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Flash
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#41 Post by Flash »

My old eyes find any color text on a black or dark background to be nearly impossible to read. Sometimes, if I'm in a good mood, I copy the text and paste it into a word processor so I can read it. Mostly I just close that page and read something else instead. Black text on a white or light green or yellow background is the most readable for me.

If you youngsters don't want us old fuddys to read your stuff, use red letters on a black background. If you're asking me to send you some money, better use black ink on a white background. :lol:

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pakt
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#42 Post by pakt »

From one old fuddy to another - nicely put Flash :)

To others who find a 'white' background too bright - so do I. The recommendations are for dark text on a light - not white - background. Nowhere does it say you should use a 'white' background (re-read the quotes I gave earlier). The 'earlgrey' image I posted earlier in this thread is about as bright as I would want a background to be. Normally I use a somewhat darker colored image which still gives me good contrast with dark text and the desktop icons. I also have my LCD panel's brightness set quite low.

Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux

Sage
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#43 Post by Sage »

Extremely unusual for a Swede to reject the eco-friendly option! I might have to report you to the eco-warriors, pakt! Black = OFF. Less power, less landfill. Quite apart from the fact that a black background is more restful to the eyes. But if you must ape conspicuous consumption, try a very dark blue. The entire argument is spurious, anyway, since most active time is spent looking at coloured images rather than the desktop or a blank screen screensaver.

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pakt
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#44 Post by pakt »

Sage wrote:Extremely unusual for a Swede to reject the eco-friendly option! I might have to report you to the eco-warriors, pakt! Black = OFF. Less power, less landfill.
Quite the contrary, Sage. On a TFT panel the back light is on whether your background is light *or* dark. It's the back light that uses the most power in a TFT panel. Otherwise I have my panel set to standby after 20min of unuse *then* the back light turns off. Ergo my electricity bill isn't any higher than your's ;)
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux

Sage
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#45 Post by Sage »

It's not only the cold cathode tubes that consume power, each pixel is one (or three, depending how you count them) transistors - even at the pico-Ampere level each, that's still a significant total when summed over all units, over the year. The case for crt s, still used by the majority around the world, is even more compelling, even though the guns are still, technically, ON.

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mysticmarks
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spliting hairs

#46 Post by mysticmarks »

Dont split hairs over readability. Each eye is different, i like bright backgrounds with dark text if i'm in the office or in daylight, but i like dark backgrounds with green or white text at night. In reality all screens cause eye strain due to the lack of depth and the eye not trying to change focus from far and near. Your iris starts to atrophy after a few hours. This is a repetative issue for any long term computer user. The best thing to do ergonomically is focus on objects other than the screen at different distances at a 10 minute interval or less. You are basically working your eye muscles. After adding that to my pc routine :wink: , i found myself able to look for longer periods with less strain.
As far as i can tell ,this whole conversation started from a question as to what backgrounds Barry was looking for to include in 2.16. They all look neat, but size and ability to see icons are key elements. IMHO, a gray background just lacks that warm feeling of a user friendly distro. Simple colors w/ nice gradients would be far more friendly. Maybe pastel hues of a few colors such as red, green, blue, yellow, whatever and have them gradiented down to a black, and also to a white. im betting that a pastel green or purple would look nice against black or white. Yellow and orange would look great with white, and red or blue with black. (color wheel says they all work, but who cares) I do graphics/CAD for a living, so I will throw some together if needed. I just do that stuff all day :? , so i kind of look forward to the applications end of my linux time. :D

The best part is that there are so many ways to add depth to a image with gradients, and all in a very small file. :)

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pakt
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Re: spliting hairs

#47 Post by pakt »

mysticmarks wrote:I do graphics/CAD for a living, so I will throw some together if needed. I just do that stuff all day :? , so i kind of look forward to the applications end of my linux time. :D

The best part is that there are so many ways to add depth to a image with gradients, and all in a very small file. :)
Sounds great :) Could you give us some samples (1024x768 or 1280x1024)? You can host the images on http://i1.tinypic.com/ and just link to them in a post.

Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux

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