occasional colored text (yellow Nos and Yesses for approvals, or cyan text for in-game mechanics, or red judge warnings), the rainbow of in-character spoken tect is beginning to give me a headache.

I'll give a sample of the colors available at ENWorld, so that you can see just how they work...

Black
Sienna
Dark Olive Green
Dark Green
Dark Slate Blue
Navy
Indigo
Dark Slate Grey
Dark Red
Dark Orange
Olive
Green
Teal
Blue
Slate Gray
Dim Gray
Red
Sandy Brown
Yellow Green
Sea Green
Medium Turquoise
Royal Blue
Purple
Gray
Magenta
Orange
Yellow
Lime
Cyan
Deep Sky Blue
Dark Orchid
Silver
Pink
Wheat
Lemon Chiffon
Pale Green
Pale Turquoise
Light Blue
Plum
White

[msd]

Originally Posted by Pbartender

I myself am having two big problems with colored text...

I am certainly guilty of this.

I am glad you brought this up, though, because the only reason I use highlighted text (a bright blue) was because I thought it would be easier for others to read. If that's not the case, I'd like to change my ways so that it is easier...

One possibility (a bit draconian I admit) is to have the judges standardize what an ENWorld in-game thread post should look like (post is titled with the character's name, flavor is to be italicized, mechanics in blue, judge's calls in red - as an example). Another option is for the individual GM to set the standards for his/her individual adventure.

Personally, I would favor the community adopt a standardized approach, but that's just me and I say that because I don't have any attachment to the "aesthetics" of a particular style. In my mind, it's all about readability.

Again, whatever course of action everyone ultimately decides on, it would be helpful if, at a minimum, the GM's of each game thread made the chosen policy public. Pbartender, I'm in one of your games, so feel free to tell me how you want to see my posts...

Hope this helps,
matt

[Knight Otu]

Guilty as charged.
I don't even think that much of the different styles anymore (and I'm sure some people are not even aware that they exist), to be honest. The only one that I would switch to would be Hive (the bees are too massive, making everything hard to read).

I think the main reason to use colors is to draw attention to the text, followed by differentiating between players and flavor. It's easy to do the first just with styles, but the other two functions aren't easily represented. Personally, I wouldn't mind guidelines on color use, but practically any color can look bad on any style.

Edit: Here's the colors per style that I think look bad or are plain unreadable. I suspect we can disregard blue screen, though.
Standard:
Black
Dark Olive Green
Dark Green
Dark Slate Blue
Navy
Indigo
Dark Slate Grey

PHB + d20Modern + Stealth:
Yellow
Silver
Pink
Wheat
Lemon Chiffon
Pale Green
Pale Turquoise
Light Blue
Plum
White

Electric Blue:
Black
Dark Olive Green
Dark Green
Dark Slate Blue
Navy
Indigo
Dark Slate Grey

Hive:
Black
Sienna
Dark Olive Green
Dark Green
Dark Slate Blue
Navy
Indigo
Dark Slate Grey
Dark Red
Olive
Green
Teal
Blue
Slate Gray
Dim Gray
Sea Green
Royal Blue
Purple
Gray

Blue Screen:
Sienna
Dark Olive Green
Dark Green
Dark Slate Blue
Navy
Indigo
Dark Slate Grey
Dark Red
Dark Orange
Olive
Green
Teal
Blue
Slate Gray
Dim Gray
Red
Sandy Brown
Yellow Green
Sea Green
Medium Turquoise
Royal Blue
Purple
Gray
Magenta
Orange
Yellow
Lime
Cyan
Deep Sky Blue
Dark Orchid
Silver

[Creamsteak]

I use strange colors like...
creamsteak
and
kobold

[Venus]

I usually dont have any problems with the colors (except the really dark ones like dark red, which really are hard to read with a black background). I'm using DarkOrange & Magenta, which seem to work pretty good allround.

[Guilt Puppy]

I'm guilty as well. Always.

For one thing, I wasn't really aware that the board had different styles available -- I'm not surprised that it does, as most do, but it still just never occurred to me. So while I'm always careful to be sure my text appears well in the default style, I have no idea how bad it looks in the others.

On the other hand, I do like colored text for dialogue; it's just one more indicator that sets the characters apart from each other. And of course, it's always good to use the full range of tools available -- those formatting options are just one more advantage PbP has over, say, PbEm.

But then LEW is a bit of a different story -- such a wide player base, it's much harder to reach a consensus. There's also the problem of constantly switching party makeups -- right now, Sturm's silver is unique to him, but in the next adventure, will that still be the case? If it's not, then what's the point?

Anyway, I'll keep on using it until there's some sort of policy decision (and I'll definitely use it outside of LEW -- as a DM, I've really come to appreciate my players' use of colored text; years of literature have proven that quotation marks are sufficient to set apart dialogue, but that doesn't mean an extra bit of formatting isn't an even better way to set it apart). But I'm glad someone brought it up, as it would have completely slipped under my radar otherwise.

[Steve Jung]

That's me as well. I use DarkSlateBlue for my character's spoken text and Navy for his thoughts. I've been using the Player's Handbook theme for so long I forgot what the original theme looks like. I'll go back to the default color.

[Uriel]

I use yellow for almost all of my PCs.

When I DM, I usually use orange or lime for NPCs, with the occassional cyan.

[Kahuna Burger]

I use Magenta for all my characters and for major NPCs when I DM, Royal Blue for additional NPCs, Cyan for mechanics and ooc comments, and other npc colors on occasion. And I'm not guilty at all. I know some people are going to use a non standard veiw and if an individual DM wants to ban it in his or her game I'll go along, but as a player and a DM I find it enhances my use of the pbp format, and I like it when others do it.

If you want to set groundrules in your own adventures, I'll respect that, but I couldn't get behind a movement to have everyone use non colored text.

Kahuna Burger

[msd]

I use the electric-blue style so I can't speak to the effect on other styles, but...

Is there a set of three of four colors that will show up universally, i.e. on all the themes? That would (arguably) be a big step forward to reaching some sort of standard.

Thoughts?
-matt

[crueldespot]

I changed the text color for dialogue on my first few posts, but then repented.

It all started when I got the bright idea of copying and pasting a thread into a seperate document to preserve it. With white-on-black text, that is a pain in the butt. So, I changed the "forum skin" on my account/edit options from Enworld Default to Player's Handbook, which is black-on-white. This reversed the color of the default text, but the other colors stayed the same. yellow looks good on black, but yellow on white will give you a headache.

I encourage everyone to take the other forum skins for a test drive before they decide on their own text color scheme. You may decide, like me, to give up on altering the text color.

And the moral of the story is that most good ideas aren't. Then everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

[msd]

Having tested all of the themes, it looks like the colors that are consistently visible under all the themes are RED, DARK ORANGE, and DEEP SKY BLUE. Maybe there are others that I didn't notice.

As an aside, if any of you are using the "hive" theme, I would urge you to get yourself to a fashion counselor...

[El Jefe]

It's so much easier for me to pick up on colored text, that I'd recommend putting all dialogue in e-novels in a different color than the descriptive prose. Here, I feel that the colored text enhances the gaming experience.

But, Pbartender, I deliberately bold my color of choice to make it more visible and easier to read against the default style setting. If that makes things harder to read for you, then I'm doing the wrong thing for the right reason. If you have a suggestion for a better color (other than plain, uncolored, "default" text), then I'll gladly change to accommodate you. Even a simple comment like "it's too dark" or "it's too light" would help me move in the right direction.

[Pbartender]

I don't really have anything against using different colors... A couple of years ago when very few (and no one I knew) were doing it, I tried it with one of my PbP games, and it helped a lot. It's makes it really easy to pick out spoken text, and highlight game mechanics or OOC comments.

The trouble is picking a good color to use, especially when the messages boards have such a wide variety of styles. Some colors obnly look good on light backrounds, some on dark, some look terrible on either, and only a few look good on both.

So...

Originally Posted by crueldespot

I encourage everyone to take the other forum skins for a test drive before they decide on their own text color scheme. You may decide, like me, to give up on altering the text color.

And the moral of the story is that most good ideas aren't. Then everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

I decided long ago to the same thing.

If everyone was using the default, I'd say just make sure you stick to the paler colors... but those are all unreadable on the style light backgrounds.

No offense, KB, but that long speech that Leonard gives in the sewer-clearing adventure took me three times to read through.

Bolding helps, but it's still a strain to read.

I see lots of people admitting to contributing to the problem (I really appreciate the honesty), but I'm wondering if it's actually a problem for anyone else. If I'm the only one bothered by this, I'll suck it up and deal with it, otherwise we need to find a solution...

The solutions would be...
1. Make sure everyone's using the same style.
2. Use only a very small number of colors that look good in everything.
3. Don't use colors at all.

Would it help to have more color's to pick from? PHP allows any numerical code colors and standard web-based color codes. Take a look here and here. There are hundreds of colors to choose from.

[The Goblin King]

I too use Stealth and it is very difficult to read colored text at times. I don't think standarding a color scheme will work. We can't even get everyone to use the same character sheet. I would just ask that people who use colored text stay away from the paler colors.

[Pbartender]

Originally Posted by The Goblin King

I too use Stealth and it is very difficult to read colored text at times. I don't think standarding a color scheme will work. We can't even get everyone to use the same character sheet. I would just ask that people who use colored text stay away from the paler colors.

See, that's the funny part, because I'd be telling everyone the exact opposite... "Use the pastels and stay away from the darker colors"... Because I use the default style with the dark background.