I agree Kaytee Plus it is  a very depressing colour scheme...

Please get rid of the dark background, it hurts people's eyes and while you are doing that, can we have back the facilitiy of the threads we haven't read being highlighted still. It doesn't seem to work anymore. In fact, why did you change anything, you've only created havoc on the forum. Are we really that unimportant because we are just the English appendix?

Cologne! How very dare you! I am neither English nor an appendix!  

Slinki, I can't quote, but please accept my apologise.

Rather than not having one of the grey colour schemes (which a large proportion of FMs seem to like) I would agree with other people's suggestions that it would be good if we could select our own option from the control panel.  It's not just the darker themes that hurt people's eyes or which people find depressing - I find the lighter, brighter colour schemes on forums really dazzling and hard on my eyes, and think that the really pale and plain options are depressingly bland, whereas I  find these grey shades very soothing.  But if it's not possible to change options from our control panels, then we've already been told that we will be able to vote for our favourite theme in a couple of days.


Perhaps we should all remember that our hosts get nothing, other than grief, out of hosting this forum for us!  They did not have to provide us with a new home when C4 closed the forums, but were good enough to bend over backwards to spend the time and effort to provide this forum for us.  It can only cost the hosts money to run this forum, and sooner or later the mods might just get fed up enough of the complaints to pull the plug altogether.

Hi Growly.

IMO it's a small proportion who like the dark pages.

In all good website design instructions Light writing on a dark background is taboo.

But I agree that too bland or too dazzling is not good design either.

I think if you look back at the other threads earlier in the week, it was clear that quite a large proportion of FMs.,although by no means all, did like the grey options,but most of the debate was in other threads not this one.

Oh dear it seems to be only the background theme that is changing.

I quite like this....but then i have liked all the grey based themes....I'm another one that prefers them and doesn't like the bright ones.

I'm still going to bang my drum about having a choice of three themes in our control panel.

One of the dark ones ..  a middling one  and a light bright one..

that combo should cover all basis..

 I like the darker ones for the style but my eyes don't, neither do they like the really bright stuff either so I'd have to go with a middling..  think that was the second one we got.. just hope somebody is reading the suggestion for having the choices cos seems a lot like that idea...

Also for some people who can see the background thru the text area that seems to cause problems too..

*keeps banging the 3 options drum *

! xx

This is a copy of a PM I have just sent to Ted and Lori. I have tried to express peoples views in a neutral way and hope that Seattle takes note. My comments and suggestion are similar to others, such as Mount Olympus's above. I hope no-one will be upset by me sending this PM, and my apologies to them if I do, it's just that a PM is more likely to be noted rather than a comment being lost in a thread.

Hi Ted and Lori

As you realise, there have been several threads discussing the various themes which have been demonstrated on the Gagajoyjoy forum. Looking over the comments, it is clear that, whichever theme receives most votes, there will be a lot of users who are not happy and some may leave. There are those who love the dark themes and those who hate them as they find them depressing. It is worth pointing out that the UK is in winter, and that some people suffer from what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) - for them dark backgrounds are depressing. There are those who like pictorial backgrounds and those who don't. There are those who don't like white text on dark backgrounds, but prefer black text on light backgrounds. There are those who find it irritating if they see any graphics in the background in the text part of the window.

It is also clear that different monitors show the screens in slightly different ways - some people may be able to see the graphics at the side, others can't. Some people find that what may appear as grey, to others appear black. Strangely, the You Like Fun Dot theme - the dots initially appeared more vivid, but later in the day (whilst Seattle would have been in the early hours of the morning), the dots became less vivid to me and to others.

Some have made the following suggestion which is worth repeating. On the Livecloud site, we are able to set a theme for our own personal site, via the Control Panel. We need to be able to do this on Gagajoyjoy as well. There would be a fairly neutral theme for those not logged in or not members.

The Your Personal Settings should be revised to enable us to select a theme. This should not be too difficult as the coding required already exists on the Livecloud site. I can see that in the behind the scenes coding for the screens, there is coding controlling which theme is used for both Gagajoyjoy and Livecloud personal site screen, so the coding for the display of Gagajoyjoy forum pages would need little change.

As there would be a slight delay in implementing this coding, I would suggest that a relatively neutral theme be adopted in the interim, such as the old Gagajoyjoy theme.

El Loro

Why do you always feel the need to speak for the forum? Do you think our hosts are stupid and unable to read the suggestions put forward in the numerous threads plus the feedback one?



It's a serious question...not a dig, I really am curious as to why you feel the need to do this time and again

Thank you El Loro. I think that is helpful.
I think your PM reflects forum opinion very well, and it is a straightforward way of conveying that information to Seattle.

El Loro brilliant post  Thank you so much for explaining so well to Ted and Lori how we feel about the different themes

Awe Croc El Loro has put it so much better than we have in all our scattered posts in the threads,El Loro is so helplful with forum problems that should be applauded

Thanks El, helpful as ever

I think El Loro has amalgamated all the feedback from different threads into a concise message for Lori and Ted and I for one say *thank you*.


The best option would definately be a choice of forum themes as we have on the LC site....but I have to say that it is a relief to leave Gaga for somewhere more legible and less depressing than this interminable grey and black

El Loro, Sorry, but I don't really think this adequately reflects the feelings of those of us who are having difficulty with this, it's more, much, much more than irritating, it actually makes us feel ill when scrolling. Ducky described it as being like 'travel sickness' which I thought was a good description

 I thought it might be an idea to have a go at making making suggestions....I know picking the right colours is really difficult so I went to kuler and used the logo as the basis for getting a colour scheme 



then I had a wee go at trying it out ..... this is my effort at a theme - I call it Cloud of Doom

 

I'm not seriously suggesting that this is the way to go - just trying to illustrate that it's possible to do the grays in keeping with the logo without feeling like you've fallen down a mineshaft.

It is for me too, but I don't want to keep banging on about it....I just hope it changes Supes, or else I shall go elsewhere...I've heard FB is nice this time of year

REF... Supes .........it actually makes us feel ill when scrolling
............................................................................................

Agree's with this too

*Cloud of Doom*.......however would the text be orange?*tries out orange text*

Ooo, I q like that AKT

*
I had thunderstorm gray in mind actually .....will it show up in here?

testing colouring text..it use to work.. not now

Working

Perhaps we should all remember that our hosts get nothing, other than grief, out of hosting this forum for us!  They did not have to provide us with a new home when C4 closed the forums, but were good enough to bend over backwards to spend the time and effort to provide this forum for us.

.................................................................................................................................II 

I thought it was constructive feedback .. agree with the rest of the post

I agree, a very thoughtful message to Seattle to get across the point of the difficulties that many are having with the various themes.  Hopefully we will soon have a chance to vote and pick a scheme that suits most, or as you suggest personalise how we see the forum individually.

I have sent a PS to that PM re the comments about some backgrounds making some of us ill when scrolling.

As far as Croc's reply is concerned, I'd just say that I don't know to what extent Seattle does read every comment on every thread as they have limited time, but they will respond to a PM.

*gets out magnifying glass.*.....errrrrrrrr.....not really......loving your descriptions of the colours
Hoochie....very apt

So what colour type works on grey.....let's play

Rancid Red???
Evil Emerald??
Bilious Blue??????
 

yes it's quite good....a light grey with orange, not too bad at all

Just to let you know that Seattle are not currently intending for us to be able to select our own themes.

They also have made it very clear that I should not have sent them a PM on this matter, but to restrict any comments to this or the Feedback thread.

So my apologies to them and also to Croc who was correct in her posting.

El Loro  it was the thought that counted you were only trying to be helpful 

Thanks Marguerita

Can't remember what the theme is called... but there was a orange one which looked really good on LC, text was clear too.

I find most colours quite hard to read on a dark background, and find that white or yellow text is best for me.  As the mods will be reading this thread, I would just like to reiterate that I find pale coloured themes on forums much harder on my eyes, and find the dazzling pale backgrounds give me a migraine after a while.  

I think Croc had a point with her post, and I don't feel comfortable with anyone sending PMs on behalf of the forum.

* packs up 3 options in control panel theme drum and goes off to buy bulk supply of migraine tablets.. *

Olly!! 

that avatar!!!

are you gonna be shaking those pert buns at me throughout christmas then?

Ditty!! 


and maybe 

I agree I thought it was good that they could see the problems that people have been having

As others have said , you were being helpful, El. It doesnt stop any of us adding our opinion too   We are getting to vote on the best layout arent we? Anyone know when that is ?

Too dark for me - it`s making my cat green sexy eyes go all wonky....

I have green eyes too Scotty!  Think we have sorted the problem...all with green eyes get the sunshades out

From the RNIB site:-

Techniques

• High contrast must be provided between text and background colours. Pale blues and grey will not be easy to read on white backgrounds but dark blues, black or reds will.
  
  Examples of good contrast:
  
  
  
  Examples of poor contrast:
  
  
• Bold and large fonts can sometimes compensate for colour contrast that is a borderline fail using the WAI algorithm. If a piece of text is large, then the contrast may be less critical. Good judgement is required to assess this.
• Colour blindness affects the way that certain colours differ from others. Red and green, for instance, can appear to be virtually the same to some users. Ensure that you choose colours that have a good differentiation for people with colour deficiency. You can find out more on the Vischeck website (see below under Further Information).
• Images must also have good contrast, especially if there is text on the image. Always check that logos are high contrast and tag lines within logos are readable.
  
  Ensure that images do not lose definition when style sheets are disabled. This can result in text appearing transparent on an image. To prevent this, ensure there are no transparent colours around the text on the image.
• Background images can sometimes interfere with the legibility of text. Watermarks or patterns can be problematic so where possible avoid them, or ensure they are either not behind text or that they do not interfere with its legibility.

However, because of the dark page here that does not appear as clear to me as when it was viewed on the white page of the original site.