Announcing More Color for the Classic Theme March 4, 2016 9:45 AM   Subscribe

Last week we discussed adding more color to the classic theme and we set the wheels in motion. Today those wheels are up and running.

MetaFilter has four themes you can choose from to style the site: classic, plain, modern, and modern dark. Here are the changes we made today:

1.) FanFare, IRL, and Jobs now have a color scheme in the classic theme. Before today they had a white background in the classic theme. This will bring those subsites in line with "the blue", "the green", and the other sites that have a colorful background in that theme.
2.) FanFare, IRL, and Jobs now have a strip of unique color at the top of the page in the plain theme, just like the rest of the subsites already had. The background will still be white in the plain theme as it is for every site, but it should be a little easier to identify which site you're on by color.
3.) IRL has a new color scheme in the modern dark theme. We tweaked the colors to be a bit darker so they line up better with the other subsites.

We didn't change the favicons for FanFare, IRL, and Jobs but that is still on our to-do list.

In other theme news, we tweaked the way tags look in the modern and modern dark themes. As the page gets smaller the way long tags are truncated will expand or contract accordingly. So overall you should see longer tags more often depending on how wide your browser window usually is. We didn't change tags in the classic or plain themes.

There could still be some bugs lurking in our colorization so please let us know here if you spot something off.
posted by pb (staff) to Feature Requests at 9:45 AM (128 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite

Thank you pb et al.
posted by AugustWest at 9:54 AM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


*dances around room*

COOOLOOOOORSSSS
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:54 AM on March 4, 2016 [7 favorites]


You all are responsive and awesome.

But I'm staying professional white background™ for life.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:55 AM on March 4, 2016 [9 favorites]


The post titles in Classic IRL (e.g. "Star Trek TNG: Happy Hour, Round 64!") fail WCAG tests for contrast for large text. They have a contrast ratio of 2.23:1. WCAG AA requires at least 3:1 for large text. WCAG AAA requires 4.5:1.

The rest looks okay at least at a quick glance.
posted by jedicus at 9:58 AM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, we may end up tweaking the new IRL sub-colors a bit; the contrast note is a good point, something pb and I were trying to futz into slightly better shape than where we started but it's still mostly eyeball driven there.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:00 AM on March 4, 2016


Ooh, posts on the Blue in classic (but not any other subsites, it seems? and only when the post is open?) are now flaggable with little flags [⚑] !
posted by ChuraChura at 10:03 AM on March 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yeah, IRL is not passing my accessibility checkers for color contrast. Meanwhile the Yellow on Purple of Fanfare is too-contrasty for my comfort.

But I'm super excited about colors, and especially super excited about "the purple"!
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:03 AM on March 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Good eye, ChuraChura. You caught what happens when a developer accidentally commits test code to the live site. That developer will be dealt with accordingly.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:07 AM on March 4, 2016 [21 favorites]


Ooh, posts on the Blue in classic (but not any other subsites, it seems? and only when the post is open?) are now flaggable with little flags [⚑] !

Heh, that's actually a bit of accidental cross-contamination from some more experimental code we were working on this week, shouldn't have actually been there. pb will probably have it fixed before I'm done typing this. But, yes, that's a little tweak we're looking at along with some other more significant flagging workflow changes.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:07 AM on March 4, 2016


i can't see anything in the live preview comment box in IRL or FF because the text and background are almost the same color.
posted by twist my arm at 10:09 AM on March 4, 2016


Thanks, pb.

Seconding jedicus' & tofu_crouton's point about title contrast in classic IRL, without the technical stuff - they're a touch hard to read.

Minor bug-ish; in classic on mobile (Android) the bottom-of-the-page sub-site-specific links (like FanFare Talk & My Fanfare) are plain grey, not a different shade of the subsite color. Holds for Fanfare & IRL. Also, the "hide post descriptions box" at the bottom of Fanfare is a big light-grey box with white or yellow text.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:11 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Aw, I liked the little flags. Don't be too hard on the developer!⚑!
posted by ChuraChura at 10:11 AM on March 4, 2016 [10 favorites]


Fanfare purple is lovely!

(nthing the "IRL titles need to be higher contrast")
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:11 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is there a way to turn those off and go back to the white background for those subsites, or are we stuck with those colors? Those colors are headache inducing to me.
posted by ralan at 10:12 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Live preview colors should be fixed. Thanks, twist my arm.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:16 AM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Sorry, no, no way to turn them off internally, though Plain theme (and likewise Modern) remains an official option if you want it to stick to white instead of the colorful stuff.

That said, it'd probably be a pretty simple script to set custom white background client-side; someone here may have a good suggestion for existing solutions on that front or be able to whip something up.

Meanwhile the Yellow on Purple of Fanfare is too-contrasty for my comfort.

Hmm, I suppose it's pops a bit more than the green-on-purple of Modern Dark. We can chew on tweaking that a bit.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:17 AM on March 4, 2016


I* am going to have to get used to the purple. It's a very nice purple. I'm just going to have to get used to it.

*change-resistant lifeform
posted by angeline at 10:17 AM on March 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oooh! I'm not sure if it's just me but the font size on the front page of the Brown (!) looks much smaller? But this is cool. Fanfare looks so nice I might visit more.
posted by billiebee at 10:19 AM on March 4, 2016


OK, just thought I'd ask. I don't watch enough TV to visit Fanfare on a regular basis, and unfortunately Atlanta never has that many meetups so I rarely get to the IRL page, but yikes... those colors are... something else.
posted by ralan at 10:21 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


FanFare, IRL, and Jobs now have a strip of unique color at the top of the page in the plain theme, just like the rest of the subsites already had.

Hmm I checked two browsers and I still can't see these.
posted by selfnoise at 10:25 AM on March 4, 2016


Those mobile menu colors should look better now. Thanks, soundguy99.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:26 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed my brief peek at the flags!
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:31 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


The new color scheme for FanFare is much more pleasant to read. I think the links' shade of yellow is desaturated enough that it doesn't clash with the purple. Thanks for the change.
posted by Rangi at 10:37 AM on March 4, 2016


Cool work. Looks great ..... except for the low contrast on IRL frontpage. I can't quantify it, but I definitely notice it.

Thanks pb.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:54 AM on March 4, 2016


IRL looks like dookey. Literally.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:03 AM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fanfare looks great! IRL...still could use some work, I think.
posted by mstokes650 at 11:26 AM on March 4, 2016


i adore the fanfare purple, please never change it.
posted by nadawi at 11:37 AM on March 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


I like to take a moment to remind folks of Rhaomi's Fanfare Theme. Which can be tweeked to run on IRL and/or Jobs as well.
posted by zinon at 11:54 AM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


What's the Pantone numbers?
posted by sammyo at 12:27 PM on March 4, 2016


So pleased.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:32 PM on March 4, 2016


I like the fanfare colors it's like I'm posting on batgirl's personal blog
posted by The Whelk at 12:53 PM on March 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


Maybe a light powdery teal for IRL that burnt orange is a bit aggressive
posted by The Whelk at 12:56 PM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Obligatory: Green! Purple!
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:56 PM on March 4, 2016


What's the Pantone numbers?

292?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:59 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


THE WORLD IS A CAROUSEL OF COLOR! WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL COLOR!
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:00 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


So the blue now has colours?
posted by infini at 1:01 PM on March 4, 2016


I don't see any changes on the plain theme.
posted by jeather at 1:22 PM on March 4, 2016


PUUUUUUURPLEEEEEEEEEE

raaaaiiiin, puuuurrplee raaaain
posted by numaner at 1:33 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


jeather, can you toss us a screenshot of what you're seeing on e.g. IRL? That'll help figure out if there's an issue or we're just not communicating the change successfully.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:35 PM on March 4, 2016


When I check on a different browser, not logged in, I see the colours just fine. This is plain for me, it's the same on Mefi, IRL, Fanfare, Jobs, but a different colour from Ask, Meta, Projects.
posted by jeather at 1:43 PM on March 4, 2016


Interesting! It's picking up the color styling on that date box, too, just not the top bar. Some sort of complicated caching issue? Some sort of bug in our code? I don't know, but pb might have an idea.

Do you use any greasemonkey scripts or extensions? Not impossible something subtly interferes with the styling, so you could try progressively disabling 'em and see if that changes, if so.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:46 PM on March 4, 2016


Tried it on Chrome with a bunch of extensions, on Firefox with very few, and on private browsing with no extensions, same thing on all of them. I even tried it on Internet Explorer.

I don't think it's an extension. I can try on Win 10 at home, this was all Win 8.
posted by jeather at 1:54 PM on March 4, 2016


Yeah, that sounds like something that is straight up The Haps, then. Let us know about Win 10 but we'll poke around a bit too.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:00 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


My screen looks exactly like jeather's on IRL and FanFare. It's the same for Chrome which I normally use, and also IE which I never use and had to log into fresh (and which should have no cache really because I only use it for intranet sites). I have FireFox also which doesn't have any plugins or anything that I know of because I only fire it up for one specific vendor tool. When I try to log in with that, the main page looks normal (logged out) and the login page looks like this. I'm zoomed way out to get the screenshot there. At 100% it looks like this. I'm sure the FF thing is on my end and I don't care, but woah.

This is all on Windows 7. I can look at many other OSs when I'm home.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 2:24 PM on March 4, 2016


Also, I switched to Modern, saved, switched back to Plain, and it's the same, but the colors worked in Modern.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 2:32 PM on March 4, 2016


292?

Hey that's my usernumber! Thanks for keeping plan theme mostly plain.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 2:33 PM on March 4, 2016


Much, much better. Thanks.
posted by Mitheral at 2:51 PM on March 4, 2016


Petition to start calling fanfare "the purp"
posted by Itaxpica at 2:53 PM on March 4, 2016 [9 favorites]


So how do I make it be like yesterday? The purple is too difficult to look at.
posted by biffa at 3:07 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


The plain theme header should look better now. Thanks for the troubleshooting, reports, and screenshots.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:29 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


The colours work, though I think Fanfare is a little too close to blue/too far from purple. That said, the dates in IRL switched back to grey from the light beige that they were just previously -- not sure which was supposed to be correct.
posted by jeather at 3:33 PM on March 4, 2016


Yes, grey is correct.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:43 PM on March 4, 2016




Looooooove the Purple. these types of changes are also a great way to urge me to check the Grey.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:51 PM on March 4, 2016


I like the idea of "the Purple" but I definitely wish it was a more faded purple, the high contrast sucks for my eyes on my Retina Mac.

The rest of the site seems to be in dusty tones, is there any thought of tweaking it more toward dusty plum/purple?
posted by stoneandstar at 6:29 PM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


I have been a staunch Classic Theme user, but I might have to switch to modern. The FanFare purple really hurts my eyes. I don't know why. :(
posted by radioamy at 6:29 PM on March 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh wow, I thought my comment disappeared but it's just on the other thread. Sorry for the double-nag!
posted by stoneandstar at 6:29 PM on March 4, 2016


I love the new colors, especially the purple, and the fine pale green one. Yup.
posted by Oyéah at 7:12 PM on March 4, 2016


If there's a specific reason you're not doing it, feel free to ignore the suggestion, but rather than specifying colors for contrast elements (like nav.primary #858585 here in MeTa (Modern Dark theme)) on every subsite, you could be globally using rgba transparencies to lighten/darken the underlying color, which would make things easier to maintain -- you could literally have two or three global color declarations (like rgba(0,0,0,0.1) and rgba(255,255,255,0.1) for one step lighter and one step darker than background, for example) that could cover every single subsite's contrasty elements in one go.

Just a thought.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:15 PM on March 4, 2016


That's a good thought. We aren't using transparencies but in many cases we are using algorithmic colors via sass color functions like saturate and darken with specific percentages. In some cases the colors don't shift properly and we manually override them. But yeah, we do try to start from a single color and work from there. Transparencies would be a good way to do this too—but a bit harder to tweak in a specific direction if you don't like the result.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:41 PM on March 4, 2016


here's a bit of color in IRL that's not updated yet
posted by aniola at 7:58 PM on March 4, 2016


thanks aniola, the color should be fixed there.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:04 PM on March 4, 2016


Yeah this is awesome! I just went to fanfare as I finished the latest episode of top chef. That purple! So fun.
posted by Carillon at 8:24 PM on March 4, 2016


purpletraitin'

yay colors
posted by nom de poop at 9:26 PM on March 4, 2016


The purple and yellow together look a lot better on my phone than they did on my desktop. Yay!
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:46 PM on March 4, 2016


I approve of the Purple.
And so does Londo:
Oh! And you are cute, too, in an annoying sort of way. Everybody's cute. Everybody's cute! Even me. But in purple, I'm stunning!
posted by Mezentian at 2:12 AM on March 5, 2016


The Post Comment and Preview buttons at the bottom of the threads have a white border, but on all the other sites they have a matching, slightly darker, color border.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:22 AM on March 5, 2016


Yay, thank you!
posted by lysimache at 4:33 AM on March 5, 2016


I never thought I'd have a reason to say I love Deep Purple!
posted by p3t3 at 5:27 AM on March 5, 2016


Yay colors! But, I have to agree about IRL (as mentioned in the last thread too) looking poopy. I'm aware that the goal is to make the colors of that page "Guinness and Lager"...which I have to say (as someone who, um, doesn't drink any more), I find somewhat off-putting. Like maybe the goal of meeting up shouldn't be all about getting shit-faced.
Also, Jobs is now brown too which is a bit confusing...how about something a bit more 'fun'? I know that red color schemes are that aren't eye-blistering are few and far between, but there are a few...deep, deep burgundy with touches of a (somewhat) brighter red maybe? As in 'paint the town red'? (And if that involves drinking, then so be it (I'm not a curmudgeon, it's just not for me (and I'm sure more than a few other mefites) any more)). And yeah currently it looks like poo and pee.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:24 AM on March 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


(Also count me as another thumbs up for the purple)
posted by sexyrobot at 7:26 AM on March 5, 2016


The interesting thing here is that IRL has had a brownish palette all along, and the new one, for folks who've been using Modern Dark and so seeing color all along, is a deliberate move away from the poopishness that it's had previously. It's deeper, warmer, more red-and-saturated than the original scheme.

That's not to say subjective experiences of poopishness aren't real, and we may revisit the color scheme in the long run. But for now, it's a little bit of a Well In My Day, Uphill Both Ways, You Don't Know How Good You Kids Etc Etc thing, so a little bit of trying to settle into it is the way to go.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:33 AM on March 5, 2016


Liking the purple as well.

Depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on, can we henceforth call FanFare "the aubergine" or "the eggplant"?

When referencing the subsite, these can be shortened to "the 'gine" or "the 'plant" for economy's sake.*

*these will never catch on but a boy can dream, yes?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:39 AM on March 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


No Boehner/Trump Orange? I am disappoiOW THAT HURTS STOP IT
posted by Wordshore at 7:40 AM on March 5, 2016


There is always a warm spinach and baby blue sky meme to fall back on....maybe not for hangover days.
posted by Oyéah at 7:44 AM on March 5, 2016


I LOVE THE COLORS SO MUCH EVEN GARISH IRL

Thank you, pb! Thanks rest of MeFi staff!
posted by frecklefaerie at 8:08 AM on March 5, 2016


I like the burnt sienna & pink-grey-brown and I also like the plum.
posted by aniola at 8:24 AM on March 5, 2016


Purple
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:18 AM on March 5, 2016


The IRL color hurts my heart and my eyeballs. The others are lovely, though!
posted by merriment at 9:19 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Getting used to the purple - the contrast seems a little extreme; not as uncomfortable as white text on a black screen, but similarly eye-straining. In the [x new comments, show] box though, I can barely see the "x new comment" text since it's white text in a white box, only the "show" is clearly legible.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:35 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Rainbow Brite came to visit Metafilter! Woohoo!
posted by IndigoRain at 9:44 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Weirdly all the texts are different sizes to normal in the tabs which have changed. The body text is smaller, everything else is bigger. I don't use those subsites very often though so I don't know if it was like this before.

The colour in IRL was eye-wateringly bad until I realised f.lux has kicked in for the evening. I turned it off for a bit and everything makes a lot more sense now.
posted by shelleycat at 9:46 AM on March 5, 2016


Huh. Projects and Music also have the weird-sized text. I have text sizes set in my preferences but maybe I'm somehow over-riding them via the browser in the three subsites I use most often on my actual computer (as opposed to mobile where I have a different theme and where I look at all the subsites). So this is probably something I'm doing anyway.
posted by shelleycat at 9:51 AM on March 5, 2016


I saw some sort of JUNT, thought Classic dropped out of FTL.
posted by clavdivs at 10:11 AM on March 5, 2016


vibratory manner of working, the button borders should look better. And thanks for the heads up on the new comment notification, oh yeah!. That should look better too.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:42 AM on March 5, 2016


As much as I adore purple, maybe something softer, more like lavender, for Fanfare? (But the IRL orange is gorgeous!)
posted by easily confused at 11:09 AM on March 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Fanfare buttons look good, but I'm still seeing white borders on the buttons in IRL.

(weirdly, the fanfare borders turn white while I'm zooming in to examine it but then go back to purple as soon as I stop zooming? That's not really a complaint or anything that needs fixing, but just a weird thing I noticed)
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:55 AM on March 5, 2016


thanks, those IRL button borders should look better.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:26 PM on March 5, 2016


I kinda like the new IRL, it makes me think of bread. The discussion sent me looking for shades of red though, and I stumbled over this awesome "Shades of colours" thing on wikipedia. Check out those names! Fulvous, catawba, isabelline, coquelicot, icterine, gamboge, skobeloff, sinopia, rufous, bole!

> the goal is to make the colors of that page "Guinness and Lager"

We could switch drinks and go burgundy! Sorry, I get excited about colours.
posted by lucidium at 4:05 PM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


As much as I adore purple, maybe something softer, more like lavender, for Fanfare?

The fanfare purple is very, very pretty, but the contrast does hurt my eyes/makes me think my vision isn't as good as I assume it to be.

Although I think a lavender could be nice, I also wonder if dialing down the brightness of the white text might help. Maybe halfway between where the text currently is and the color of the "Season X" text on the fanfare main page.

I know nothing about web design, though, so maybe that's a really nonsensical suggestion. Still, if I cover up the white, and look at the "Season" text, the whole "it burns" feeling goes away, so maybe that would help?
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:24 PM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sweet!
posted by Coaticass at 11:41 PM on March 5, 2016


more button nitpicking (sorry): on all the other sites, including newly colored IRL, the border changes to a darker color when you mouse-over. On Fanfare it changes to white. It actually kind of works, so that may be intentional? But I did notice the inconsistency.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:10 AM on March 6, 2016


Thanks, I'll add that hover state issue to the list.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:41 AM on March 6, 2016


The problem with jumping from post to post while I'm reading "Recent Activity" is that I saw "hover state" and thought "Is that what they're calling the Midwest these days?".
posted by benito.strauss at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2016


Is there a way to go back to the old color for FanFare? I literally can't read it without instant eye pain and it's cramping my style.
posted by stoneandstar at 4:45 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


stoneandstar, you can switch to the plain theme in your site preferences. That will set FanFare to black text on a white background as it was before. Just keep in mind that it will also set all of the other sites that way as well.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:48 PM on March 6, 2016


Glad that I can disable Stylish now, Fanfare was the only reason I installed it in the first place.

A small issue: the 'hide post description' box in My Fanfare (mobile site, Android) doesn't seem to be coloured.
posted by tavegyl at 9:28 PM on March 6, 2016


I've been trying to work out what I think is wrong with the way this change was implemented, and I think I've finally figured it out. In past discussions, any request to automatically change the site functionality for all users was immediately rejected by the mods with the statement that making huge changes that would affect tens of thousands of users was something that just wasn't done - something I totally agree with. But here we are with a change in how the site functions that was done automatically for all Classic theme users across the board, whether they wanted it or not. I know this change is trivial to some and welcome to many more, but if I was a regular user of Fanfare or IRL those sites would be pretty much useless to me now, and it seems from the comments in this thread that I'm not the only one. The only remedy I'm given is to use the plain theme or some version of the modern theme. I don't want to use the plain theme, I don't want to use the modern theme, I want to use the Classic theme I was using before.

Given past discussions, it seems that what should have happened is that for someone like me the site would not have changed at all. The Blue, Green, and Grey would still be there, and the sub sites would still be their original colors. People who wanted to make a change and have the sub sites show the new colors would have been given an option to make that change, and everyone would have what they wanted. There should be a Classic theme that stayed exactly as it was, and a new Classic theme with the sub site colors.

So it seems we've gone from an authoritative "no, absolutely not, can't do that, won't do that, completely off the table" when it comes to making sweeping changes to "hey, look, everybody gets colors... oh, you don't like it? Hurts your eyes? Too bad, use this other thing that you really didn't want to use before but that's your choice now." I'm sure this is too far gone to change things back now, but it just seems like a big reversal in how things have been done previously.
posted by ralan at 4:56 AM on March 7, 2016


ralan: "In past discussions, any request to automatically change the site functionality for all users was immediately rejected by the mods with the statement that making huge changes that would affect tens of thousands of users was something that just wasn't done - something I totally agree with."

Ya, this isn't actually the case. Two most glaring examples being introduction of Favourites and Titles showing on the front pages. Partial mitigation was only offered well after introduction.
posted by Mitheral at 6:56 AM on March 7, 2016


Ya, this isn't actually the case. Two most glaring examples being introduction of Favourites and Titles showing on the front pages. Partial mitigation was only offered well after introduction.

What I'm mainly referring to is the recent discussion of the profile privacy changes, but you make a good point. I guess since that discussion was still fresh in my mind, that's the benchmark I was working against.
posted by ralan at 7:08 AM on March 7, 2016


So, I think this is on topic... I love the modern themes and think they are great - have you guys shared analytics on how many logged in users are using what theme at this point in time? I'm sympathetic to people who prefer the classic ones, particularly from an information density perspective, but it feels like it would be a shame to invest all that effort into the modern css, and still have so many members on classic.
posted by the_querulous_night at 7:19 AM on March 7, 2016


It does seem unfair that it's an all or nothing color choice now. I like the idea of Fanfare Purple, and it looks ok on my phone, but it's pretty hard on the eyes on my laptop. It's just so much darker a background than the other subsites, the contrast between the white text and the purple is so extreme.

Are we stuck with that shade of purple, or can pb keep experimenting this week to see if there's a happier medium that is eye-catching but eye-friendlier?
posted by oh yeah! at 7:19 AM on March 7, 2016


Isn't it about time for some HTML whiz to drop a Stylish sheet that reverts the colors so people can go back to the old ways if they want? I'm happy with the new colors, but I know that when titles came to the front of the Blue I was very thankful to the kind user who provided the NoTitles code.

/No titles? |/*\|
posted by benito.strauss at 8:00 AM on March 7, 2016


Petition to start calling fanfare "the purp"

I'm calling it "The Sizzurp".

I love all the colors. IRL is a perfectly cromulent shade of brown. Anytime you try to design anything featuring brown, a certain percentage of viewers are going to call it poopy, but y'know. Yeah, poop is brown. So are trees, and leather, and chocolate, and bears, and a bunch of other cool things.

When you get around to changing the favicons, can you change the iOS home screen icons as well?
posted by Rock Steady at 8:39 AM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


So it seems we've gone from an authoritative "no, absolutely not, can't do that, won't do that, completely off the table" when it comes to making sweeping changes to "hey, look, everybody gets colors... oh, you don't like it? Hurts your eyes? Too bad, use this other thing that you really didn't want to use before but that's your choice now." I'm sure this is too far gone to change things back now, but it just seems like a big reversal in how things have been done previously.

cortex asked for input last week, and announced in the same thread that the change would be made.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:05 AM on March 7, 2016


cortex asked for input last week, and announced in the same thread that the change would be made.

Indeed. And I voiced my opinion in that same thread, but that shouldn't matter one way or another. In the big Meta about profile changes there was a lot of discussion about the fact that not everyone reads the Grey, and having a huge change in site behavior just sprung on them wasn't the way to go. I think the same thing should have been done here - those who wanted the change could have it, and those who didn't want it, or didn't even know it was up for discussion, could keep things exactly as they were.
posted by ralan at 9:24 AM on March 7, 2016


Hey, ralan, I'm sorry you're unhappy with the change and I am sympathetic. I'm hopeful that custom styling is something that can make this work in a more satisfying way for you.

That said, this is a change that's more long-overdue than out-of-nowhere; it's a quirk of history and decision-making at the time that some of these newer subsites didn't get proper color schemes on Classic when they were rolled out, despite that being the established thing in contrast with the no-color Plain theme. It got deferred, and deferred, and we ended up where we were with these several incongruously all-white subsites on the colorful theme. Changing that has been on my to-do list since before Matt left, but it just kept not happening.

So, the discussion last week about it was more a kick in the pants and a sanity check than a from-whole-cloth pony request. And I wanted for us to have that discussion in public and take the general temperature, because as much as I have been for getting the colors in place I wanted to make sure the feeling wasn't overwhelmingly "no, it turns out the white schemes are ideal". If it had been, that'd have been a good reason to stop and reassess.

Turns out the reaction was instead pretty strongly in favor of going ahead with the change, so we did. And that's a bummer for folks who would prefer no change, but...it's a bummer, you know? I don't think there's ever been a change we've made on the site that's been received with unanimous assent, even stuff that's otherwise been well-received. Someone's likely to get the short straw, and I wish that weren't so but practically speaking it's always going to be.

I don't want to continue splintering themes; at this point we're maintaining four separate color schemes for the site and that's doable but it's also a work-multiplier every time we need to change something, and it's an unfortunately reality of the Classic and Plain themes in particular that because they're hand-built stuff that stretch back to literally the 20th Century they're a bigger pain in the ass to work with even for basic maintenance. Multiplying the variations on them is a headache I wouldn't wish on pb even if I had it out for him, basically.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:19 AM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Are we stuck with that shade of purple, or can pb keep experimenting this week to see if there's a happier medium that is eye-catching but eye-friendlier?

We've been futzing with some possibilities, yeah. We could lighten the core shade of purple a bit, though I really like the purple itself and it's consistent with the Modern theme where it first came into play. We could also lower the brightness of the body text instead, crank the white down to a light grey in the #ddd-#bbb range, say, which would effectively reduce the contrast a bunch as well while still being light enough to not look significantly off from normal MeFi style.

So, I think this is on topic... I love the modern themes and think they are great - have you guys shared analytics on how many logged in users are using what theme at this point in time?

I think it's half-and-halfish, weighted a bit toward Classic/Plain vs. Modern/Dark. Several thousand users in both camps, out of active-in-the-last-month users. In my heart of hearts I'd love it if more people used Modern (and find the colors of Modern Dark familiar enough form my years and years of Classic that I don't miss the old schemed despite initial feelings of diehard-ism about the idea of a new theme), but folks should use what works and for a lot of folks sticking with Classic is what works, so we're continuing to support both and not trying to force anybody's hand.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:25 AM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh my freaking god, whoever changed FanFare from that blinding white to something I can actually read without squinting is getting extra lutefisk from me next Quonsmas.

Thank you soooo much.
posted by Sphinx at 3:13 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


New favicons and iOS icons are go!
posted by pb (staff) at 3:48 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


is getting extra lutefisk from me next Quonsmas.

Not sure if threat.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:08 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]


I'm probably doing something wrong but my FanFare is navy blue, and has been for as long as I can remember. There has certainly been some confusion about the "but FanFare needs a color!" discussion. And I wouldn't say anything except it hasn't turned purple despite clearing my cache.

(It's also not just my eyes. It's definitely purple in Chrome. Evidence: http://imgur.com/DTxpMfQ)

Help?
posted by smangosbubbles at 5:13 PM on March 7, 2016


smangosbubbles, are you running Stylish? Or any Greasemonkey scripts? Looks like you have a custom style set somehow.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:20 PM on March 7, 2016


That's it! Didn't even realise I had it installed!
posted by smangosbubbles at 5:21 PM on March 7, 2016


I would also like a slightly less... intense purple. It was enough too-much that it led me to change to Plain, but oh, that's too sad because I really am attached to Classic for the other sites. What to do?
posted by redfoxtail at 6:33 PM on March 7, 2016


Created a new FanFare iOS icon and it's still blue...

Using iPhone 6 on the most up-to-date iOS, whatever number that is.
posted by Rock Steady at 3:42 AM on March 8, 2016


This is the image iOS is supposed to use. You might try reloading that image directly in Safari to make sure you're seeing the latest version and then try adding a home screen icon again. It's checking out fine on an iPhone 6 for me.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:01 AM on March 8, 2016


Hmm. I get the new icon for IRL, but not FanFare... Maybe it's because I already had an icon for FanFare that is cached somewhere? I'm trying to reboot the phone to see if that helps. I know I'm probably the only person that cares about this anyway, so I truly appreciate the effort and troubleshooting.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:34 AM on March 8, 2016


I added a querystring variable to the iOS icon URL—that should let iOS know that it's a new version. You might give it another shot.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:59 AM on March 8, 2016


You did it! Hey, thanks a bunch for indulging me. My MetaFilter folder looks great now.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:02 AM on March 8, 2016


FWIW, I had to force-quit Safari first, in case anyone else is in the same boat.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:03 AM on March 8, 2016


I really appreciate that you guys are continuing to support Classic and Plain. It's just a nice and thoughtful thing you're doing even though you don't have to, and that's really nice, and appreciated.
posted by bleep at 11:34 PM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Now that I've been able to spend a little bit of time with the new purple fanfare I wanted to come back here and say that it is so good, thank you for your excellent work here. A truly lovely shade of purple.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:53 AM on March 9, 2016


Just a data point, the purple/yellow/white combo in Fanfare is driving me away from that subsite.

Just keep in mind that it will also set all of the other sites that way as well.

I haven't been carefully reading MeTa for a while, so apologies if I missed it, but is there a chance we will ever be allowed to switch themes for individual subsites instead of only being allowed to style the site globally?
posted by mediareport at 4:14 AM on March 10, 2016


The FanFare Club page is a little wonky with the white & yellow on light grey.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:59 AM on March 10, 2016


Whoops! Will fix.

I haven't been carefully reading MeTa for a while, so apologies if I missed it, but is there a chance we will ever be allowed to switch themes for individual subsites instead of only being allowed to style the site globally?

We don't have any specific plans for that, no. I'll note it as something that a couple folks are interested in, but the tradeoff of further complicated display stuff there is a pretty significant factor.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:09 AM on March 10, 2016


Just a data point, the purple/yellow/white combo in Fanfare is driving me away from that subsite.

Yeah, I'm pretty much squinting my way to the My Fanfare tab to find my new show threads, then doing most of my browsing through Recent Activity. Trying to spend any significant amount of time reading the Fanfare front page to see if any of the new movie threads are interesting has become too painful. I really hope that the shade-tweaking isn't being too back-burnered, Fanfare has become my default subsite.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:10 AM on March 10, 2016


Hey, so, is there any hope of further experimentation with the Fanfare color scheme to tone down the painfulness of the contrast, or are we stuck with it as-is?

Also, just noticed that in the main page for shows, the year next to the imdb link is barely visible if the show image behind the white banner is a dark color, can that be adjusted? (Compare this page, to this or this)
posted by oh yeah! at 1:23 PM on March 26, 2016


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