User talk:Vector Potential/Wikipedia:Reference desk/style change

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Colo(u)r Collaboration - Please Help Out!

New instructions: Use <span style="color:#11AAFF"> NAME OF DESK </span> to display the color you desire, and the desk you want it for. Change #11AAFF to your desired color. I've restored all the defaults for now, after a week I'll recolor all the headers based on whatever consensus exists on the color collaboration page, if you want you can just suggest the same color scheme for all desks, or different colors for each desk.--VectorPotential^Talk 19:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I need you to help choose a color scheme for our new RD style. Propose a new style here by following the instructions below. If you don't feel confident about hex RGB, leave comments and I'll tweak existing styles to fit your specifications and add them as new proposals. --froth^T 01:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Color Collaboration has been BROKEN by recent changes to the reference desk. All existing entries must be converted to be viewable, but it doesn't matter since we have ourselfs a color scheme finally.

Instructions for Proposing

1. Go to Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/colors and edit the page
2. Tweak the options to create your own style. If there's nothing there, just edit the first revision from History to reload the options. The options can be in any order.

• headingbg is the background color of the heading blocks
• mainbg is the background color of the content blocks
• highlightbg is the background color of the "current desk" highlight box in the navigation column
• headborder is the border color of the heading blocks
• mainborder is the border color of the content blocks
• highlightborder is the border color of the "current desk" highlight box in the navigation column
• navlinks is the color of the large links in the nav box and "See other" box
• dottedlines is the color of the dashed lines in the middle of the leftside column

New options! If these are unset they will take default values.

• headertext is the color of the text in the header. Default is #000
• highlightlink is the color of just the current desk's link. Default is whatever you set navlinks
• altshortcut is an option for an "alternate shortcut" to appear in the upper right of the page in case the header is called from somewhere other than the reference desks. Leave it WP:COLORS so it will link here. Default is WP:RD

3. Save your changes. This will not affect the actual reference desks. Be sure to give it a descriptive name in the edit summary.
4. Copy the URL of your revision from the "Permanent link" option in the toolbox on the left or from the page history.
5. Post the link to your revision below using the format started by me.

• For God's sake, do not edit Wikipedia:Reference desk/header! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Froth (talk • contribs) 04:54, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Proposals

1. Basically Grey by froth^T 01:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
2. Basically Grey Edit 1 (slightly blue) per suggestions from User:MacGyverMagic by froth^T 01:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
3. Basically Grey Edit 2 (blueberry blue) per suggestions from User:VectorPotential by froth^T 01:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Green & Purple Mutes No.1 − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
5. Plain White by User:VectorPotential
6. Orangey by AMP'd
7. Au Naturale by AMP'd
8. Peachy by AMP'd
9. Orangey Mark II - Mutes by AMP'd
10. Green No. 1 by AMP'd
11. Slate Blue No. 1 by AMP'd
12. Main Page Blue by froth^t 19:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
13. Light Grey by Xedi
14. Light Blue by Xedi
15. Lavender Purple by Candy-Panda
16. Mint Green by Candy-Panda
17. Blue-ish by Smurrayinchester
18. Simply blue by Jonjonbt
19. Shades of Night by Iceshark7
20. Olive and Cream by Spoonman 10:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
21. Mostly tan, with green sideboxes. Also a maroon border, and blue links. by Nocturnal Wanderer ^(talk)
22. Simple yellow/blue, sober professional. And late. Neil ム 15:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
23. Fresh by ffroth 22:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Comments and suggestions

Leave comments here --froth^T 01:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'd say the slightly blue is the best followed by the grey. I'm not keen on the blueberry. David D. (Talk) 02:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Basically Grey (No edit). The grey is somewhat bland yet not distracting. I find the slightly blue does not contrast enough with the blue links. The blueberry blue is just too dark for my tastes and contrasts too much with the page. --The Dark Side 02:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

  Please, put up your own proposals! --froth^T 07:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• I enjoy blueberry the most, followed by the original greyness. The slightly blue has an ugly inharmony between the colour of the links and the colour of the background. Yuck! I think The Dark Side is right that the blueberry contrasts, but I think that is a good thing for us! Unfamiliar users will be drawn by the contrast, and so be more likely to read it before asking a question. Besides that, I will suggest having unique colours for each desk. Though they should all be muted colours. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

  I've added an example (#4, Green & Purple Mutes) to encourage some colour schemes outside of the grey-blue palette. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• How about a plain white background, seems like this would maximize the contrast between the writing and the backdrop. Although I kind of like the idea of giving each desk a different color--VectorPotential^Talk 17:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• As per suggestion by Twas Now. This will do very well. Clio the Muse 18:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• I vote for Green & Purple Mutes. :). --Parker007 20:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
• Slightly blue for me. Rockpocket 02:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• How about a warm pale orange. I have hexadecimal color editing dysfunction, so I can't draw one up myself, but I might mess around and try to get some example colors. - AMP'd 20:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • So I overcame my inability and edited the page, but I think anyone else who is unable to mix colors will enjoy ColorBlender, which allows you to mix color combinations. - AMP'd 20:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure if anyone cares anymore, but I've been working hard on toning my color schemes down, and input would help. - AMP'd 03:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • The easiest way to do it IMO is to just edit the hex digits by hand. The first octet is red, the second is green, the third is blue. Of course each octet is a number from 00 to FF. You can also just use a single hex digit for each component and it will expand: #000 becomes #000000, #abc becomes #aabbcc. Higher values in a component will add more value to that color's channel. To get an overall brighter shade without changing the color, add the same thing to each component- subtract for a darker shade. Remember your hex arithmetic- 9+1=A and on up. I suggest cooler colors- warm colors are virtually nowhere to be found on wikipedia.. or the entire internet for that matter (with the possible exception of red). --froth^t 19:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Also remember you can change the color of the links --froth^t 20:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I figured that if I changed the link color, people would have to search for the hyperlinks. - AMP'd 20:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Ya'll are talking about making the ref desk have a different color scheme than the rest of Wikipedia? I don't see why this is helpful. Don't we risk making these pages less accessible? Friday (talk) 20:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • We plan to change the colors of the boxes containing important instructions, not the colors of the desks themselves. - AMP'd 20:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• I like all of them except the ones incorporating green, yellow, and the white one. :) Does that even help? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 06:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It helps because now I know that only one of my efforts worked out. Oh well, 1/56 is OK. - AMP'd 02:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, this is a major breakthrough! I found WP:COLOR which has a bunch of color schemes. Do we want to use one? - AMP'd 02:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The white schemes leave the "official" pages looking too much like articles. It seems important for the reader to be able to tell immediately if he/she is reading guidelines or articles. Where the background has a hue (which does seem to be the best way of making the guideline-article distinction) the colour has to stay in the background, as it were. It thus should not be the first thing that one notices. The soft blues and grey seem to be the most effective. (I love many of the other colour combinations, and they would be wonderful in marketing, but not as background to something that has to be easily read. Some of the wild colors are almost painful if stared at for long.) This isn't, I hope, about artistic concepts or abilities, but about readability. Bielle 23:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I added a new scheme, quite similar to Basically Grey, Basically Grey Edit 1 (Slightly Blue) and Plain White. It's a lighter shade of grey than Basically Grey, with a little blue to it. I didn't know what highlightborder and highlightbg were for, so they are blue and green, respectively, I'll change them when I understand what they change. Anyway, personnally I'd be happy with any of Basically Grey, Basically Grey Edit 1 (Slightly Blue) or Plain White, I think the color schemes of Amp'd are too saturated and bright, I prefer more plain color schemes that go with the rest (I remember not liking when the colors of the reference desk template were changed to purple). So, in my opinion, the template should be white/light grey, maybe with some blue (because it goes with the rest) but no other colors. Xedi 23:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so the highlight must be used when a particular reference desk is selected (I didn't read). I changed my template accordingly. Xedi 00:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added another, a bit bluer. Xedi 00:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Did we ever decided which color scheme we were going with?--VectorPotential^Talk 19:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Copied from the archive for continuing discussion.. we need more suggestions --froth^t 15:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

My opinion? Basically Grey Edit 1 (slightly blue), or Basically Grey (no edit). Or Au Naturale (by Amp'd). Guroadrunner 07:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I propose Lavender Purple and Mint Green --Candy-Panda 10:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I like those two schemes-the purple one a bit less. They don't contrast too much yet remain coloured. Xedi 13:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe if the green was less blue... - AMP'd 18:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added a field to the heading to show what the highlight section looks like; quite a few colour schemes are currently missing a highlight colour... Laïka 16:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I prefer simple colours (there are too many screaming websites out there already). So plain white would do for me, but it is a bit bland, as is basically grey. The two edits of the latter are improvements, though. Orangey (plus mark II) is yuk. Green is a soothing colour, but green no 1 is rather bright. Mint green is better. Final verdict: State blue no 1 for me. DirkvdM 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the mint green, as per the reasn above, but its not bland and very subtle. 89.243.56.31 13:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I like green 1XM 21:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

"Basically Grey" works for me. "Plain White" is good also, but could the borders be made a little darker? Think outside the box

Hmmm... Been messing around with Paintbrush by Microsuck. It is unfortunate that I never learned HTML, XTML, ect... Since I am more of the artist type I have a tendency to jump in head first. Let me describe my idea... Try the contrast between Co Blue and Crimison Red. Blue is often associated in Psychology with Introverson and Introspection. While Red more with Extroverson and Expression. A Sol System Yellow or maybe a Country Kitchen Yellow also seems to work well with this scheme. A Dark, Infra-Red or Ultra-Violet Black makes for very un nice, fine print I noticed. I will tweak/play with it a bit and let you know. <scratches head...> Kubric Ultra-Violet? Actinium Skull? Shifty Infra-Red? hmmmm...

>>Best Regards,

//RyocACoFly\\23752;13:12:XXRIC P.S.: I remember reading when I was in school "...it will be a dark day when IBM rules the computer industry..." thinking back on those days sometimes I laugh but I wonder if Mac will succeed through finesse over hacking power...

I've tried my luck on this, so I've added my own version, Shades of Night. It's a mixture of blue headers and a purplish background, with dark green fonts and a light yellowish dotted line. ~Iceshark7 20:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

• Added Olive and Cream The intention of these colours is not beauty but better readibity through reduced glare. To be fair though I think the mint green version might perform this better. Spoonman 10:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Added Fresh to look like User:Freshgavin/Sandbox/Reference_desk. I had to implement a couple new parameters (is that cheating? :P) to get the look I wanted.. I think it looks great --ffroth 22:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Comments and suggestions continued

Anyone else?--VectorPotential^Talk 17:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Color coding?

What does everyone think of the idea of color coding each page, maybe a very pale blue for science, a similarly pale red for math, and so on..?--VectorPotential^Talk 21:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll implement something in a few minutes to help you with this. It's a very good idea --ffroth 22:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Color coding!

Suggestions:

(Not really sure how this page is meant to be formatted)I do like the idea of a bit of colour, but I don't really like the idea of all the desks being different colours. I'd quite like it if we could choose one nice colour scheme that works well with the standard Wikipedia background and use that for all the desks. I don't think it's possible to colour all the desks differently without some of the colours clashing with the standard background, or looking like a mistake (because they're too close) as you flick through, or looking horrible, because we have so many desks. So can't we just focus on producing one really nice colour scheme? Skittle 16:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thought: I could maybe go with the archives being slightly different, perhaps a variation on the standard desk colour to show you're somewhere a bit different. But then theat's usually already clear. Skittle 16:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The color coding idea was kind of based on the changes made to {{ambox}}, at least in theory, but you may be right. In a few hours we'll get to find out if it's even technically feasible to have different colors on each desk as it's possible that the recent formatting changes that make it possible may be killing the archiving bot due to the depth of the transclusions used. It's also possible that it's just really bad database lag.--VectorPotential^Talk 20:13, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Sidebar

If people want to play with this thing, it may be a good way to suggest possible colors/color schemes.--VectorPotential^Talk 00:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• Computing desk
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