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digitalmars.D - [OT] Webpage design and "Name That Color!"

reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
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.

I don't think the weirdness is from my CRT monitor (yea, yea, it's a CRT, 
"join the 21st century" etc...), because I've checked on someone's LCD and 
noticed the same effect.

Secondarily, any other comments on the page would be appreciated, too. I'm 
not much of an artist or graphic designer. This NG does seem to be a good 
place to get many different opinions on a webpage's design. FWIW, I think I 
may increase the font size slightly and darken the BG colors a tad.
Feb 19 2011
next sibling parent Torarin <torarind gmail.com> writes:
warm grey
Feb 19 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
Am 20.02.2011 03:53, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:

 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.

 I don't think the weirdness is from my CRT monitor (yea, yea, it's a CRT,
 "join the 21st century" etc...), because I've checked on someone's LCD and
 noticed the same effect.

 Secondarily, any other comments on the page would be appreciated, too. I'm
 not much of an artist or graphic designer. This NG does seem to be a good
 place to get many different opinions on a webpage's design. FWIW, I think I
 may increase the font size slightly and darken the BG colors a tad.


Leberwurst (liverwurst)

But I've got dyschromatopsia so I can't really tell.

Cheers,
- Daniel
Feb 19 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Saturday 19 February 2011 18:53:15 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 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.
 
 I don't think the weirdness is from my CRT monitor (yea, yea, it's a CRT,
 "join the 21st century" etc...), because I've checked on someone's LCD and
 noticed the same effect.
 
 Secondarily, any other comments on the page would be appreciated, too. I'm
 not much of an artist or graphic designer. This NG does seem to be a good
 place to get many different opinions on a webpage's design. FWIW, I think I
 may increase the font size slightly and darken the BG colors a tad.


My first thought was white, but it's not a bright white. Dirty white maybe? I 
suppose that it has a slightly beige tinge to it, but it looks essentially
white 
to me, just not pure white.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 19 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
It shows as olive green to me. This is because my monitor has horrible
yellows. I can see in a color picker that it's actually a dark shade
of yellow though.
Feb 19 2011
parent reply Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
Am 20.02.2011 04:55, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 It shows as olive green to me. This is because my monitor has horrible
 yellows. I can see in a color picker that it's actually a dark shade
 of yellow though.


Not really, more like something between a dark yellow and light grey 
(and more blue would result in a light blue), so it's probably a 
slightly yellowish light grey or something like that (R:240, G:240, B: 224).

Probably the color can drive people insane. ;)

Cheers,
- Daniel
Feb 19 2011
parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
No I think what really drives people insane is 20pixel fonts with
super-displaced dropshadows.
Or websites which hijack your browser and do things like hide your
mouse cursor for no reason, disable selection of text, make the back
button useless, add useless integrated taskbars at the bottom.
Feb 19 2011
parent reply Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
Am 20.02.2011 05:39, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 No I think what really drives people insane is 20pixel fonts with
 super-displaced dropshadows.
 Or websites which hijack your browser and do things like hide your
 mouse cursor for no reason, disable selection of text, make the back
 button useless, add useless integrated taskbars at the bottom.


Agreed.
Still, the color looks kind of weird to me. But, as mentioned before, I 
don't really count because I'm partly color-blind anyway ;)

I like the layout, though. It's simple and clean. Looks kind of retro, 
not very web-2.0-ish (with rounded corners and stuff), but I like it 
better this way.

Cheers,
- Daniel
Feb 19 2011
next sibling parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
I like the "Never used a parsing tool?" bit. Seems like something I'd read.
Feb 19 2011
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrej Mitrovic" <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.1819.1298177938.4748.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

I like the "Never used a parsing tool?" bit. Seems like something I'd read.


It really just refers people to the "Getting Started" section (which is 
aimed at people new to parsing) on the GOLD Parser Builder website:
http://www.devincook.com/goldparser/getting-started/index.htm

It's very well-written, IMO. Not pedantic at all, but still accurate and 
to-the-point. A lot of it is tailored specifically to GOLD Parser Builder, 
but that's actually good because Goldie is based on and compatible with GOLD 
Parser Builder (in fact, Goldie used to rely on GOLD up until the more 
recent versions of Goldie's trunk). It was a big help to me when I was first 
learning how to use GOLD and how to write a GOLD-compatible parsing engine. 
Should be helpful to others, too.

I figured a "Never used a parsing tool?" in the nav panel was the best way 
to direct other new people there. Especially since there's a lot in the nav 
panel and I was looking for ways to reduce "Goldie-newbie intimidation". The 
old Goldie v0.3 docs tended to assume a certain level of familiarity with 
GOLD. I wasn't comfortable with that fact and feel it's inappropriate for 
Goldie's docs make such an assumption. Even moreso since Goldie v0.4 no 
longer requires GOLD.
Feb 19 2011
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:ijq6io$in$5 digitalmars.com...

 Am 20.02.2011 05:39, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 No I think what really drives people insane is 20pixel fonts with
 super-displaced dropshadows.
 Or websites which hijack your browser and do things like hide your
 mouse cursor for no reason, disable selection of text, make the back
 button useless, add useless integrated taskbars at the bottom.


 Agreed.
 Still, the color looks kind of weird to me. But, as mentioned before, I 
 don't really count because I'm partly color-blind anyway ;)

 I like the layout, though. It's simple and clean. Looks kind of retro, not 
 very web-2.0-ish (with rounded corners and stuff), but I like it better 
 this way.


Not being much of a graphic designer, that's about the only way I can do it. 
But I'm a retro/simple/clean/web1.0 kind of a guy anyway, so I guess it 
works out well. :)

Plus, I'm a total product of the 80's - ie, curves and rounded edges are 
like totally overrated ;)
Feb 19 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:
On 02/20/2011 03:53 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 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.

 I don't think the weirdness is from my CRT monitor (yea, yea, it's a CRT,
 "join the 21st century" etc...), because I've checked on someone's LCD and
 noticed the same effect.

 Secondarily, any other comments on the page would be appreciated, too. I'm
 not much of an artist or graphic designer. This NG does seem to be a good
 place to get many different opinions on a webpage's design. FWIW, I think I
 may increase the font size slightly and darken the BG colors a tad.


I see it as a very light cold color (blue-green). But this may be due to my own 
bg color (surrounding your pic) which is a very dark brown (thus, rather warm).
And yes, darkening it (more than a bit) would probably be a good idea (as said 
by Jonathan, looks dirty). You can also give a hue to the fg colors; using the 
same one as for the bg always fits; then, you can use a distinct (possibly 
opposite) hue to set an alternate fg color, such as for frames, titles,
whatever.

Denis
-- 
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com
Feb 20 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent "Simen kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 ...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.


Dirty light gray. It's easy on the eyes, and provides good contrast. I
like it.


-- 
Simen
Feb 20 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2011-02-20 03:53, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 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.


On one of my screens it looks like beige and on the other one it looks 
like beige with a hint of read. I don't like it.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Feb 20 2011
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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.
Feb 21 2011
next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Monday 21 February 2011 18:22:01 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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


acceptable


 http://www.semitwist.com/goldie0.4docBeta2/SampleApps/ParseAnything/index.h
 tml


bad

Overall, I think they both look fine, but I think that the yellow background
for 
the sample command line output looks pretty bad. As bright as white may be, it 
probably would be a lot better.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 21 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2011-02-22 03:22, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky"<a a.a>  wrote in message
 news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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


The beige and yellow looks horrible. It would be better with just black 
on white.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Feb 22 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent reply spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:
On 02/22/2011 03:22 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky"<a a.a>  wrote in message
 news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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 

the hue used everywhere else, for instance for titles and/or frame borders: eg 


Denis

PS: example using such color choosing principles: http://spir.wikidot.com/
-- 
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com
Feb 22 2011
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"spir" <denis.spir gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.1875.1298389603.4748.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On 02/22/2011 03:22 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky"<a a.a>  wrote in message
 news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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 

 constrasts with the hue used everywhere else, for instance for titles 


 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?
Feb 27 2011
next sibling parent reply spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:
On 02/27/2011 09:21 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "spir"<denis.spir gmail.com>  wrote in message
 news:mailman.1875.1298389603.4748.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On 02/22/2011 03:22 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky"<a a.a>   wrote in message
 news:ijpvpl$2l8u$1 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

 constrasts with the hue used everywhere else, for instance for titles


 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
Feb 27 2011
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"spir" <denis.spir gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.2005.1298820313.4748.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 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.


Yea, exactly the conclusion I've come to.


 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 ;-)


Ie, "programmer art". :)

I've occasionally given a little bit of thought to a syntax-highlighting 
system that's based more on color selecting *and* color mixing rather than 
just color selecting. A problem I've noticed is that there are various 
orthogonal attributes to highlight on, such as whether or not the text is a 
keyword and whether or not the text is selected. Under every system I've 
seen, each combination (and there's an exponential number of combinations) 
has to be manually chosen, and some combinations end up needing to be 
omitted (for instance, syntax highlighting often goes away for selected 
text). But if each "attribute" could have an associated "color equation" 
(like a simplified version of video card blending modes and vertex/pixel 
shaders, or at the very least, an alpha component), then that could make it 
easier to accont for more combintions that look better, without exponential 
blowup in amount of work. For instance, selected text could be specified as 
0x0000FF with 50% alpha instead of just 0x000000 background and 0x0000FF 
foreground. Or if that caused problems with certain underlying colors, then 
maybe an alternate blending mode could be chosen or even written.
Feb 27 2011
prev sibling parent Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
Here's a small program to convert HSL to RGB. Usage "hsl 60 1 0.5" for example,
where 60 is hue, 1 is saturation and 0.5 is lightness.

import std.stdio;
import std.math;
import std.conv;

struct Color {
	ubyte r;
	ubyte g;
	ubyte b;
	ubyte a;
}

Color fromHsl(real h, real s, real l) {
	h = h % 360;

	real C = (1 - abs(2 * l - 1)) * s;

	real hPrime = h / 60;

	real X = C * (1 - abs(hPrime % 2 - 1));

	real r, g, b;

	if(h is real.nan)
		r = g = b = 0;
	else if (hPrime >= 0 && hPrime < 1) {
		r = C;
		g = X;
		b = 0;
	} else if (hPrime >= 1 && hPrime < 2) {
		r = X;
		g = C;
		b = 0;
	} else if (hPrime >= 2 && hPrime < 3) {
		r = 0;
		g = C;
		b = X;
	} else if (hPrime >= 3 && hPrime < 4) {
		r = 0;
		g = X;
		b = C;
	} else if (hPrime >= 4 && hPrime < 5) {
		r = X;
		g = 0;
		b = C;
	} else if (hPrime >= 5 && hPrime < 6) {
		r = C;
		g = 0;
		b = X;
	}

	real m = l - C / 2;

	r += m;
	g += m;
	b += m;

	return Color(
		cast(ubyte)(r * 255),
		cast(ubyte)(g * 255),
		cast(ubyte)(b * 255),
		255);
}

void main(string[] args) {
	auto color = fromHsl(to!real(args[1]), to!real(args[2]), to!real(args[3]));


}
Feb 27 2011
prev sibling parent Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
IIRC there was a website where you could get two nicely matching
colors for background+foreground by selecting just one color first.
I've no idea where exactly I saw that though.
Feb 22 2011