science grounds under your colorscheme choice
Dmitry Teslenko
I want to talk about your choice of vim colorscheme; but not in the way
like "my favorite colorscheme" which would probably result in
million-messages-wide
and inch-sense-deep thread. But rather with science grounds under this choice.
My aim is to find colorcheme with good readability and minimum
eye-tiredness/fatigue.
It's also interesting to talk about generalizations like dark text on
light vs light text on dark
background.
Thanks in advance.
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Ben Schmidt
> Hello!
> I want to talk about your choice of vim colorscheme; but not in the way
> like "my favorite colorscheme" which would probably result in
> million-messages-wide
> and inch-sense-deep thread. But rather with science grounds under this choice.
> My aim is to find colorcheme with good readability and minimum
> eye-tiredness/fatigue.
> It's also interesting to talk about generalizations like dark text on
> light vs light text on dark
> background.
> Thanks in advance.
One thing I know, though only by rumour, is that scientifically, for
dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and for
light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
There are other outside factors, too: one of them is that the
surrounding visual environment affects fatigue, etc. This can be on a
small scale--i.e. what other windows do you have on your screen? are
they bright or dark? do they require your eyes to constantly adjust as
they roam the screen? do they distract you? And it can be on a larger
scale--i.e. is your room well lit? or too bright? If other aspects of
your system and screen are fixed, choosing a Vim colourscheme to
appropriately match or complement these other elements would be a
scientific consideration. I know a number of people prefer editors
running in full screen mode, but using only a narrow column in the
centre of the screen to actually display text.
This stems from another solid scientific finding which is that the
optimal length of a line for ease of reading is something like 70
characters long. This is why newspapers print a number of narrow columns
on a page rather than shorter wide ones. So the shape of your window is
a consideration as well as the colour scheme. If you have a wide screen,
it may be more appropriate to use :vsplit than :split, etc..
Text size is another obvious consideration.
And of course, it almost goes without saying that things like resting
your eyes, taking regular breaks, etc. are important, as well as the
position of your monitor.
But what else of colourschemes, since that's what you asked about?
Another thing I know is that printers pay a lot of money to get paper
that is not transparent and is bleached to be a particularly stark white
to maximise contrast between text and background. (Of course, this
doesn't apply to newspapers, but we all know they have poor quality
print!) So the modern trend of having 'transparency', although nice and
flashy for demos, is most likely a disadvantage to readability.
Likewise, colour schemes where everything is grey and colour differences
are subtle are going to be harder to read.
I also know the human eye is more sensitive to differences in brightness
than to differences in hue (colour). (For this reason, legacy television
signals and video signals in consumer equipment, e.g. DV camcorders
provide only one pixel of colour information for every 2 or 4 pixels of
brightness information; if you look closely you can see this at the
edges of objects with high contrast to the background--sometimes they
will take on the colour of the background or vice versa even though at a
vastly different intensity.) The implication os this is that to ease
readability, one should not make use of subtle colour changes, but more
conspicuous ones. One may make use of more subtle brightness changes,
however, and indeed, one should, so as to lose as little contrast as
possible.
I also know that the human eye is most sensitive to changes in the
colour green (as opposed to red and blue). I don't think one need worry
about this: we already take care of it in the way we name our colours,
i.e. we have yellow, brown, lime, etc. as quite distinctive colours, but
don't draw the distinction between different types of purple. By just
choosing 'different' colours we will automatically focus on those we
perceive as different.
The result of all this? Well, I don't practise what I preach in one
regard! I find a little transparency useful so have it set as my
default; however, I frequently turn it off if I am going to be doing a
large amount of reading.
I use a home-grown colourscheme. I use a black background with a
sans-serif white font. Most of the other colours I use for different
aspects of syntax are also bright and saturated (not pale): bright
yellow, bright aqua, bright purple, and a light brown baby poo kind of
colour! Note that I use secondary colours (i.e. not red, green and blue)
as these are brighter and thus higher contrast against the black.
If I were using a light background, I would use a serif black font. I
would probably use highlighting in dark red, green and blue, though
sticking to primary colours isn't important like secondaries were in the
dark background case (turning the intensity of our colours down is
usually easy to do, whereas there's only a certain amount of brightness
we can get out of our display hardware and the secondaries make better
use of that; desaturated pale pastel type colours would be brighter,
too, but they are harder to distinguish as the colour is less
distinctive).
I use a large font so that my window which I keep at 80 characters wide,
fills most of the width of my screen. I use pretty bright lights in my
room when I am reading hardcopies, and of a 'daylight' colour, not an
incandescent or 'warm' colour; but when I'm not reading paper I am quite
comfortable with dimmer light.
I find these guidelines do indeed work best for me, and one of the
reasons I use Vim more than other programs is that I do find it easier
to see. (Add that to ease of use and it's a pretty convincing
combination!) I am visually impaired, so in a sense these considerations
are particularly important for me, but in another sense, my eyes may not
work the same way as everyone else's. Still, most of what I've said here
is based on general findings, not my own personal ones.
An interesting question. Thanks for asking it. I will be interested to
hear what others have to say as well.
Smiles,
Ben.
Gene Kwiecinski
>dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and
for
>light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
Maybe in a larger point-size, but I find that Times Roman in a smaller
font is too "busy" with overly-large if not disproportionate serifs.
But yeah, I tend to use Lucida Console on a dark background as my poison
of choice.
>There are other outside factors, too: one of them is that the
>surrounding visual environment affects fatigue, etc. This can be on a
>small scale--i.e. what other windows do you have on your screen? are
>they bright or dark? do they require your eyes to constantly adjust as
>they roam the screen? do they distract you? And it can be on a larger
Too bright a background tends to just hurt my eyes that I have to look
away. Every single "window" on this M$ system I have turned down to at
least light-gray, because it was like looking into a spotlight after a
while. And I wish to B'harni that people on this list would *NOT* use
html for their messages, certainly not with blinding-white backgrounds
enforced. Not to sound nasty about it, but when I get to a message like
that, or with purple/blue text, or any other "cutesy" characteristic
that makes it harder/annoying for me to read, I just up and delete the
message unread.
>scale--i.e. is your room well lit? or too bright? If other aspects of
>your system and screen are fixed, choosing a Vim colourscheme to
>appropriately match or complement these other elements would be a
>scientific consideration. I know a number of people prefer editors
>running in full screen mode, but using only a narrow column in the
>centre of the screen to actually display text.
My screen background is a blank color, #000055 or so, probably best
described as midnight blue. I tend to stick with the "torte"
colorscheme, the only change would be to turn the background to #000033
or so, "black" to most, until I'd pop up a DOS-box to show *real* black
in contrast, so then you'd be all like, "Oooooooh yeeeeah, that *is*
actually a dark dark blue...".
Too many light-background windows, like OutHouse, filebrowsers, etc.,
and we're back to looking into a spotlight again... :P
>This stems from another solid scientific finding which is that the
>optimal length of a line for ease of reading is something like 70
>characters long. This is why newspapers print a number of narrow
columns
I know someone who'd disagree with you, and who swears by 50-55 cpl. :D
Me, I'm good with 70-80. Wider than that, and reading becomes like
watching a tennis-match.
>Text size is another obvious consideration.
Had I nice *clear* fonts in smaller point-sizes, I'd be able to use
them, but Lucida 10 is good but on the large size, but 8pt is
weird-looking. '0's look more like squares, other weirdities.
>I use a home-grown colourscheme. I use a black background with a
>sans-serif white font. Most of the other colours I use for different
Mmm, I'm not crazy about an unadorned white font. Makes it look
"cheap", like I can't afford a color monitor. :D
I always preferred actual "dumb-terminal colors", like bright green or
amber. Nice stark contrast.
>aspects of syntax are also bright and saturated (not pale): bright
>yellow, bright aqua, bright purple, and a light brown baby poo kind of
>colour! Note that I use secondary colours (i.e. not red, green and
blue)
>as these are brighter and thus higher contrast against the black.
I'll buy this. Only would steer away from bright purple. Red + blue
might make a nice pretty color, but chromatic aberration becomes more
apparent. I got this monitor where my mailer's header-text is bright
purple, and I can see *2* copies of the same text. The brighter red
text up front, and a shadowed blue text slightly off to one side.
Eerie. Right up close to the monitor with my nose pressing almost to
the screen, I can see the pixels are adjacent and right on the surface
(ie, no intervening glass to give double-/multiple reflections), but the
farther back I go, the more separate the "texts". Almost across the
room, I can see 2 distinct copies of the text separate by almost a full
character-width.
So when I make up my own colors, they tend to be more "adjacent" to each
other on the spectrum. In short, just avoid red+blue. <shrug>
Red+green seems to be fine, though.
Ben Schmidt
>> One thing I know, though only by rumour, is that scientifically, for
>> dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and
>> for light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
>
> Maybe in a larger point-size, but I find that Times Roman in a smaller
> font is too "busy" with overly-large if not disproportionate serifs.
Mmm. I suspect the research relates to print, and you do find that
newspapers, etc. that use very small print do use serif fonts. But on a
screen where pixel size/resolution comes into it, the result may well be
different. Good call.
> But yeah, I tend to use Lucida Console on a dark background as my
> poison of choice.
I use Lucida Sans Typewriter. Very similar.
>> This stems from another solid scientific finding which is that the
>> optimal length of a line for ease of reading is something like 70
>> characters long. This is why newspapers print a number of narrow
>> columns
>
> I know someone who'd disagree with you, and who swears by 50-55 cpl. :D
They're probably right. I didn't check the figure, I just recalled it.
Actually, I usually use :set tw=60 when writing large amounts of prose
as I tend to find that easier than the wider option. It also means I'm
less likely to need to :set siso=0 to disable the sidescrolling offset
which I use when editing code.
>> Text size is another obvious consideration.
>
> Had I nice *clear* fonts in smaller point-sizes, I'd be able to use
> them, but Lucida 10 is good but on the large size, but 8pt is
> weird-looking. '0's look more like squares, other weirdities.
Hehe. I usually use 20 or 22 pt. :-)
> Only would steer away from bright purple. Red + blue
> might make a nice pretty color, but chromatic aberration becomes more
> apparent. I got this monitor where my mailer's header-text is bright
> purple, and I can see *2* copies of the same text. The brighter red
> text up front, and a shadowed blue text slightly off to one side.
> Eerie. Right up close to the monitor with my nose pressing almost to
> the screen, I can see the pixels are adjacent and right on the surface
> (ie, no intervening glass to give double-/multiple reflections), but the
> farther back I go, the more separate the "texts". Almost across the
> room, I can see 2 distinct copies of the text separate by almost a full
> character-width.
That is very cool. I'd love to see that. I'll have to watch out for it!
Is it a CRT? I only use a laptop, so LCD, and don't see the problem. But
then, as mentioned, I don't see all that well, either! I guess it will
depend on the quality of the hardware, too.
> So when I make up my own colors, they tend to be more "adjacent" to each
> other on the spectrum. In short, just avoid red+blue. <shrug>
> Red+green seems to be fine, though.
Makes sense. Red and blue are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum so
will differ more widely as they pass through optical systems. Red and
green are nearly adjacent.
Ben.
Erik Falor
http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-GENERAL/G17.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-GENERAL/G18.html
This site offers an interactive color contrast calculator:
http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html
I subsequently added a contrast checking feature to ColorSchemeEditor.vim based upon these algorithms. There's a lot to readability, though!
--
Erik Falor
Registered Linux User #445632 http://counter.li.org
Gene Kwiecinski
>>>dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and
>>>for light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
>>Maybe in a larger point-size, but I find that Times Roman in a smaller
>>font is too "busy" with overly-large if not disproportionate serifs.
>Mmm. I suspect the research relates to print, and you do find that
>newspapers, etc. that use very small print do use serif fonts. But on a
And being typeset, they're simply scaled down versions of the normal
font.
>screen where pixel size/resolution comes into it, the result may well
be
>different. Good call.
Yep, granularity tends to become a more significant percentage of the
character-height, and almost equal to some of its features (ie, serifs).
>>>Text size is another obvious consideration.
>>Had I nice *clear* fonts in smaller point-sizes, I'd be able to use
>>them, but Lucida 10 is good but on the large size, but 8pt is
>>weird-looking. '0's look more like squares, other weirdities.
>Hehe. I usually use 20 or 22 pt. :-)
I tend to need bigger screens' worth of information for "context".
Otherwise, it feels like I'm peeking through a keyhole.
>>Only would steer away from bright purple. Red + blue
>>might make a nice pretty color, but chromatic aberration becomes more
>>apparent. I got this monitor where my mailer's header-text is bright
>>purple, and I can see *2* copies of the same text. The brighter red
>>text up front, and a shadowed blue text slightly off to one side.
>>Eerie. Right up close to the monitor with my nose pressing almost to
>>the screen, I can see the pixels are adjacent and right on the surface
>>(ie, no intervening glass to give double-/multiple reflections), but
the
>>farther back I go, the more separate the "texts". Almost across the
>>room, I can see 2 distinct copies of the text separate by almost a
full
>>character-width.
>That is very cool. I'd love to see that. I'll have to watch out for it!
Oh, yeah, loads of fun... <snicker>
>Is it a CRT? I only use a laptop, so LCD, and don't see the problem.
But
>then, as mentioned, I don't see all that well, either! I guess it will
>depend on the quality of the hardware, too.
Only got LCDs throughout. 2 laptops and a 19" widescrceen for the
desktop.
At first I thought that maybe I needed to resynchronise the dotclocks,
as occasionally they'll get skewed somewhat, slight mismatches between
vidcard and monitor, etc., but nope, right up-close to the screen,
everything was perfect. Move farther and farther away, and the red/blue
images separate.
I noticed this even in my teens when taking the subway to/from school
and I'd ride in the front car and be able to see out the front "door"
when riding through the tunnel. There'd be these "purple" lightbulbs to
denote something, and yeah, against the dark background of the tunnel
I'd see 2 very distinct and separate images, reddish/pinkish to one
side, deep blue/violet to the other. As the train would get closer and
closer to the bulb in question, the 2 images would slowly merge together
into a single bulb-image. I always just wrote that off to multiple
reflections from the safety-glass I was looking through, but now with
the same phenomenon apparent with the LCD and *no* protective covering
(ie, no anti-glare screen or anything but the thin plastic film in the
display itself), I'm sure it's just plain ol' chromatic aberration at
work right in my very own eyeballs.
>>So when I make up my own colors, they tend to be more "adjacent" to
each
>>other on the spectrum. In short, just avoid red+blue. <shrug>
>>Red+green seems to be fine, though.
>Makes sense. Red and blue are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum
so
>will differ more widely as they pass through optical systems. Red and
>green are nearly adjacent.
Uhh, not really, as green is right next to blue. But surprisingly I
don't see that effect much if at all with red+green, only red+blue.
Ben Schmidt
>>> Had I nice *clear* fonts in smaller point-sizes, I'd be able to use
>>> them, but Lucida 10 is good but on the large size, but 8pt is
>>> weird-looking. '0's look more like squares, other weirdities.
>> Hehe. I usually use 20 or 22 pt. :-)
>
> I tend to need bigger screens' worth of information for "context".
> Otherwise, it feels like I'm peeking through a keyhole.
Yeah. I need to have the font big for readability. I solve the keyhole
problem not by making the hole larger, but by cramming more into it: I
have code which many find 'cramped' which is very dense, with small
indents, few blank lines, etc.
>> Is it a CRT? I only use a laptop, so LCD, and don't see the problem.
>> But then, as mentioned, I don't see all that well, either! I guess it
>> will depend on the quality of the hardware, too.
>
> Only got LCDs throughout. 2 laptops and a 19" widescrceen for the
> desktop.
>
> At first I thought that maybe I needed to resynchronise the dotclocks,
> as occasionally they'll get skewed somewhat, slight mismatches between
> vidcard and monitor, etc., but nope, right up-close to the screen,
> everything was perfect. Move farther and farther away, and the red/blue
> images separate.
>
> I noticed this even in my teens when taking the subway to/from school
> and I'd ride in the front car and be able to see out the front "door"
> when riding through the tunnel. There'd be these "purple" lightbulbs to
> denote something, and yeah, against the dark background of the tunnel
> I'd see 2 very distinct and separate images, reddish/pinkish to one
> side, deep blue/violet to the other. As the train would get closer and
> closer to the bulb in question, the 2 images would slowly merge together
> into a single bulb-image. I always just wrote that off to multiple
> reflections from the safety-glass I was looking through, but now with
> the same phenomenon apparent with the LCD and *no* protective covering
> (ie, no anti-glare screen or anything but the thin plastic film in the
> display itself), I'm sure it's just plain ol' chromatic aberration at
> work right in my very own eyeballs.
Mmm. Well as I have no lenses in my eyes, there could be a significant
difference there! Maybe I can't see this one!
>>> So when I make up my own colors, they tend to be more "adjacent" to
> each
>>> other on the spectrum. In short, just avoid red+blue. <shrug>
>>> Red+green seems to be fine, though.
>> Makes sense. Red and blue are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum
>> so will differ more widely as they pass through optical systems. Red
>> and green are nearly adjacent.
>
> Uhh, not really, as green is right next to blue. But surprisingly I
> don't see that effect much if at all with red+green, only red+blue.
There are two primary colours beside green in the spectrum. Blue is on
one side with a shorter wavelength, red is on the other with a larger
wavelength. Thus red-blue is a large difference, as green is between;
they are at opposite ends of the visible spectrum almost (not quite, as
you have violet-like colours at the ends). Red-green and green-blue are
both adjacent to each other. However, red is closer to green than green
is to blue, and its frequency response is broader, which is why
red-green colour blindness is the most common form: things don't need to
deviate so far from the average to induce that kind of colour blindness
as to induce the others. As most kinds of optical distortion are
functions of frequency/wavelength and monotonic, it is sensible to
expect the larger difference between red-blue to produce the largest
aberration, green-blue to produce a moderate amount, and red-green the
least.
Cheers,
Ben.
Tobias Klausmann
On Thu, 05 Jun 2008, Gene Kwiecinski wrote:
> >>>One thing I know, though only by rumour, is that scientifically, for
> >>>dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and
> >>>for light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
> >>Maybe in a larger point-size, but I find that Times Roman in a smaller
> >>font is too "busy" with overly-large if not disproportionate serifs.
> >Mmm. I suspect the research relates to print, and you do find that
> >newspapers, etc. that use very small print do use serif fonts. But on a
>
> And being typeset, they're simply scaled down versions of the normal
> font.
Quite to the contrary. Well done fonts aren't simply scaled
linearly. The thickness of the uprights (i.e. an I and an l)
needs to be adjusted differently. For a serif font, the serif
roundings are also scaled in a more complicated way. That most
*computer* fonts are scaled linearly is one of the reasons they
can look very strange sometimes.
Just my EUR 0.017 (adjusted for inflation),
Tobias
PS: My font recommendation both for terminal windows (and vim)
and GUI stuff where monospacing is relevant (gvim): DejaVu Sans
Mono. Colors change every now and then (as my taste changes),
currently I use "murphy". but I have yet to find a color scheme
that's usuable in vim (screen and rxvt-unicode for terminals) and
gvim.
--
tracer_panic("I'm tracing myself and I can't get out");
linux-2.6.6/arch/um/kernel/tt/syscall_user.c
Tim Chase
> dark text on a light background, a serif font is easier to read, and for
> light text on a dark backgroud, a sans-serif font is easier.
I find that resolution has a lot to do with choice as well...at
low (read "most screens") resolutions, serif fonts are a bit
clunky and can impede the reading a bit. However, at high
resolutions (read "most print, 300+ DPI"), serifs help the eye.
It may be that fine serifs are helpful, but pixelized serifs at
small sizes impede (serifs at larger font sizes are still good at
low-res)
So when I get myself a 300+ DPI monitor, I'll let you know which
I prefer. :)
On hi-res (300+ dpi) paper, I prefer black serif on light matte
paper.
On lo-res (<120 dpi) computer screens, I prefer light monospace
on black (even more so on CRTs compared to LCDs for some reason)
> optimal length of a line for ease of reading is something like 70
> characters long.
I think my optimal line-length is a bit shorter. If I had to
guess, I'd suspect it's related to how the font-size and the
leading combine to make it easy to scan.
As Vim colorschemes and fonts go, I've used a custom
light-on-dark colorscheme (as far back as my old Turbo Pascal
IDE) and the smallest, cleanest font I can comfortably use on a
given monitor (also trying to pack as much into that keyhole as I
can).
As a side note, at work I have dual wide-screen monitors, each
rotated into portrait profile so I can get more vertical space --
much easier for coding. And I work in the dark :-)
(well...ambiant light)
-tim
Peter Hodge
For PHP code, 'elflord' is the clear winner because it highlights flow control
statements (return, continue, break, case, throw, try/catch) in an obvious
color and it's easy to see the code paths.
cheers,
Peter
Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address.
www.yahoo7.com.au/mail
Glen Pfeiffer
> but I have yet to find a color scheme that's usuable in vim
> (screen and rxvt-unicode for terminals) and gvim.
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2140
--
Glen
John Little
Gene said:
>Too bright a background tends to just hurt my eyes that I have to look
>away. Every single "window" on this M$ system I have turned down to at
>least light-gray, because it was like looking into a spotlight after a
>while.
came out the computing world labeled green on back "old" and embraced
the new because they were told to. Sure, paper is white, but that's
passive and reflective, not emissive like a screen.
>And I wish to B'harni that people on this list would *NOT* use
>html for their messages, certainly not with blinding-white backgrounds
>enforced.
settings (the very first bit of HTML most people learn seems to be
bgcolor=#FFFFFF) and it causes me constant trouble; black on black is
hard to read. I feel I'm always struggling against the crowd in
this. Sometimes I set my backgound colour to grey just so I can read
black text, but plain grey is no good in some applications because
that makes the text cursor invisible.
IMO very dark background colour schemes are far superior to light ones
because many more colours have high contrast with the background. My
ideal colour scheme uses a lot more colours than the standard vim
ones. I find I need to tweak my vim colour scheme if I change monitor
if I'm working on it all day. What's "Orange" on one monitor is
sickly brown on another.
I read Ben's essay interesting, but my practice is quite different. I
use the smallest font I can, at the highest resolution a screen
supports, usually a 7 point font on 1680x1050; I'm typing this in 7
point Monospace. In windows I use a lucinda font at 8 point, it seems
to come out smaller than with X. One simply gets more on the screen
at once, more lines of code in more windows.
(I prefer serif fonts for proportional text, and much wider text than
most say is optimal; what one gets with 12 point roman on A4 with 2 cm
margins, about 90 characters, is about right. Roman fonts are
unmatched for elegance and ease on the eye, IMO.)
Regards, John
Tobias Klausmann
While I like it, rxvt-unicode is not capable of 256 colors (only
88, which is still better than the usual 16).
I keep bumping into this limit so I'm considering switching to a
different terminal emulator; I just haven't found one yet. Also,
strange things happen if I run vim-in screen-in urxvt (colors
work but they're way off).
Regards,
Tobias
--
Save a tree - disband an ISO working group today.
Anton Sharonov
for that of course, from Pan Shi Zhu):
...
We have talked about off-white backgrounds, any background which
is not black, grey or white should be changed constantly in order
not to make the eyes less sensitive to particular color. i.e.,
you can use blue background on Monday, red background on Tuesday,
green background on Wednesday, but if you use blue background
everyday, that's no good to your health.
...
Or another quote from same place, which I like a lot:
...
At the first glance this colour scheme may look pretty 'dull',
don't be afraid, this is quite normal. Bear in mind that a text
editor is not a photo album, if a text editor looks exciting you
may not be able to stare at it for a long time.
...
Thomas Köhler
Dmitry Teslenko wrote:
> Hello!
> I want to talk about your choice of vim colorscheme; but not in
> the way like "my favorite colorscheme" which would probably
> result in million-messages-wide and inch-sense-deep thread. But
> rather with science grounds under this choice.
Well, I simply wrote my own colorscheme, so the choice can easily
be explained. That's not rocket science ;-)
> My aim is to find colorcheme with good readability and minimum
> eye-tiredness/fatigue.
I tried to create a colorscheme that is readable. I use a dark
background, so most colors are light for readability.
For example, dark blue on black is a bad choice for readability,
yellow on black is better. But there are also other colorschemes
which are well readable. Some of them use dark background, others
use light background. There are a few simple rules to stick to
(don't use light colors on light background, or dark colors on
dark background, for example). A good colorscheme is sometimes a
tradeoff between many different colors (to highlight many
different syntax items) and only a few colors (because the
terminal doesn't offer too many), so dependend on the main focus,
a different colorscheme might be better.
> It's also interesting to talk about generalizations like dark
> text on light vs light text on dark background.
It's my personal preference to use dark background, I personally
think this is better for the eyes when I am in a dark room which
happens sometimes, while it makes less of a difference if the
room is light.
Ciao,
Thomas
--
Thomas Köhler Email: jean...@picard.franken.de
<>< WWW: http://gott-gehabt.de
IRC: tkoehler
PGP public key available from Homepage!
Thomas Köhler
Thomas Köhler wrote:
> Dmitry Teslenko wrote:
> > It's also interesting to talk about generalizations like dark
> > text on light vs light text on dark background.
>
> It's my personal preference to use dark background, I personally
> think this is better for the eyes when I am in a dark room which
> happens sometimes, while it makes less of a difference if the
> room is light.
I might as well add one fact: I sometimes switch to dark colors
on light background. That is when I want to print out something.
Then readability of the printed version is most important, and
paper is often white ;-)
Ben Schmidt
Well, to contribute to the discussion, I put mine online, though the GUI colours
are still a little bit 'in progress' as I've only recently migrated to a GUI.
Still, I think it works fairly well in colour terminal and GUI. It aims for high
contrast much as we have been discussing, and on the whole it achieves it, though
I need a few tweaks to syntax files, particularly those that link groups to
SpecialKey, as I have this quite dark.
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2260
Ben.
Mike Williams
>>From :help ps_color.txt (you need to install ps_color colorscheme
> for that of course, from Pan Shi Zhu):
>
> ...
> We have talked about off-white backgrounds, any background which
> is not black, grey or white should be changed constantly in order
> not to make the eyes less sensitive to particular color. i.e.,
> you can use blue background on Monday, red background on Tuesday,
> green background on Wednesday, but if you use blue background
> everyday, that's no good to your health.
> ...
That is quite a claim. I have been using a yellow on darkblue
colorscheme for more than 10 years now with no obvious ill affects. And
what would those affects be? General health? Eyesight related?
Why do I use yellow on blue? The eye focuses different colors at
different depths in the eyeball, ans the eye is less sensitive to blue
and more so with yellow. So the combination of colors allows both good
perception contrast as well as focus on the text - the blue doesn't
cause the eyes focusing to work as hard as for other colors.
At the end of the day, it is all a matter of what you find comfortable
and that depends on many more factors - the monitor you use, the ambient
lighting, how often you take breaks from the screen etc.
> Or another quote from same place, which I like a lot:
>
> ...
> At the first glance this colour scheme may look pretty 'dull',
> don't be afraid, this is quite normal. Bear in mind that a text
> editor is not a photo album, if a text editor looks exciting you
> may not be able to stare at it for a long time.
> ...
>
> >
Mike
--
Cracking nuts Gromit!
badmagic
Terminal under Solaris 10 and I'm limited to 16 colours. That's why I
created my own 'myvim.vim' colour scheme. I searched google images for
pictures of C code for ideas on what colours to make the different parts
of code - I like what I've got.
I found one thing that made staring at the screen much easier was to put:
set background=dark
in my ~/.vimrc file. All colours seem much brighter which is what you
want if you've got your terminal set to transparent.
My 2 cents worth,
Cheers,
Steve
ThoML
from white on black to black on white in the 1980s was because people
can more easily read dark letters on light background.
AFAIK Serif fonts are used by newpapers because the serifs serve as
additional hints for the reader that help to recognize a letter. On a
monitor, this only looks good with a high dpi rate. Georgia can look
quite well with a high dpi rate (not in vim though).
I personally use a variation on the darkocean scheme + Lucida Console.
I now tend maximize the window and to use rather large letters.
Looking through a keyhole can also be an advantage because there is
only little room left for distractions.
If you find some solid information on this topic, maybe you'll let us
know. It was quite interesting to read other vim user's thoughts on
this.
John Little
>
> I think the main reason for the switch
> from white on black to black on white in the 1980s was because people
> can more easily read dark letters on light background.
contrary to my own experience. I think people prefer what they are
used to, and start with what they're given. However, many programmers
use dark colour schemes, and not just old fogeys like myself.
Regards, John
sc
also, there are old fogeys, yes, like myself, who hate what
they were forced to get used to, such as all caps and very
dark backgrounds, who love vim because it is one of the most
flexible tools they've ever come across, allows them to set
every aspect of color, create whatever customization suits
them, who were thrilled when VM allowed them to start using
mixed case, create scripts in rexx
oh never mind
sc
John Beckett
> As I posted above, I disagree categorically, as it's
> certainly contrary to my own experience. I think people
> prefer what they are used to, and start with what they're
> given. However, many programmers use dark colour schemes,
> and not just old fogeys like myself.
Now that we've resolved this (and the issue of tabs vs spaces), let's tackle the
question of what is the best editor???
John
Tony Mechelynck
[...]
> Now that we've resolved this (and the issue of tabs vs spaces), let's tackle the
> question of what is the best editor???
>
> John
Hmmm... What about Notepad? Or, for KDE people, maybe kedit? ;-)
Best regards,
Tony.
--
"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
-- Charles Schulz