redbasic 'dark' schema

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 04:04:59 +0000

problem

redbasic's dark schema has been neglected for a while, resulting in some text items and category badges becoming unreadable. categoies were simple to fix, but the [hl] tag (hightlighted text) is more tricky.

the BBcode editor inserts inline CSS for highlighted text:
<span style="background-color: yellow">...hightlighted text...</span>

temporary solution

this works fine for the non-dark schemas but isn't readable on dark background. the background color can't be changed via CSS rules so i had to change the text color of the highlighted text. this was only possible via a pseudo class that works so far but might lead to unwanted results, affecting other text between <span> tags.

the above fixes have been merged into both dev and master and are already active in the latest stable release, 3.8.7.

but at present there is another problem with the dark schema, some text being rendered in dark blue, for which i thought up a similar hack, which has not been accepted. that problem will solve itself after the upgrade to Hz 4.0, and for those who want to use dark now there is a hack you can apply, linked to in the wiki mentioned at the end.

proposed (better) solution

my idea is to change the BBcode editor to not insert inline styles but CSS classes to change the background color. then background and text color can easily be changed via simple CSS rules in dark and other schemas.

i've looked at include/bbcode.php and this could easily be done. additional CSS rules would have to be added to default and dark.css, which isn't a problem either. in the same way other HTML elements could be dealt with, when or if that becomes necessary.

before submitting a merge request for this i want to know what the developers think about this idea.

redbasic dark wiki

since i'm not always very attentive and not using all of hubzilla's features, it's quite possible that i won't notice some problems with the dark theme. i've published a wiki therefore where other users of that theme can tell me what's wrong, or what can be improved: RedbasicDarkWiki. all of my contacts should have write access to this wiki.

Themes Redbasic dark

show all 7 Comments

Harald Eilertsen

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 07:45:37 +0000

my idea is to change the BBcode editor to not insert inline styles but CSS classes to change the background color.

That's how it should have been done in the first place. Not one of the devs, but I vote yes!
Nice work!

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 08:28:17 +0000

but at present there is another problem with the dark schema, some text being rendered in dark blue on dark background.

this actually is a side-effect of my 'fix' that has been adopted. HTML elements changed with the latest updates to master and now it isn't possible anymore to target the elements i need. going ahead to prepare a merge request, even w/o reply from those who have a say. let's see...

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 16:16:54 +0000

submitted a merge request that changes 3 files:

include/bbcode.php: hl-tags don't generate a yellow background via inline style but a CSS class <span class="default-hightlight">. this class is defined in view/theme/redbasic/css/style.css.

this default style works for all themes incl 'dark' and does not need to be defined again.

kept the previous fix for category badge without changing the default color, as i did before.

i'm not very happy with how the 'dark' theme variant looks, but nobody ever accused me of artistic understanding, so after playing around with some alternative colors i left them alone.

this patch works for both, dev and master as it is and could be applied to both with the next minor upgrade.

would be great if somebody with better artistic sense could suggest better colors for headings, hightlights, etc., for the dark theme.

@Mario Vavti

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 16:19:08 +0000 last edited: Mon, 17 Dec 2018 16:37:02 +0000

PS: you can take a look at
https://hub.phanisvara.com/channel/phani

to see what it looks like.

phani (Hubzilla)

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:14:10 +0000 last edited: Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:17:04 +0000

the wiki i linked to in the post will disappear, together with my present identity / channel. i have been running in a few circles yesterday, messing up & rescuing my hub, but as a result i lost federation with Diaspora*. so i'm going to start over once again but won't recreate that wiki.

my changes to the redbasic 'dark' theme have been merged into dev, and they could be cherry-picked for the next point release of master. but i'm getting the impression that i'm the only one using 'dark,' so why bother?

Giacomino

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:24:58 +0000

people use dark theme yes... but with HZ (not osada and zap) I can modify a little the page/theme , and is what I did.

phani (Hubzilla)

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:39:21 +0000

yes, i'm only talking about hubzilla here. i have an instance of osada too, but only to watch what's happening.

i tried modifying the default redbasic theme with those advanced theme controls too, but didn't like very much what i came up with. the included 'dark' schema looks better and all i did was creating a couple of fixes for page elements that weren't readable anymore.

your hub runs on dev too, so once the latest changes are pulled, you can try the improved dark theme. don't know how quickly new commits are pulled into zotum.net though.