I hope I’m posting this in the right section. If not, please move it where it needs to go.
I’m new to GameDev.tv and searched for this, but couldn’t find anything related. Reading white text on a black background is hard for me. Is there a way I can change the colors of the forum to make it easier for me to read?
I’m not sure this is possible i am afraid,
I remember there being a vote a while back on what colour they should be and this was voted most popular.
I can certainly appreciate the difficulty viewing as i have the opposite as yourself. I have stigmas so white light refracts differently and gives me migranes and blurs/blinds me.
I am not sure if there is anything we can do to help you but thats it why i have tagged Rob as he would know if anyone i think
i’d like to add, sometimes, it is also hard for me, if the room is not well lit.
it can be simply blinding.
maybe add 2 modes of viewing text? no need to add a lot of colors, just 2 are enough .
Thanks for both reaching out regarding the colours used on the forum.
At this moment in time there isn’t a switch that can be pulled to offer an alternative. Marc (@Marc_Carlyon) is correct there was an item brought up at the very beginning when the forum first launched (approaching a year ago now) and this was the chosen colour scheme.
However, the community using our forum has grown enormously since then, and I do fully appreciate that, putting personal preferences to one side, accessibility also has to be considered, or rather, re-considered.
I wont promise any immediate changes, but I will promise that this item is discussed and investigated.
You may/may not be aware that the forum software we use is a paid for solution, not a home grown solution, whilst it is very flexible and has a significant amount of customisation, there are limitations.
I appreciate that you may not experience the same specific issues, but just to give me a little more information, is the main issue the contrast between the white text on the black background? I know for example some websites do offer some accessibility options (often icons at the top of the screen) for text size and colour contrast, but from what I am hearing it sounds like having a lower contrast would work better for you? Could you confirm, and, ideally, provide any small screenshots of alternatives that work well.
The few forums I’ve been on have dark text on a lightly colored or white background so I don’t know if a lower contrast would work. Maybe, but I honestly don’t know.
@Stephen_Crookes Thanks for the suggestion. I’m using Firefox though. I’ll check to see if there’s an equivalent for it.
I am glad to hear that there are some interim solutions available that will make things easier for you.
If you would like to share a screenshot of how you prefer to view the forum that would be useful.
I have spent some time investigating this evening and it would seem the provider of the forum software is releasing an update later this week which will enable us to provide user selectable themes. More on this as I receive updates and have an opportunity to experiment with it.
Here’s a screenshot of the colors I’m currently using. I used the “Invert Brightness” setting in the Firefox plugin to change the foreground and background colors. So far, it seems to be working well for me. I haven’t fine-tuned the results yet, but I will probably try to make the background more neutral. I’m not sure I like the current blueish grey it has.
I have book marked this topic for my attention (so I won’t forget) and will provide an update once we get the update from the software provider and determine what we can do.
We have received the feature update to the software, although it was initially suggested that we had only received part of it. After further discussion with the software providers it turned out that we had actually received it all, but they were not in a position to provide the default customisation for us as we already had quite specific customisations in place already.
The current feature will enable us to turn on Themes which will enable every user to select from a drop down menu on their Preferences. This will enable us to provide perhaps both a dark and light set of themes which should hopefully resolve any accessibility / readability issues for the majority of users.
“Sounds great! When can we have it?”
It’s a little more complicated that just turning it on at this point. Our specific customisations need to be slightly untangled in order to work smoothly with the new themes feature, I am planning on discussing this with the team on Monday and will, of course, provide an update here afterwards.
Sorry to be late in replying. Been pretty busy this past week.
This is great news! I’ll be waiting patiently for the feature to be activated. I used to maintain a forum so I know how complicated it can be to get a new feature going so don’t worry about how long it takes.
Okay, you should be able to choose a light theme now. Let me know if it works for you. I haven’t been able to test across the site so there might still be some issue.
Just head to your profile then change the theme to “GameDev Light” in the “Interface” section.