not sure i like the 'red' in thread snippets, seems to be distracting...

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
The Web should not hide its links -- links differentiate a Web page from a document.
It's not so much one color vs another, it's the ability to know what is a link. In a line of black text how do you know there is something to click if the link looks like the text?
Understood. What color would you suggest. I've still not gotten feedback from anyone else
 
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tima

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Understood. What color would you suggest. I've still not gotten feedback from anyone else

Back in the early days when the Web and the idea of linking was new, the somewhat default was underlined blue. Nowadays sites use what goes well with their color scheme. I thought the red that we had yesterday looked great within the generally warmish context of WBF., Even where there is a swatch of links, such as the 'Members Online' box on this page, the red looked fine to me, but I am open to many alternatives.

The other approach is to underline. One rationale for underlining is its support for people with colorblindness, other eyesight limitations., or monochrome monitors. Aesthetically it can become busy, imo.
 

the sound of Tao

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Back in the early days when the Web and the idea of linking was new, the somewhat default was underlined blue. Nowadays sites use what goes well with their color scheme. I thought the red that we had yesterday looked great within the generally warmish context of WBF., Even where there is a swatch of links, such as the 'Members Online' box on this page, the red looked fine to me, but I am open to many alternatives.

The other approach is to underline. One rationale for underlining is its support for people with colorblindness, other eyesight limitations., or monochrome monitors. Aesthetically it can become busy, imo.
+1 though on blue for me for the links. Blue tends to be a positive calm colour and red can be a colour that dominates and demands. As we get older blues and greens tend to become gentler in distinction for us because of yellow discolouring in the eye lens but red still insists. So red highlights overtly for sure and can look good if discrete but a lot of it all over the place can tend to scream a bit.
 
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microstrip

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Understood. What color would you suggest. I've still not gotten feedback from anyone else

Then keep it the old way. In my screen it was perfect, surely others can disagree. But please use a color that does not call for attention or stands in the text. Just Italic would be a good choice.
 
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Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Blue is common.

Hypertext link color code #0000EE
Visited link color code: #551A8B

From the current HTML "living standard".
Thanks Brian. I have passed this on. We should know by tomorrow.
 
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rando

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After an adjustment period, the current way links are displayed became a preference unique to this site. A touch of simplification improvement passed by. I consider it a positive they have yet to yield to fad.

That said, a quiet polling of the continuing to age ladies and gentlemen Steve trusts should set the tone for usability changes. Adding a second theme has become a popular solution to opposing views (pun) where some desire a bit more relief from the page
 

christoph

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Understood. What color would you suggest. I've still not gotten feedback from anyone else
The color doesn't matter too much for me, just make links better visible, please
 
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tima

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W3schools, which some find authoritative for HTML and DOM, says:

By default, links will appear as follows in all browsers:
  • An unvisited link is underlined and blue
  • A visited link is underlined and purple
  • An active link is underlined and red
You can see this in action at another authoritative site:

For example if you have a stylus you can hold it on a link and see the color change to red during the click, then lift the stylus and the color changes to purple.

The defaults are just that, they can be modified if desired.

So it appears that underlining still has sway. The link I created above is manually colored and underlined. Normally the underscore sould be the color of the link. Crikey it's been sometime since I dealt with this stuff.
 

bazelio

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W3schools, which some find authoritative for HTML and DOM, says:

By default, links will appear as follows in all browsers:
  • An unvisited link is underlined and blue
  • A visited link is underlined and purple
  • An active link is underlined and red
You can see this in action at another authoritative site:

For example if you have a stylus you can hold it on a link and see the color change to red during the click, then lift the stylus and the color changes to purple.

The defaults are just that, they can be modified if desired.

So it appears that underlining still has sway. The link I created above is manually colored and underlined. Normally the underscore sould be the color of the link. Crikey it's been sometime since I dealt with this stuff.

W3Schools is an educatonal site / tutorial. You've separately pointed to the HTML(5) living standard, where the Phrasing Content section spells out very specifically:

:link { color: #0000EE; }
:visited { color: #551A8B; }
:link:active, :visited:active { color: #FF0000; }
:link, :visited { text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer; }


We can add the red (#FF0000) for mouse over optionally.
 
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tima

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W3Schools is an educatonal site / tutorial. You've separately pointed to the HTML(5) living standard, where the Phrasing Content section spells out very specifically:

:link { color: #0000EE; }
:visited { color: #551A8B; }
:link:active, :visited:active { color: #FF0000; }
:link, :visited { text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer; }


We can add the red (#FF0000) for mouse over optionally.

Yes, W3Schools is the teaching arm of W3C the World Wide Web Consortium.


Yes it can be a rudimentary change depending on how the site is set up. Browser testing could take longer. The key is is identification of links. I'm happy to see this issue under consideration, almost as happy as I am to be out of IT. ;)

Edit: thank you Steve.
 
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Kingsrule

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Also miss the "NEW" block in red....
 

admin1959

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Hi Guys. I appreciate your input and help. I am in two minds on the blue links. The highlighting of links is an old standard going back to the start of the web, when text tended to be black only on white, and roll over / cursors didn't show a link. So they used blue, or purple on some html, many combinations. And visited links. But as the web progressed, and pages had colour backgrounds, or black backgrounds, coloured link text tend to go invisible, hard to see. And colour-blind folk... It is getting used less nowadays.

On WBF, we have a LOT of linked text, the member names for example. In most cases folk click text or names and pick up the links fine. It can become a bit of a colour mess if we set ALL links to blue.

I'll look into it and come back here to discuss later. Meanwhile I will try and get the drag / copy highlighting to be red again, as that is useful.

Thanks again guys.
 
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Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Hi guys

Julian has been messing with the colors all day and blue is a no go as it is old school as Julian says plus it looks terrible. Presently the links are black until you hover over them with your mouse or pointer and they become red. Can everyone who was interested in having links in red or any color give us some feed back

I feel what Julian has done is very doable and not obtrusive.

So yes or no to what we have done today as well as any comments be they positive or negative. If no one likes it we can revert back to the default as we had before
 
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Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Hmm....I spoke too fast. The links were red when hovering over them but now I see they are black again

If this becomes complicated I feel we should revert back to what we all had previously
 
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