Author Topic: Source code colors: Contrast / Readability / Ergonomics (Read 51,239 times)

Gothi[c] · « **on:** February 10, 2006, 12:08 AM »

Why is it that most IDE's have a default white background with black text?

Personally it really hurts my eyes. Especially on CRT monitors. The white of a computer monitor is not like say a white paper, it is light. So especially for those of us who are coding over 8 hours a day, which is better for our eyes?
Personally I use a soft green on a black background because green is one of the colors humans perceive best. Green on black provides high contrast. I use soft green so the contrast isn't too high. Seems to work best for me. I hear yellow on blue is best for bright-lit rooms / daylight. But black on white is overkill contrast and really bad on the eyes.

Here is an interesting page about this topic:

http://www.writer2001.com/colwebcontrast.htm

Rover · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2006, 05:10 AM »

I agree. I think the black on white was originally designed to mimic paper and make us all more comfortable with PC's. Plus Mainframes and Terminals used Green on Black, so we *must* look different from them.

Personally, anytime I'm using an editor, terminal or anything for very long, I look to change it to ....
Green on Black. Looks best, easiest to see and doggon.. I like it.

I used to work with a guy who always used Yellow on Blue... yuck!

jroad · « **Reply #2 on:** February 10, 2006, 06:00 AM »

I remember back in the days of Turbo Pascal, the default scheme was yellow on blue and I really got used to it. It was hard moving to the default black on white in Windows. I guess I have adapted to it, but maybe I will start experimenting again with darker backgrounds when I can.

Rover · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2006, 06:11 AM »

Quote from: jroad on February 10, 2006, 06:00 AM

I remember back in the days of Turbo Pascal, the default scheme was yellow on blue and I really got used to it.

2 quick notes:
1. I changed the color scheme in TP to Green on black.
2. I LOVED Turbo Pascal

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2006, 06:13 AM »

My color scheme in Turbo Pascal was usually green on blue due to excessive ASM usage

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** February 10, 2006, 06:17 AM »

the white on green on that page looks surprisingly readable, i wouldn't have guessed that. might have to give that a try, though i have long used black on white.

[ps. another turbo pascal/c fan here; borland's turbo language tools were amazing when they came out for the pc - they must have raised a generation of programmers. i can still see those manuals in my memoy clearly. i want to thank my dad for getting us those tools.]

jgpaiva · « **Reply #6 on:** February 10, 2006, 11:03 AM »

Quote from: Gothi[c

link=topic=2395.msg16334#msg16334 date=1139530114]http://www.writer2001.com/colwebcontrast.htm

Thanks for that page! The black on soft green at the end of the page is the one that fits me best, i don't know why, but it's the one the provies me with more readability.

VSiAQ · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2006, 12:58 PM »

I like Turbo Pascal scheme. Yellow text on blue background. Though I change it a bit. To Free Pascal's scheme.

housetier · « **Reply #8 on:** February 19, 2006, 10:37 AM »

I have found orange on black to be quite readable. It's not a bright orange, something that stands out without contrasting too much. My screenshots would look different from what I see, because the LCD of my laptop is very old. XChat and my terminals are orange on black. When programming, I use gvim for which there are many many color schemes available. There, I go with the darker ones that were designed for night use (my room never sees sunlight).

I change my gvim colors ever few months; whenever there is a new color scheme out I give it a try. I don't have much trouble adjusting to new schemes, but they have to be "good". I prefer color schemes that choose different variations of one tone, that are monochrome so to say.

Attached I have a screenshot of the inkpot color scheme and the new baycomb color scheme; both are gvim color schemes of course.

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** February 19, 2006, 03:11 PM »

that first screenshot is so damn dark, dont know how you could read that.

housetier · « **Reply #10 on:** February 19, 2006, 04:00 PM »

I like dark

But it's also "quiet"; that is, there aren't many different colored used. In German colors can be loud and quiet, even excited. Baycomb is still being fine-tuned by its author, but so far I found it usable.

There are too many color schemes available for vim. I believe other programmer's editors will have a wide variety of such schemes as well; I know emacs does.

VSiAQ · « **Reply #11 on:** February 20, 2006, 01:09 PM »

I agree with mouser. The first one is too dark for my eyes to read. The second one is much better, though its line number is still hard to read.

brotherS · « **Reply #12 on:** February 20, 2006, 01:17 PM »

I'm sometimes using black on a green background... I don't like black backgrounds and besides that I read something about those being bad for your eyes in the long run.

allen · « **Reply #13 on:** February 20, 2006, 02:30 PM »

There are a few schemes I switch among, depending on my mood, this is the most common one though--

housetier · « **Reply #14 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:30 PM »

more, more, more!

Ok, ok! By popular request I created some more screenshots of the color schemes I have right now. Note that these are not alle the schemes that are available, these are just the ones I happened to have installed.

Attached here are:
* anotherdark
* baycombG, a variation of baycomb above
* blue
* darkblue
* default
* delek
* desertedocean

housetier · « **Reply #15 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:37 PM »

even more, even more, even more!

And the saga continues. This time we have:
* desert
* elflord
* evening
* koehler
* morning
* murphy
* pablo
* peachpuff
* ron

Yes this time we have nine attachments because I couldn't make my browser delete the contents of the last input field...

housetier · « **Reply #16 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:40 PM »

enough already, we get the point!

In the last of today's episode of "post an image" I proudly present:
* shine
* sift
* slate
* torte
* watermark
* zellner

mouser · « **Reply #17 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:50 PM »

nice! it really is useful to have some sample color schemes to look at in order to make a decision about which one looks best.

that blue one sure gives me flashbacks to the days of turboc and turbopascal.

maybe we need a script that gradually changes your color scheme based on time of day, from light to dark - that would be cool

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:51 PM »

slate looks nice, but i still find black on white the easiest to read.

housetier · « **Reply #19 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:58 PM »

Quote from: mouser on February 20, 2006, 05:50 PM

maybe we need a script that gradually changes your color scheme based on time of day, from light to dark - that would be cool

In vim this is possible of course (of course!), since you can control a vim instance remotely. So one could write a little script that determines the color scheme based on time and then sends a remote command to a running vim instance, telling it to switch to the given color scheme.

And while we are talking about how great opensource software is: those screenshots I created with The Gimp ;-) However, I'd love to see samples of such color schemes in other editors too. I know I am the self-proclaimed opensource zealot but I'd like to widen my horizon...

allen · « **Reply #20 on:** February 21, 2006, 02:58 AM »

Quote from: mouser on February 20, 2006, 05:51 PM

slate looks nice, but i still find black on white the easiest to read.

Black on white is okay if you're used to it, but it's hard to go back after reversing the contrast for a while. After spending some time in my text editor, hitting the black on white of the Internet makes me feel a bit sun-blinded

housetier · « **Reply #21 on:** February 21, 2006, 03:50 PM »

Stop This Madness!

Well I couldn't resist and randomly downloaded a few more definitions of color schemes. This page is getting rather heavy, traffic-wise...

This time I bore you with:

* delphi
* yeller
* zenburn
* slateBW, note the change on the status line

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #22 on:** April 12, 2007, 05:24 AM »

I remembered this old thread when I ran across this page:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/VimColorSchemeTest/index-html.html

source code coloring example'o'rama

f0dder · « **Reply #23 on:** April 12, 2007, 01:19 PM »

Good old Turbo Pascal - I started my venturing into programming with TP6. Borland had the greatest IDEs back then, the integrated help was outstanding, and TP6's ability to "compile & link to RAM" was _perfect_ when working on a dead-slow 286 with an even slower harddrive

(and yeah, I had a damn lot of green-on-blue as well, you sorta needed that to get acceptable speeds back then).

I'm still stuck with a black-on-white scheme (with additional syntax highlighting - I wouldn't live without that today!), it works well enough and I don't get eyestrain. Been meaning to try out something else, but it just takes too long to fiddle with (Notepad++ doesn't come with schemes to choose from). Green-on-black has always seemed very harsh to me.

In VIM I use the 'desert' scheme, which is pretty nice... but VIM is never going to be my main editor, I'm afraid. It's slightly (and I do mean slightly, but enough to notice) heavier than Notepad++, and I don't really do stuff faster in it. Great when I'm stuck on linux, though.

Lashiec · « **Reply #24 on:** February 10, 2008, 08:22 PM »

I was wondering: Should I put this here or in urlwolf's thread?. Anyway, Scott Hanselman briefly discuss a few more themes for your IDE, specifically for Visual Studio. Just in case housetier flood of options is not enough