# Techy query about fonts and colour



## Pine Marten (Aug 27, 2019)

The very faint grey font used here (particularly under the thread titles seems fainter than ever. Windows 10 appears to have updated and changed some of my colours anyway and I've been fiddling about trying to get back to my preferred colours but I can't do it.

Have I messed up here because of the fiddling? I am extremely non-techy so I need very simple answers if they exist. Thank you.

If there is a way of darkening fonts here I'd be glad to know anyway.


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## Ljc (Aug 27, 2019)

I am finding similar too, I thought it was just me


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## robert@fm (Aug 27, 2019)

The Firefox browser has an add-on called Dark Reader, which turns light web pages to light text on a black background. I have been using it for a month or two, and find it helps readability enormously.


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## AndBreathe (Aug 27, 2019)

Pine Marten said:


> The very faint grey font used here (particularly under the thread titles seems fainter than ever. Windows 10 appears to have updated and changed some of my colours anyway and I've been fiddling about trying to get back to my preferred colours but I can't do it.
> 
> Have I messed up here because of the fiddling? I am extremely non-techy so I need very simple answers if they exist. Thank you.
> 
> If there is a way of darkening fonts here I'd be glad to know anyway.



Pine Marten, another forum I am involved with has elected to give members a couple of options for how they view the content.  It doesn't support a full set of Windows style themes, but just a couple of options.

A while ago, there were some tweaks to those colourways, in order to comply with some accessibility guidelines which helped some, and impacted others less favourably.  

I wonder if Diabetes UK has any way to help you.


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## Thebearcametoo (Aug 27, 2019)

I would love a night mode option or similar on the forum. I always choose that option where I can as it helps with my visual processing issues. I haven’t noticed any colour changes on my iPad though.


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## Docb (Aug 27, 2019)

I have this theory that screen design is done by trendy young things with brilliant eyesight and very good computers with superb displays. To them resolving subtle shades of grey is not a problem.  They don't seem to understand that not everybody can see the world as they see it or has their level of kit.   A bit more thought would not go amiss.


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## Pine Marten (Aug 28, 2019)

Thanks, all - I found someone's suggestion online to use High Contrast on the Settings thing and that helps a bit, but Windows in their wisdom chose grey font and grey it is and ever shall be.

I think it's true that all these graphics are designed by young Tristrams who have no common sense. We went to an exhibition recently where the captions were lighter red on a darker red, lighter blue on a darker blue, and so on. Mr Marten could barely read them, and I found it irritating. I spent years working in Exhibitions at the British Library, and we used black fonts on white backgrounds. Easy to read. Simples.


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## Northerner (Aug 29, 2019)

I think this is something that @Josh DUK and his team could look into. It's hardly an obscure fact that many of our members do not possess 20/20 vision, for a variety of reasons, and being able to tailor the appearance and presentation of the forum would be a good thing  Personally, I've always felt that the colour of 'clickable' text is far too subtle in contrast to the ordinary text colour.


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## Eddy Edson (Aug 29, 2019)

Northerner said:


> I think this is something that @Josh DUK and his team could look into. It's hardly an obscure fact that many of our members do not possess 20/20 vision, for a variety of reasons, and being able to tailor the appearance and presentation of the forum would be a good thing  Personally, I've always felt that the colour of 'clickable' text is far too subtle in contrast to the ordinary text colour.



Does the XenForo software used here have an option to allow users to customise colours etc for themselves? It seems like it should pretty easy for the admins to make board-wide changes, but I guess it's not so easy to land on something that everybody is comfortable with.


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## Northerner (Aug 29, 2019)

Eddy Edson said:


> Does the XenForo software used here have an option to allow users to customise colours etc for themselves? It seems like it should pretty easy for the admins to make board-wide changes, but I guess it's not so easy to land on something that everybody is comfortable with.


I don't know for a fact, but I'm pretty sure it does


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## Josh DUK (Aug 29, 2019)

I will let the team know if we can make any changes in a future update.


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## mikeyB (Sep 6, 2019)

What I would like that know is that when I use the computer to access the forum, the smiley button brings up a list of forums. All the other buttons work fine. And all work fine on the iPad. Anybody else find this? (Windows 10, dx12).


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## Ralph-YK (Sep 13, 2019)

Northerner said:


> and being able to tailor the appearance and presentation of the forum would be a good thing





Eddy Edson said:


> Does the XenForo software used here have an option to allow users to customise colours etc for themselves?


People used to be able to set font, typeface, size and colour of text, along with background colour. This would apply to all website. Then style sheets and various ways for web creaters to control such thing . And theses override settings in the browsers


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## robert@fm (Sep 23, 2019)

Docb said:


> I have this theory that screen design is done by trendy young things with brilliant eyesight and very good computers with superb displays. To them resolving subtle shades of grey is not a problem.  They don't seem to understand that not everybody can see the world as they see it or has their level of kit.   A bit more thought would not go amiss.


Back in the 8-bit computer era (30 years ago!{}), the Spectrum computer had a tape magazine called 16/48. One problem with it is that most articles were in the Westminster typeface (the one designed to imitate the magnetic-ink digits which used to be printed on cheques so a computer scanner could read them; so-called because it was designed at the Westminster Bank in the 1960s, before it merged with the National & Provincial to become the NatWest) and as a result was very hard to read.  To add insult to injury, they had the slogan "machine readability is all", to which some replied that they should give a thought to human readability.  They saw the error of their ways in the end...


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## Pine Marten (Sep 24, 2019)

I have another question - I've noticed the last few days that when I reply to a post and type @Name it doesn't highlight the person concerned as usual, although it does when my reply is posted.

Also, it won't let me add a smiley, ie when I click on one of the smileys a strangely-mixed list of forums comes up instead. Again, my post looks ok when posted. My non-techy brain is baffled.


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## mikeyB (Sep 27, 2019)

It’s actually harder to read a sans serif typeface. What’s wrong with Times New Roman? (That doesn’t apply to larger fonts, like roadsigns.)


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## Andy HB (Sep 27, 2019)

Pine Marten said:


> .. it won't let me add a smiley, ie when I click on one of the smileys a strangely-mixed list of forums comes up instead. Again, my post looks ok when posted. My non-techy brain is baffled.



I am now having the same problem trying to insert links on the computer that used to work ok.

Any ideas what is going on?

Edit:
And the emoticons are no longer working either.


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## Ralph-YK (Sep 27, 2019)




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## Andy HB (Sep 27, 2019)

Ralph-YK said:


>


Ok, they work for you  But they don't work for me from the selection above (I can generate them using the old characters though hence the smiley). Neither does the link option. I just get a strange 'dropdown' of 'forums'. Just like @Pine Marten and @mikeyB.

Not particularly bothered though, but something needs fixing somewhere.


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## Ralph-YK (Sep 27, 2019)

Maybe it's the OS/brower. Currently on Chrome, Windows 7


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## Andy HB (Sep 27, 2019)

Something has changed, certainly. I use Chrome under Windows 10 and have done since Windows 10 came out. It used to work very happily on all my computers, but sadly no longer for some reason. I've already tried clearing caches and such-like but to no effect. If it was just me then I wouldn't have bothered to keep raising this.


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## Pine Marten (Sep 28, 2019)

Andy HB said:


> Something has changed, certainly. I use Chrome under Windows 10 and have done since Windows 10 came out. It used to work very happily on all my computers, but sadly no longer for some reason. I've already tried clearing caches and such-like but to no effect. If it was just me then I wouldn't have bothered to keep raising this.


Thanks, Andy, it only started a couple of weeks ago for me, before that it was fine (well, apart from the pale fonts on pale backgrounds...) so I don't know what's happened.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 29, 2019)

I had the weird smiley error on iOS a few weeks ago; but it seems have resolved itself now 

Many desktop browsers allow you to set your own visual preferences for text rendering (sometimes under accessibility) to increase text size and contrast. 

Almost all websites designed these days are styled with a separate CSS (cascading stylesheet) file. If that is not loaded or is overridden the sire will display in plain text (which can look a bit jumbled unfortunately depending on the structure of the code). 

A well designed site would be legible even with no styles, and you should be able to increase font sizes and the site should fluidly respond to different screen sizes.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 29, 2019)

For colour contrast on Windows 10, this page suggests that you can set and adjust your own high contrast theme. 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/13862/windows-10-use-high-contrast-mode

The easiest thing though would be for DUK to make the pale grey text display as #333 or darker in the site’s CSS stylesheet.


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## karloc (Sep 29, 2019)

Browser makers are all ways messing about with stuff that can break features on sites. I often have to use different browsers to get sites to work right. Also many features use java script which individual users can disable or restrict locally.

Site designs can often be just bad - but it is just not possible to make a site that is perfect for everyone . It can be very expensive to add multiple styles to sites and most things come down ignorance or money/time or both.
Whilst this wont change colours - changing the zoom level to make sites larger can help with the contrast of colours against background. Also changing your monitors brightness or contrast may help.

I have just checked across Firefox, Chrome and Edge and smileys etc work fine (for me). But I did notice that they all render the page fonts slightly differently, its subtle but some might find a different browser more comfortable.


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## mikeyB (Sep 29, 2019)

iPad IOS13 produced some interesting non-fatal effects when I installed it a few days ago, but iPad IOS13.1.1 installed yesterday has fixed those. They must have responded to a host of indignant diabetic folk


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## karloc (Sep 29, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> iPad IOS13 produced some interesting non-fatal effects when I installed it a few days ago, but iPad IOS13.1.1 installed yesterday has fixed those. They must have responded to a host of indignant diabetic folk


That sounds just like apple. Oh wait ... lol


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