Grey instead of red or green

[Hegstoria]

is [violet] max barry? only[violet] this.

We don't know, chances are it's a no. He may use Violet as a tool to edit the site, but even then I doubt it.

[DEFCON-1]

Green and Red are good mixes... Green and Gray? Someone didn't think about what colors to choose too much.

Some of us are red-green colorblind

[North Mack]

well, you could always use the /prosilver-ns/ unread icons for the read icons, and the /prosilver/ unread icons as the unread icons.
Also, here are the icons you'll need if you (or anyone else) wants to self host. I think I got them all... MediaFire Link

Reposted for Glen-Rhodes and/or anyone who can write up a greasemonkey script

[[violet]]

Do you find this causes problems mainly on the Board Index page or on the topic list pages (egosearch, subforum indexes)?

The latter has little orange "New posts" icons beside all unread topics, which contrasts more than green/gray. The Board Index page has no such icons.

I find that I can use the "New posts" icons when topics are listed - although it's not as visually obvious as it once was if new topics exist within the present forum. However, that may be something that may adjust over time as I grow accustomed to the new colors.

I do, however, have a fair amount of difficulty distinguishing read and unread forums from each other due to a lack of contrast between the colors/shades on my screen.

Yes, I can definitely understand that. I'm going to review those Board Index forum icons.

Pretty impressive that you can read an entire subforum though.

[Maryginia]

[violet] are you max barry

[Reploid Productions]

[violet] are you max barry

Violet isn't going to answer that, and this isn't the thread for that discussion.

[Sith Korriban]

I do not like grey threads with green
I do not like them, [violet]'s mean

I could not, would not, on a bet
I could not, would not, on my 'net

I do not like grey threads with green
Please bring back red; more swiftly seen.

[East Fancainia]

I'd rather have it the old way. The red pops out, and the green is sort of like "eh, I is not being read", perhaps a purple?

[Usual People In Life]

Could the skins be linked to the nations flag?

[North Mack]

Could the skins be linked to the nations flag?

Could... what? What does that even mean?

[Somewhereistonia]

*shrugs*

Preferred the old version - more obvious as to what's read and not read. The greyed out/green buttons don't tell me anything at first glance, but the little red 'Go to first unread post' icons are most useful for pointing out read/unread threads - they're irritatingly small, though.

Perhaps we could have a range of user-selectable forum skins?

This.

[Zakkystan]

Alright, so the circle that is usually either green (for read) or red (for unread) is grey for the random questions thread. What does this mean and why is it there? Thanks.

EDIT: This is also starting to happen with other threads, including this one.

I have noticed this too...

[The Southern Dictators]

I do not like grey threads with green
I do not like them, [violet]'s mean

I could not, would not, on a bet
I could not, would not, on my 'net

I do not like grey threads with green
Please bring back red; more swiftly seen.

Oh my god. Oh man
No one noticed this ?
Bravo!

Anywhat to stay on topic. What does it mean when some of the topic icons sort of look like the number 8 ?

[Person012345]

Alright, so the circle that is usually either green (for read) or red (for unread) is grey for the random questions thread. What does this mean and why is it there? Thanks.

EDIT: This is also starting to happen with other threads, including this one.

I have noticed this too...

Did you read any of this thread before posting in it?

[North Mack]

Alright, so the circle that is usually either green (for read) or red (for unread) is grey for the random questions thread. What does this mean and why is it there? Thanks.

EDIT: This is also starting to happen with other threads, including this one.

I have noticed this too...

Did you read any of this thread before posting in it?

Obviously not...

[Naivetry]

I do, however, have a fair amount of difficulty distinguishing read and unread forums from each other due to a lack of contrast between the colors/shades on my screen.

Yes, I can definitely understand that. I'm going to review those Board Index forum icons.

Pretty impressive that you can read an entire subforum though.

How else can we be sure we haven't missed something important?

I'm on a laptop most of the time, so the difficulty of distinguishing between the colors varies depending on the angle of my screen. But while we're discussing the color scheme, one thing that bugs me is the moved thread icon:

It's always green whether or not you've read the topic it links to. Could it be made grey by default instead? As is, it always looks like I haven't read something on a page, and I find myself continually opening those threads as if the color will change if I click on them enough times.

[Chazicaria]

Yeah, I really don't like it. Go back to red!!!

[Glen-Rhodes]

well, you could always use the /prosilver-ns/ unread icons for the read icons, and the /prosilver/ unread icons as the unread icons.
Also, here are the icons you'll need if you (or anyone else) wants to self host. I think I got them all... MediaFire Link

Reposted for Glen-Rhodes and/or anyone who can write up a greasemonkey script

The problem is that phpBB3 doesn't have an identifier for which icon is being used, so the best I can do, without the code getting 1000x more complicated, is to replace 'prosilver-ns' with some other folder name. Hence, I would need [violet] to upload the green/red images to some folder, or for somebody to host them on their own server.

For now, if you don't mind color clashes, you can use the following user.js, which replaces the images with the default prosilver template (blue/red/silver).

Code: Select all

// ==UserScript==
// @name           NationStates Forum Image Replacer
// @namespace      http://forum.nationstates.net/
// @description    Replaces topic images on the NationStates forum.
// @author         D. Henrich
// @include        http://forum.nationstates.net/*
// @version        1.0
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
   function getElementsByClass(searchClass,node,tag) {
      var classElements = new Array();
      if ( node == null )
         node = document;
      if ( tag == null )
         tag = '*';
      var els = node.getElementsByTagName(tag);
      var elsLen = els.length;
      var pattern = new RegExp("(^|\\s)"+searchClass+"(\\s|$)");
      for (i = 0, j = 0; i < elsLen; i++) {
         if ( pattern.test(els[i].className) ) {
            classElements[j] = els[i];
            j++;
         }
      }
      return classElements;
   }

   function replaceImages() {
      var icons = getElementsByClass('icon');
      for(var i = 0; i < icons.length; i ++) {
         var bgImg = getComputedStyle(icons[i],null).backgroundImage;
         var bgImgStr = bgImg.substring(63, bgImg.length - 1);
         icons[i].style.backgroundImage = 'url(./styles/prosilver/imageset/' + bgImgStr + ') !important;';
      }
   }
   
   replaceImages();
})();

[North Mack]

There's no way to do something like pull the image URLs, and then match up "old" image URL's to "new" (read: old style) URLs and swap them out?

Like find the URL (/prosilver-ns/imageset/topic_unread_hot.gif) and have it go "oh, that's "topic_unread_hot" and replace the image URL with wherever the new images is (http://somesite.blah/nationstates/image ... ad_hot.gif)?

[Glen-Rhodes]

There's no way to do something like pull the image URLs, and then match up "old" image URL's to "new" (read: old style) URLs and swap them out?

Like find the URL (/prosilver-ns/imageset/topic_unread_hot.gif) and have it go "oh, that's "topic_unread_hot" and replace the image URL with wherever the new images is (http://somesite.blah/nationstates/image ... ad_hot.gif)?

That's what it's currently doing. However, it would make the script literally 1000x more complicated if the replacement images are not located within the same folder. Also, it would make it ever more complicated if '/ns-theme/topic_unread_hot.gif' actually needed to be replaced with '/ns-theme/topic_read_hot.gif', etc.

[North Mack]

There's no way to do something like pull the image URLs, and then match up "old" image URL's to "new" (read: old style) URLs and swap them out?

Like find the URL (/prosilver-ns/imageset/topic_unread_hot.gif) and have it go "oh, that's "topic_unread_hot" and replace the image URL with wherever the new images is (http://somesite.blah/nationstates/image ... ad_hot.gif)?

That's what it's currently doing. However, it would make the script literally 1000x more complicated if the replacement images are not located within the same folder. Also, it would make it ever more complicated if '/ns-theme/topic_unread_hot.gif' actually needed to be replaced with '/ns-theme/topic_read_hot.gif', etc.

Damn. I'm used to working with perl and I figured JS could use some sort of hash table at the absolute worst with the URL's hardcoded in.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Damn. I'm used to working with perl and I figured JS could use some sort of hash table at the absolute worst with the URL's hardcoded in.

It could, but it would unnecessarily complicated and would probably increase lag between the page loading and the images being replaced. There's already an inherent lag with user.js scripts. If anybody has a website and would want to host the package you linked to a few posts back, then that would work as well.

Anyways, here's a link to a click-install version of the script. It currently works with Firefox (+Greasemonkey) and Chrome. For Chrome, I'm using Blank Canvas, but I'm not sure if it can work without it; my best guess is that it can. I have not tried it in any other browser.

[[violet]]

But while we're discussing the color scheme, one thing that bugs me is the moved thread icon:

It's always green whether or not you've read the topic it links to. Could it be made grey by default instead?

Fixed, thanks.

[[violet]]

*shrugs*

Preferred the old version - more obvious as to what's read and not read. The greyed out/green buttons don't tell me anything at first glance, but the little red 'Go to first unread post' icons are most useful for pointing out read/unread threads - they're irritatingly small, though.

Perhaps we could have a range of user-selectable forum skins?

This.

I answered that earlier. The problem with skins is that while they might look great now, they tend to break when the forum software gets updated. They require quite a large amount of dev time in terms of ongoing testing and fixing while being of benefit to few players.

What I am prepared to do is make available a skin if (a) a player creates one, (b) it works 100%, and (c) it's maintained. But I don't want to delay other NS work to keep hacking forum skins back together, so if it broke I would remove it.

[Glen-Rhodes]

What I am prepared to do is make available a skin if (a) a player creates one, (b) it works 100%, and (c) it's maintained. But I don't want to delay other NS work to keep hacking forum skins back together, so if it broke I would remove it.

Could you possibly upload the old images to a folder somewhere, so that I can update this user.js script? If those images were uploaded, there wouldn't really be a need for a completely separate theme.