Variation of "Tropospherical" Site Scheme

[faevii]

Title:
Variation of "Tropospherical" Site Scheme

Area:
site schemes

Summary:
I'd like a variation of the "Tropospherical" site scheme in colours that are easier on the eyes.

Description:
As it happens, the default site scheme has always been the one that I liked best. However, "best" in this case means "just about bearable" because I absolutely can't stand the colours. I love everything else about it, but those particular shades of red and purple both make me cringe - especially in combination with that light grey background.

Vertical navigation confuses me to no end, so switching to Celerity is not an option for me. I really like the colours of that one, though. A plain, white background and a shade of green that's easy on the eyes - awesome!

It would be neat if there was a version of Tropospherical that had a white background as well, maybe combined with a similarly muted colour as Celerity - it doesn't have to be green; I'd suggest blue or brown, for example. Even the default red would look better without the grey.

I'm curious - does anybody actually *like* these schemes as they are?? Could one of them perhaps be replaced? If not, what do you think about adding a third option? I know I'm not the only one who has a problem with the colours; I've come across several comments by random people complaining about them off-handedly.

Poll #4244 Variation of "Tropospherical" Site Scheme

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
28 (56.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
8 (16.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
13 (26.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.0%)

Comments

[denise]

Color is a really personal thing. I know a lot of people who love the Tropo colors, and a lot of people who hate them :) (The Tropo Purple was added before any of the other site schemes, because someone made us aware that in her culture, the only time names were ever written in red were the names of the dead, and therefore looking at her profile was creeping her out because it was telling her subconscious that all of her friends were dead!)

We're not averse to adding other color verions of our existing site schemes, but we'll have to do some major tweaking, because having too many options for site skin will overwhelm people -- that's a case of having too much choice. Can I suggest that you try the Firefox extension "Stylish", in the meantime? That will let you 'skin' the site a lot easier. ninetydegrees has made some Dreamwidth Stylish extensions that play with color a bit.

[faevii]

Heh. I know about Stylish, but I'm reluctant to use it because for some reason the thought of "not seeing the REAL site" makes me uncomfortable. It's totally silly. >.< (Plus I already have so many extensions and I fear that one day my computer will explode if I keep adding more.)

I more or less expected you to say exactly that. Because it does make sense. *sigh* If only the purple weren't so dark and the red didn't clash with the grey ... but, you know, since this is Dreamwidth were talking about here, I can actually see that "major tweaking" you mentioned happening one day. :)

[inarticulate]

I'm curious - does anybody actually *like* these schemes as they are??

Yep! I'm not averse to more color schemes, but I would be very, very sad if either of the two Tropo schemes were taken away to be replaced by others.

[tree]

same here. well, i like tropo purple. and the main reason i like it is because the background isn't white. i have a really hard time looking at large areas of screen that are white. "easier on the eyes" is a relative term.

[apis_mellifera]

I really really really love being able to have a purple option for the site skin. I would be very sad if it went away.

[musyc]

does anybody actually *like* these schemes as they are??

I love the purple. I love the white space. I love having entries that aren't a billion characters wide because liquid layouts and widescreen monitors Are Not Friends. :)

[jeeps]

I use tropo red, and I think it's gorgeous, actually. it makes me ridiculously happy, even though it took me a little while to get used to it after years on lj. not a huge fan of tropo purple, though, mostly because I don't like the particular shade of the darker purple. but I don't think it can hurt to have one or two more tropo schemes, particularly one that uses a plain white bg.

[denise]

The reason none of the Tropos use a white background (and the reason why originally the text was a very dark grey, not black) is because reading text that's pure black-on-white frequently can trigger ocular migraines with large amounts of whitespace, which pages have.

[allchildren]

I use Celerity because white backgrounds are a must for me, and I also prefer the font. But I often find the green butt-ugly, and it bothers me that for some reason font frippery often doesn't show up. I know DW doesn't want to look just like LJ, but that's one of the few areas where I really feel LJ has a waaaay better thing going.

[elf]

I love Tropo purple, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if it got swapped out with blue or green or something more neutral. (I'd prefer it to stay purple, though.)

I think it'd be lovely if Tropo could be offered in your choice of, oh, a dozen colors. But I suspect that'd be a nightmare to code and fail the "don't give people too many confusing options" test.

[kate_nepveu]

I hate that Tropo doesn't CHANGE COLORS for visited links, which I consider absolutely basic web design. But otherwise I like Tropo Purple.

[noracharles]

I use Celerity, and I hate that it doesn't change colors for visited links.

I like that it has muted colors and nothing pops up or moves around. I tried using Lynx, but I could never find anything on the site, and for the longest time I thought dreamwidth didn't have any site navigation menu.

My dream site scheme would have the layout of Celerity and the colors of Lynx.

[melannen]

Okay, so what precipated me asking for this is two posts fluffyllama made about how she'd like to use DW more but the colors literally hurt her.

Here's her LJ post on trying DW again which doesn't go into detail, but has three other people in comments describing similar problems.

Here's the thread on her DW post about layouts and site schemes, in which she and trobadora gave me a little more detail on what exactly their difficulties are.

I've seen complaints about the default site scheme, on the level of "this is why I can't move there", come up before; those were just the ones I could easily link to. (I personally have grown quite fond of Tropo Red, but I have to confess that if there was a more boring scheme I would probably jump on it.)

ETA: and I agree about visited links, too - I keep a special bookmarklet just so I can strip out all the styling when I'm working through a long list of links, but it would be really nice if I didn't have to.

[noracharles]

Yes, seconding this. I often see people comment that they hate reading fic on dw because "the red" hurts their eyes, and they would never get a journal here.

I try telling people that if they set up an OpenID they can view all journal pages in their own style without having a regular account, but honestly that is a huge barrier to participation. Only very few people think setting up their own style is fun.

[eruthros]

More anecdata: I also have a lot of trouble reading both Tropo site schemes because of the background color; they both give me headaches. I ended up using Celerity mostly because it was the only site scheme that didn't make my brain hurt, not because Celerity is my favorite color or layout or anything.

[zvi]

+1 I didn't quite get into headache territory, but it was actually really depressing.

[msilverstar]

I need better contrast too, at least a white background. And an option to set a larger default font!! (Middle-aged eyes, lots of squinting)

[sky]

does anybody actually *like* these schemes as they are??

I'm not terribly attached to it, but I do like the red/grey/black of Tropo Red, yes. Also the black on grey text saves my eyes; reading black on white gives me a terrible headache.

[zaluzianskya]

Tropo Purple is the only sitescheme I can bear to use. Tropo Red hurts my eyes, Celerity has vertical navigation which is a no-no, and the others are too dark.

Actually, a horizontal-navigation version of Celerity would be really awesome!

[cesy]

I love Tropo Purple, but having another colour option or a Celerity horizontal sounds sensible.

[dancing_serpent]

I'd take greens and blues in a heartbeat! Every time I try switching to Celerity, I go back right away - like you, the vertical navigation confuses me to no end. Too cluttered. I love my horizontal dropdown menus.

[noxie]

I actually like Tropo Red, it looks good on my screen and doesn't hurt my eyes at all. But having one more color scheme for Tropo surely wouldn't hurt. :)

[jumpuphigh]

I have used Tropo Red since the beginning and really like it. Just this week, I switched to Tropo Purple which is easier on my eyes but I don't find as appealing. None of the rest work for me for varying reasons. I would have loved to have had a few more choices that could potentially work.

[sorchasilver]

Both Tropo versions are painful for me to look at (I don't get migraines or anything, but they strain my and I get a tension headache after a few minutes on them). I have to use Celerity, not because I like it (the vertical navigation bugs me constantly), but because it's the only one my eyes can stand for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

If there was a version of Tropo with more muted colours, I would love that!

[gnomad]

An excellent suggestion! And I say that mostly because I had the comment form up yesterday ready to make the same one.

I personally am neutral to the Tropospherical colors (I think this is in large part because my eyes read the background gray as white), but I have seen several people complain that their main barrier to joining DW is the site scheme colors. I don't know what kind of complexity is involved with changing the site colors, but if there are a whole mass of people that can be driven to DW just by changing a couple of colors, that seems to be the kind of low cost/high reward fix that makes everyone happy (to the extent that everyone can be happy at the same time on the internet).

And I have to admit, if there were a more neutral site scheme available, I might switch to it. Something with the layout of tropospheric, but in more neutral colors, like the OP suggested, would be perfect.

[denise]

We will not be changing the default site scheme.

[matgb]

My with changes, also posted to a different, similar, solution.

KEep the number of basic site schemes as is, but allow users to define colours. Make the colours variables in the backend and then people can make the site look like whatever they want with no extra work.

[arethinn]

I'm OK with Tropo Purple, but like you (and similar to the other poster who suggested something similar a few posts before this), I'd be happy if there was another, mellower choice.

[solitarywalker]

i can't say i *like* any of the existing schemes, but i think replacing any of them would be a mistake. My own tastes aside, there are surely people who like, prefer, and use each of the options. Taking away their favourite would justifiably anger them.

i would like to see Tropospherical in muted colours. i like a grey background, but that red (or purple) is harsh.

i use Celerity; Lynx is the best looking, i think, but too hard to use, at least for someone new to DW.

A bit off-topic but I'm curious: why are "schemes" and "styles" seperate things? It's confusing having to choose the appearance of some pages in one place and other pages in another place, and it's odd that you can customize your journal/reading pages but not your profile page. Granted it would be a lot of work, but eliminating schemes & making all pages succeptible to styles would be a great improvement.

[cesy]

There is a plan in progress to improve your last point, actually - eventually you will be able to apply your style to most site scheme pages such as profiles.

[gossymer]

How about these?



More greyed (could be a beige grey otherwise for background)


An old alternate site scheme mockup I did last year with alternate colors:

[faevii]

I really like the first one, FWIW. But it doesn't look like we're going to get new sites schemes anytime soon. :(

[inner_v0ice]

I was pointed over here after making a comment on charmian's post on styles. I'll copy & paste my comment here:

I find the choice of site skins a bit unsatisfactory, probably because I'm so completely used to the look of the comment pages on LJ (full-screen, black-on-white, sans-serif). Also, I don't really understand the particular design choices behind those differences from LJ's look.
--Why does Celerity eat < small > tags? It's a very pretty black-on-white sans-serif skin, but I cannot live without my < small > tags. (apparently, this tag is a "bad/old tag" that has been left behind as Web Design Marches On? Is that why Celerity doesn't recognize it?)
--Why does light style/Lynx have serifs? I so infrequently see serifs online that it kind of weirds me out. Also, since not-properly-loaded pages also show up as black-serifs-on-white on my browser, pages in Lynx look unsettlingly not-properly-loaded or sort of unfinished.
--I've settled on Tropospherical Red as the closest to the LJ comment page look, but I'm not a huge fan of the light-gray background. It's perfectly readable, but feels very slightly...murky? Dark?

Aaaand that's my two cents on the subject of DW's aesthetics. ^_^;;;

[matgb]

Why does light style/Lynx have serifs?

It doesn't. Neither, IIRC, does Celerity.

However, most browsers defualt to using a serif font unless told not to, and Lynx, specifically, is set to not do anything to the text that isn't needed, therefore it doesn't override your personal preferences in your personal browser.

Go into settings (in Firefox it's Tools/Options/Content) and change it to your preferred font, standard is Verdana.

Small is deprecated and ideally shouldn't be used (I have the same problem with older posts), you should use [span style="font-size:smaller;"], although I do that using a class and put the smaller into my CSS, then, I don't use site scheme pages.

I do think there's a case for a few standard classes to be used for markup purposes, smaller and larger would be two.

FWIW, one of the things I most hate about LJ is the full screen whiteness, it gives me a small headache if I look too long, so I switch to style=mine if I need to and can. However, my mild headache is nothing compared to the full on migraines it can prompt in some people, the slightly paler gray on Tropo was chosen as it's as close to white as it can be without causing those migraine headaches in those who suffer them.

I think we definitely need to rethink the way site schemes are done though, I'm seeing that there's no way to please everyone without masses of work on individual schemes. I shall submit my ideas soon.