White on black

Ben Breeg

Why oh why do some websites insist on using white or light coloured text on a black or dark coloured background; it really screws my eyes up! What is wrong with the normal dark text on light background? Come on guys, you know who you are it's not bloody nice. http://uk.movies.yahoo.com[^]/ http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/156248/20110602/nasa-space-shuttle-atlantis-launch-pad-39a-kennedy-space-center-florida-endeavour-earth-internationa.htm[^] to name just a couple.

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LloydA111

I don't think the first site is too bad, but I suppose it depends on many factors.

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Ben Breeg

Lloyd Atkinson wrote:

I don't think the first site is too bad,

You're right, the home page isn't too bad, the articles are worse because they use black rather than dark grey for the background colour.

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LloydA111

Surely a black background would look better when used with white text instead of grey?

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Dr Walt Fair PE

That's why they have the little

x

at the top right of the browser or tab. I don't hesitate to use it.

CQ de W5ALT

Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

Ben Breeg

Possibly. My point is, dark backgrounds and light text colours really mess with my eyes especially when going back to a 'normally' coloured web-pages. Light on dark seems rather counter-intuitive to me considering the majority of books use dark on light.

You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

Ben Breeg

Walt Fair, Jr. wrote:

That's why they have the little

x

at the top right of the browser or tab. I don't hesitate to use it.

I know what you mean. It's a shame though, because sometimes I do want to read what's on the page.

You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

Chris Losinger

plenty of people (not me) prefer dark backgrounds - even when coding.

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LloydA111

Chris Losinger wrote:

plenty of people (not me) prefer dark backgrounds - even when coding.

I use text mode regularly, so I'm used to black on white :)

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Lost User

You can't please all of the people all of the time! There are plenty who prefer light on dark. In fact a study some years ago determined that yellow text on dark blue background was the best combination (though I can't remember how they measured best) there are many discussions out there with people trying to find a colour combination for vs2010 with a dark background which they (and I include myself) find more restful than dark text n light background I think the issue is less with it being light on dark, and more with it being not easy to read, for some people. The answer, maybe, is for sites to provide alternate co our scheme CSS files

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Mike Hankey

It messes with my eyes real bad also. I'm with Walt just click the x in the corner of the tab.

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Oakman

I wouldn't do that. On the site I am designing it's white text against a starry night sky background. {grin} The problem with white on black is that it is almost too contrasty. Not as bad as yellow on black but still painful to some. The trick is to tone down the contrast and, instead of white, use a very pale gray. take a look at this list[^] if you're interested in color theory.

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Mike Hankey

Interesting referencing a Hooker, starry night background? hmmm :)

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Steve Mayfield

Ctrl-A is your friend :thumbsup:

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Oakman

she love you longtime, GI

The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.

Mike Hankey

:laugh: :laugh: Haven't heard that in a while.

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GregStevens

Ben Breeg wrote:

Light on dark seems rather counter-intuitive to me considering the majority of books use dark on light.

Back when I was a programmer in Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville back in those days, computer monitors were lit up by vacuum tubes powered by little steam engines. Each of the pixels took a decipascal of steam pressure to power it. A decipascal is what we called a barad in those days, when measuring steam pressure. That's why we programmed in Pascal, back then, as well. Anyway, as I was saying, each pixel took a decipascal of pressure, so you had to keep most of the pixels black most of the time to save on energy. Energy was scarce, because of the war. So that's why back then, most monitors were all black with white text. But it was ok, because we had monitors with little switches to change the text to AMBER. That was always a lot of fun.

--Greg

Dario Solera

I always prefer black on white, but I don't find the opposite that bad. I also think that a dark background used to be better for eyes with CRT monitors as they emitted less radiation. Now with LCDs it's a matter of more or less light, so I guess it really depends on one's preferences.

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OriginalGriff

You were lucky! We used the Imperial measurements, so instead of decipascals we had nartrof units, and were only allowed 80 to a line. We had to save even more energy, so ours were Green on Black - with no switch for amber. And text was all we got: graphics used more pixels so we couldn't afford to run them...

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Gary R Wheeler

In this case, the color scheme annoys me a lot less than the tiny default font size in both sites.

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