Mahz's Dev Journal

[Awson]

Hider

I don't like the new button color. Contrast is needed.

@Awson

That's the eternal struggle. How to make a theme useful for low and high contrast users. I agree with @AngelNoire that a theme option might be the best way to resolve it.

@Captain Jordan

It's not even my screen contrast. I just find it ugly

[AngelNoire]

Hey! I got a notification for that :3 I thought that wasn't working!

[BBeast]

Hider

I don't like the new button color. Contrast is needed.

@Awson

I think the whole point was to reduce the contrast. Originally it was somewhat glaring. The editor buttons generally don't need to be very contrasting.

[Captain Jordan]

Hider

I don't like the new button color. Contrast is needed.

@Awson

That's the eternal struggle. How to make a theme useful for low and high contrast users. I agree with @AngelNoire that a theme option might be the best way to resolve it.

@Captain Jordan

It's not even my screen contrast. I just find it ugly

@Awson

Sometimes it's a user's particular vision capabilities, not necessarily their screen. Screens are easy to adjust, eyes are hard.

[Awson]

Hider

I don't like the new button color. Contrast is needed.

@Awson

I think the whole point was to reduce the contrast. Originally it was somewhat glaring. The editor buttons generally don't need to be very contrasting.

@BBeast

But now we're left with just a bunch of different shades of grey. It's dull. There must be like 40... 45 different shades of grey.

[Captain Jordan]

Hider

I don't like the new button color. Contrast is needed.

@Awson

I think the whole point was to reduce the contrast. Originally it was somewhat glaring. The editor buttons generally don't need to be very contrasting.

@BBeast

But now we're left with just a bunch of different shades of grey. It's dull. There must be like 40... 45 different shades of grey.

@Awson

Try 50.

[Ellri]

well, in hexadecimal code, there's 113 shades of gray. Of course, a good portion of those are nigh indistinguishable from black or white.

[BBeast]

Too many shades of grey will get messy. Plus, the buttons can't afford to stand out too much, otherwise they'll be distracting. But as Mahz said before, getting the colours just right is always a tricky thing.

[NaraK]

A small tinge of any kind of color (perhaps a color that could fit snugly with this editor I'm typing in) would make the buttons look more natural. The UI itself is not bad, but it could use a bit of life in it. Mixing the currently grey buttons with another color might do the trick, though that's just how I'm seeing it.

[Draconilian]

While I feel it could use some tweaking, I like the color layout. However, can we do something about this ugly font in the text editor?

[NaraK]

Just found a bug with the Font Color Picker button. If you press it and leave it on and Post a Reply, the Font Color Picker box will still be present after you post. It never goes away even if you Edit the post and press the Font Color Picker button again (until you reload the entire page, that is).

[Mahz]

Made some progress on the Etherpad integration, mostly to see what the code would look like: Who should be able to edit the pad(s)? I suppose this might be where the "co-GM" concept makes sense. Need some general thoughts/advice on where to take it. At worst, it's just a chatbox with collaborative griefing.

[Captain Jordan]

Who should be able to edit the pad(s)? I suppose this might be where the "co-GM" concept makes sense. Need some general thoughts/advice on where to take it. At worst, it's just a chatbox with collaborative griefing.

@Mahz

I dunno if I like the idea of the Etherpad being RP-wide. I'd rather see integration into PM conversations. If you are going to make it RP-wide, then a GM/Co-GM might have the ability to check off the following permissions: * GM only (Co-GM obviously can't set) * GM & Co-GM(s) * All RP participants (defined by posting in IC/Character thread to avoid casual OOC commenters) * All Guild members * Specific people (with textbox to enter comma-delimited usernames) That's a fair few permissions, but it should cover the wide range of needs. It could probably be paired down to remove GM-only and Specific people if feature creep avoidance kicks in.

[BBeast]

Who should be able to edit the pad(s)? I suppose this might be where the "co-GM" concept makes sense. Need some general thoughts/advice on where to take it. At worst, it's just a chatbox with collaborative griefing.

@Mahz

I dunno if I like the idea of the Etherpad being RP-wide. I'd rather see integration into PM conversations. If you are going to make it RP-wide, then a GM/Co-GM might have the ability to check off the following permissions: * GM only (Co-GM obviously can't set) * GM & Co-GM(s) * All RP participants (defined by posting in IC/Character thread to avoid casual OOC commenters) * All Guild members * Specific people (with textbox to enter comma-delimited usernames) That's a fair few permissions, but it should cover the wide range of needs. It could probably be paired down to remove GM-only and Specific people if feature creep avoidance kicks in.

@Captain Jordan

Agreed. The thread-based Etherpad would require the ability to limit who can edit it, to minimise griefing (with the ability to open it up allowing its use as a chat-box). And having PM specific Etherpads allows multiple collaborative posts to be written for an RP at the same time, or allows collaborating more privately.

A small tinge of any kind of color (perhaps a color that could fit snugly with this editor I'm typing in) would make the buttons look more natural. The UI itself is not bad, but it could use a bit of life in it. Mixing the currently grey buttons with another color might do the trick, though that's just how I'm seeing it.

@NarayanK

That's not a bad idea. Obviously, they'll be a darker shade than the existing coloured buttons, because those are coloured in order to stand out. But what colour(s), though?

[Mahz]

I dunno if I like the idea of the Etherpad being RP-wide. I'd rather see integration into PM conversations.

@Captain Jordan

I'm actually looking to generalize the Etherpad system so that you can create a pad and invite/kick people from the pad. Spinning up arbitrary pads and inviting friends and other interested players is how people seem to use Etherpad as is. I'm not very opinionated here. The reason why it's attached to a roleplay in the screenshot is because I came up with a straightforward task to see how flexible Etherpad was. But I do have a decent idea of what Etherpad is capable of now, and I got it running on another server.

If you are going to make it RP-wide, then a GM/Co-GM might have the ability to check off the following permissions: * GM only (Co-GM obviously can't set) * GM & Co-GM(s) * All RP participants (defined by posting in IC/Character thread to avoid casual OOC commenters) * All Guild members * Specific people (with textbox to enter comma-delimited usernames) That's a fair few permissions, but it should cover the wide range of needs. It could probably be paired down to remove GM-only and Specific people if feature creep avoidance kicks in.

@Captain Jordan

Thanks for the brainstorm.

[Shienvien]

I noticed that mentions are now encased in dark boxes... I don't mind them in quotes, but in plain text they kind of bother me by looking rather out of place - I'd rather they lacked border and had the same background as the forum, to be honest. Also, the IC/OOC text is medium gray on medium-light gray, which isn't ideal, same with the Roleplays/Interest check tabs (make the text black?). Like the reduced number of pop-out white elements, though.

[Syben]

How hard would it be to integrate a tabs table? I think one of the attractive things about roleplay is formatting options for our information posts, or even IC posts where multiple characters are taking place down different paths. Something like: [tabs][tab1=Character One] <blah blah blah, IC stuff> [tab2=Character Two] <etc.> [tab3=Character Three] <misc.> [/tabs] How possible would that be?

How hard would it be to integrate a tabs table? I think one of the attractive things about roleplay is formatting options for our information posts, or even IC posts where multiple characters are taking place down different paths. Something like: [tabs][tab1=Character One] <blah blah blah, IC stuff> [tab2=Character Two] <etc.> [tab3=Character Three] <misc.> [/tabs] How possible would that be?

@Aeonumbra

That was actually implemented at first, but disabled due to bugs. It will make a return, I believe.

[Syben]

I think I missed it, I didn't mess with the old code much. BBCode is where it's at, and I'm very thankful for it's return. I just wanted to say, tabs would be lovely :)

[Mahz]

How hard would it be to integrate a tabs table? I think one of the attractive things about roleplay is formatting options for our information posts, or even IC posts where multiple characters are taking place down different paths. Something like: [tabs][tab1=Character One] <blah blah blah, IC stuff> [tab2=Character Two] <etc.> [tab3=Character Three] <misc.> [/tabs] How possible would that be?

@Aeonumbra

As TheMaster99 says, it's implemented. But I commented it out until I constrain some off-topic forums like Spam from 150k chars to like 10k chars.