[OT] Round 2: Webpage design and "Name That Color!"

spir denis.spir at gmail.com
Sun Feb 27 07:24:57 PST 2011


On 02/27/2011 09:21 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "spir"<denis.spir at gmail.com>  wrote in message
> news:mailman.1875.1298389603.4748.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On 02/22/2011 03:22 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "Nick Sabalausky"<a at a.a>   wrote in message
>>> news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> I've been updating the docs for my Goldie project in preparation of a
>>>> new
>>>> release, and figured the they looked a bit...sterile, so I've tweaked
>>>> the
>>>> CSS a bit. And, well, I think I've stumbled upon a heisencolor...(or a
>>>> heisenhue, rather)
>>>>
>>>> Without reading any replies or "cheating" by inspecting the pixels in a
>>>> paint program, take a look at this screenshot:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.semitwist.com/download/goldie0.4docBeta.png
>>>>
>>>> ...and reply with what color you think the background looks like (the
>>>> main
>>>> background, not the
>>>> sidebar). And whether or not you like it would be helpful, too, of
>>>> course.
>>>> And, strange as this may sound, reply again if you end up changing your
>>>> mind on what color it looks like.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks all for the comments! I've made a few more tweaks, put up two
>>> sample
>>> pages, and would like to get some opinions on if this now looks "good" or
>>> "acceptable" or "bad" (and maybe improvement suggestions for any "bad"
>>> votes):
>>>
>>> http://www.semitwist.com/goldie0.4docBeta2/index.html
>>> http://www.semitwist.com/goldie0.4docBeta2/SampleApps/ParseAnything/index.html
>>>
>>> (Most of the links are broken ATM, I know. And FWIW, "beige" is what I
>>> was
>>> trying to go for with the background.)
>>>
>>> FWIW, the old v0.3 documentation is here:
>>>
>>> http://www.semitwist.com/goldiedocs/current/Docs/
>>>
>>> I want to at least make sure that the 0.4 docs are an improvement on
>>> that.
>>
>> [Nick: I think you'd rather provide a valid email and ask people to reply
>> off list. Would be much nicer, I guess. You can write it down like "nick
>> <at>  site<dot>  org" to avoid spam bots.]
>>
>> I think the intention is good, IIUC, but the choice of colors is not.
>> There are rules and tricks to choose and "marry" colors but it's a big&
>> difficult domain in any case (it's about impossible if you use a color
>> chooser based on HSV instead of HSL, for some reasons.) And there are
>> indeed questions of taste.
>>
>> Just as an example:
>> * main background color less sad (hue=44): #FCE6A9 (or even more rose,
>> hue=33: #FCD7A9)
>> * darken it (L component) for side bar color: #E0CD96
>> * intensify it (S component) for frame bg color: #FFE28F
>> The contrasts are rather slight, close to minimal; do your own trials.
>> You can also play with main foreground color, giving it the same hue
>> (instead of absolute black): eg #383019. I like to also use a color that
>> constrasts with the hue used everywhere else, for instance for titles
>> and/or frame borders: eg #1F3832.
>>
>> Denis
>>
>> PS: example using such color choosing principles: http://spir.wikidot.com/
>
> Thanks a lot for all the advice :)
>
> I've tried your suggestions and I think it does look much nicer:
>
> http://www.semitwist.com/goldie0.4docBeta3/index.html
> http://www.semitwist.com/goldie0.4docBeta3/SampleApps/ParseAnything/index.html
>
> I might try playing around with the link foreground colors later if I get a
> chance.
>
> I think one of the things that kept thwarting my attempts is the
> relativistic nature of color perception. For instance, when I first tried
> your color suggestions ("Beta3" above), it looked very, very orange to me.
> But then I switched back to my "Beta2" and that suddenly looked downright
> green. Then I looked at your site, which seems fairly rosy, and then back to
> "Beta3" which now looks perfect even though it's the exact same color that
> seemed very orange after looking at "Beta2" first. That effect makes
> adjusting colors seem annoyingly non-deterministic.
>
> Funny thing is, some of those principles you mentioned are things I've been
> aware of (like different hues of black), but without enough artistic
> experience, I'll be dammed if I seem to be able to remember to actually
> *use* half those techniques ;)
>
> I'm realizing now that tweaking based on RGB certainly seems to be a bad
> idea unless you really know what you're doing. HSL is definitely much more
> natural to deal with, and tends to fit the problem domain better, even
> though being a long-time low-level coder has managed to train me to
> automatically think "RGB" whenever I think "color". You do seem to be right
> about HSV being a pain compared to HSL: I'd been using GIMP's color chooser
> which is HSV, and the V is a pain when you want to adjust the brightness of
> a light color without messing with the saturation, too. I don't suppose you
> know offhand of a good free HSL color chooser on Windows?

No, sorry (I have left windows for a long time).

You are right about HSV. The point is its V component only covers half range of 
'lightness'. Precicely, it covers from black to the maximal 'natural' lightness 
of the corresponding 'pure' color of the same hue.
It may be better when you're dealing with material (substractive) colors, 
meaning paints. For instance to print it out on paper. Then, the max V 
component gives the pure color you get out of the paint tube. Maybe it's the 
reason why older image manipulation software started using HSV; then, the error 
propagated into newer software (just like in programming languages ;-). But 
it's easy to get it with HSL as well: just set L to 50%; so, the advantage of 
HSV with material colors is not that big, I guess.
But the drawbacks of HSV are painful: since L only covers half of the lightness 
range, then the rest must be covered somewhere (to get the whole color space): 
namely, it is taken by the S component. This means that S, which should 
intuitively allow setting the saturation (I call that "vividness"), in fact 
also takes a part of lightness: when you move the S cursor, you change both 
saturation & lightness! Thus, both S and V are messed up. Worse even, I think 
(not sure) that V is messed up only on its higher part of its range (since for 
the lower part ligntness is set separately by V). I have never managed to get 
an accurate mental model of HSV: what is 'S' in HSV? (answers off list welcome 
;-) While the mental model of HSL is obvious, trivial (for me at least).
To sum up: use HSL.

With HSL component scales, it's easier (not easy) to compose nice looking color 
palettes; especially ones that do not look like a messy (or random) 
/juxtaposition/ of colors: mainly play with S and/or L.
As a side-note, /all/ default syntax-highlighting style sheets I have ever seen 
are horrible from this point of view ;-) (I use much less colors, and some 
distinctions are marked via S or L only.)

Denis
-- 
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com



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