From: sabrina downard
Date: 16:51 on 09 Sep 2005
Subject: Colors Suck.
"Black and white text is boring. With colors your file comes to
life. This not only looks nice, it also speeds up your work."
black and white text is legible on my xterm, you goddamned presumptively
default configured pile of /shit/. if i wanted syntax highlighting and
all my twiddles turned dark blue, i know how to do it my own damn self.
i hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust my .profile and
.exrc to override all the whiz-bang shiny defaults that all the clever
fifteen year-olds think are required. setting a path? reasonable.
setting up color defaults for everything from ls to vim to my damned
command-line prompt? knock it off!
hatefully,
-s.
From: Juerd Date: 17:03 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. sabrina downard skribis 2005-09-09 10:51 (-0500): > i hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust my .profile and > .exrc to override all the whiz-bang shiny defaults that all the clever > fifteen year-olds think are required. setting a path? reasonable. > setting up color defaults for everything from ls to vim to my damned > command-line prompt? knock it off! I hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust anything to get useful colours added to the output. The colours help me instantly see what's going on. In my editor, currently, your text is coloured differently from mine. I love that I never had to ask for this, as that saves me a lot of work. Tastes differ, and there's no good default when it comes to taste. And I'm not falling for the but-my-terminal-is-100-years-old-and-doesn't- render-these-things-correctly argument. By the way, vim is better than emacs, perl is better than python, KDE looks better than GNOME, MacOS-like menu bars suck and file managers must not be "spatial". Juerd
From: Luke Kanies Date: 17:08 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Juerd wrote: > By the way, vim is better than emacs, perl is better than python, KDE > looks better than GNOME, MacOS-like menu bars suck and file managers > must not be "spatial". You know, I really do like this list, and one of the reasons I do is that we all seem so jaded about all software that we can't seem to get up and into a real flame fest. OTOH, I sometimes get slightly disappointed knowing that no one on this list would even consider rising to the bait of the above jokingly said statements. Oh well. And ruby is better than either perl or python. :)
From: sabrina downard Date: 17:20 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. : OTOH, I sometimes get slightly disappointed knowing that no one on this : list would even consider rising to the bait of the above jokingly said : statements. flame wars are what usenet is for! i saw an old-school flame ware on some tv show newsgroup, can't recall which, a couple of weeks and i actually caught myself saying "awww, it's just like old times!" and to put that on topic: slrn sucks, tin rocks. :-)
From: David Champion Date: 17:37 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Newsreaders Suck. * On 2005.09.09, in <Pine.GSO.4.62.0509091118510.11427@xxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxx>, * "Sabrina Downard" <sld@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > and to put that on topic: slrn sucks, tin rocks. :-) Well, you're right about slrn. Half credit. I'm probably the only one who liked trn3 and wishes it hadn't fallen into the Bottomless Chasm of Nonmaintenance, nor morphed into the atrocity of trn4. But I miss it. I'll even go as far as saying the practical loss of trn3 is the biggest reason I no longer read usenet, right above "wretched hive of scum and villainy" and "ship of fools", but some distance from "troll bridge". So many things I'd have liked to say on usenet, but I stashed instead in my postponed-screed file. (I always liked that "usenet" is an anagram of "unsent".) Thank you, hates-software, for dropping into that bucket.
From: Aaron J. Grier Date: 23:30 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Newsreaders Suck. On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 11:37:22AM -0500, David Champion wrote: > I'm probably the only one who liked trn3 and wishes it hadn't fallen > into the Bottomless Chasm of Nonmaintenance, nor morphed into the > atrocity of trn4. But I miss it. I dunno... trn4's scoring is kinda nice. it's not that trn doesn't suck... but I haven't found anything else that works as well.
From: David Champion Date: 23:46 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Newsreaders Suck. * On 2005.09.09, in <20050909223056.GX1988@xxxxx.xxxxx.xxxx.xxx>, * "Aaron J. Grier" <agrier@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > I dunno... trn4's scoring is kinda nice. Scoring was a good idea (I liked strn), but the UI changes that accompanied it into trn4 make it all but unusable to me. Try as I might, I just can't figure out how to *use* the accursed thing. But whether I have too much trn3 neural programming still in my fingers, or whether it really is just ass, I don't know. I suppose I should try loading up a trn again. It's been a while, and maybe I could abide it now that I've simply avoided usenet for years.
From: sabrina downard Date: 17:18 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. : And : I'm not falling for the but-my-terminal-is-100-years-old-and-doesn't- : render-these-things-correctly argument. fortunately the argument i'm making is that my terminal is set up how i prefer it -- not that it can't do colors -- and i dislike having default PS1 and LS_COLORS that completely disappear on my display. if i wanted to squint, i'd use smaller type. also exacerbating today's hate was the documentation that went on and on about how fantabulous colors are and how to tweak them in many ways, without simply and forthrightly telling one how to disable them.
From: Luke Kanies Date: 20:24 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, sabrina downard wrote: > fortunately the argument i'm making is that my terminal is set up how > i prefer it -- not that it can't do colors -- and i dislike having > default PS1 and LS_COLORS that completely disappear on my display. if i > wanted to squint, i'd use smaller type. I have to say, it really is worth changing your XTerm/RXVT/Whatever settings so that these colors appear correctly. That way at least you won't be squinting while you're trying to fix it. The snippet I sent should suffice to at least make any colors readable on a dark background. > also exacerbating today's hate was the documentation that went on and on > about how fantabulous colors are and how to tweak them in many ways, > without simply and forthrightly telling one how to disable them. Come on now, if documentation just told you what you wanted to hear (which is usually "how do I disable this crap?), it would be a lot shorter and a lot more useful, and that just wouldn't do.
From: Luke Kanies Date: 17:03 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, sabrina downard wrote: > "Black and white text is boring. With colors your file comes to > life. This not only looks nice, it also speeds up your work." > > black and white text is legible on my xterm, you goddamned presumptively > default configured pile of /shit/. if i wanted syntax highlighting and > all my twiddles turned dark blue, i know how to do it my own damn self. > > i hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust my .profile and > .exrc to override all the whiz-bang shiny defaults that all the clever > fifteen year-olds think are required. setting a path? reasonable. > setting up color defaults for everything from ls to vim to my damned > command-line prompt? knock it off! While I generally agree that people thinking they're smarter than the user is a stupid thing (I'm talking to you and your .inputrc, Red Hat!), I also have to agree with this particular snippet that colors rock. Unfortunately, even though basically no one alive still uses a white background in xterms, all colors default to working fine on white backgrounds but working for shit on dark backgrounds. I spent a significant amount of time a few years ago stealing all of the colors for dark backgrounds from GVim (no, not vim -- I never got it's "dark background" thing to work) and getting them to work for me. I've added them all to my .Xdefaults file, and now the colors actually look good (i.e., no dark, unreadable blue, except on Apple's crappy Terminal.app): Rxvt*color0: Black Rxvt*color1: #ffa0a0 Rxvt*color2: Green3 Rxvt*color3: #ffff60 Rxvt*color4: #80a0ff Rxvt*color5: Orange Rxvt*color6: #40ffff Rxvt*color7: Wheat Rxvt*color8: Grey25 Rxvt*color9: IndianRed Rxvt*color10: Green3 Rxvt*color11: #40ffff Rxvt*color12: #80a0ff Rxvt*color13: #ffa0a0 Rxvt*color14: #40ffff Rxvt*color15: Wheat Rxvt*cursorColor: Wheat This is (somewhat obviously) black background and wheat foreground. I kind of ran out of colors, and I never got bold to work so the last 8 are entirely redundant.
From: Rhesa Rozendaal Date: 17:11 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. Luke Kanies wrote: > Unfortunately, even though basically no one alive still uses a white > background in xterms, all colors default to working fine on white > backgrounds but working for shit on dark backgrounds. I spent a > significant amount of time a few years ago stealing all of the colors > for dark backgrounds from GVim (no, not vim -- I never got it's "dark > background" thing to work) and getting them to work for me. I hate black backgrounds. My email program has a white background. My web browser has a white background. Gaim has a white background. Paper has a white background. Give me black text on a white background, always! Rhesa
From: Juerd Date: 17:16 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. Rhesa Rozendaal skribis 2005-09-09 18:11 (+0200): > Paper has a white background. Black paper does not. Juerd
From: Rhesa Rozendaal Date: 17:24 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. Juerd wrote: > Rhesa Rozendaal skribis 2005-09-09 18:11 (+0200): > >>Paper has a white background. > > > Black paper does not. Yes it does, it just has a stupid -bg setting. Oh, and I read the list; no need to cc me. ;)
From: sabrina downard Date: 21:18 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. : Oh, and I read the list; no need to cc me. ;) now it's /me's turn to look around guiltily. i always think to fix the cc: lines, after i've already said 'yes' to the send prompt! the software should make me remember more quickly. stupid software. :-) --sabrina (got it this time :-)
From: David Champion
Date: 21:38 on 09 Sep 2005
Subject: Re: Colors Suck.
* On 2005.09.09, in <Pine.GSO.4.62.0509091517130.11427@xxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxx>,
^^^^
* "Sabrina Downard" <sld@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
>
> now it's /me's turn to look around guiltily. i always think to fix the
> cc: lines, after i've already said 'yes' to the send prompt!
>
> the software should make me remember more quickly. stupid software. :-)
Do I dare?
One day, Sabrina, we will bend you.
From: David Champion Date: 17:16 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. * On 2005.09.09, in <4321B43E.6010602@xxxxxx.xx>, * "Rhesa Rozendaal" <rhesa@xxxxxx.xx> wrote: > > Give me black text on a white background, always! No.
From: David Cantrell Date: 17:30 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 06:11:42PM +0200, Rhesa Rozendaal wrote: > Luke Kanies wrote: > >Unfortunately, even though basically no one alive still uses a white > >background in xterms > Give me black text on a white background, always! And openlook!
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 18:53 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. > Luke Kanies wrote: >> Unfortunately, even though basically no one alive still uses a white >> background in xterms, all colors default to working fine on white >> backgrounds but working for shit on dark backgrounds. I spent a >> significant amount of time a few years ago stealing all of the colors >> for dark backgrounds from GVim (no, not vim -- I never got it's "dark >> background" thing to work) and getting them to work for me. Rhesa wrote: > I hate black backgrounds. > My email program has a white background. > My web browser has a white background. > Gaim has a white background. > Paper has a white background. I use a white background too in my xterms. But none of that colour crap.
From: Luke Kanies Date: 20:22 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Rhesa Rozendaal wrote: > I hate black backgrounds. > My email program has a white background. > My web browser has a white background. > Gaim has a white background. > Paper has a white background. > > Give me black text on a white background, always! I really wish that I could get wheat text on a black background on all of those apps, too. I haven't used that Paper application, though; what OS does it run on and what does it do? Oh, and Pine is my email program (yes, I know it sucks), so black background for me.
From: Patrick Carr Date: 05:39 on 10 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Sep 9, 2005, at 12:11 PM, Rhesa Rozendaal wrote: > > Give me black text on a white background, always! Word. Side note: I have never seen a book printed on black paper. (There's a racist joke in there about the Necronomicon, but I won't make it.) And color-wise, I just discovered sao's tips for making xterm look like Terminal-dot-app and I must confess that the bold-as-dark-blue is purty. Obhate: Boo on Mail-dot-app for rendering all of this text I'm typing in blue because it thinks it's still part of the quoted text. Pat Carr
From: Luke Kanies Date: 07:00 on 10 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Sat, 10 Sep 2005, Patrick Carr wrote: > Side note: I have never seen a book printed on black paper. (There's > a racist joke in there about the Necronomicon, but I won't make it.) While I would agree, I think we can all agree that the lack of this combination in no way implies that this lack is through design. Paper has traditionally been made of materials that are naturally whitish in color, and dyes and inks have traditionally been far easier to create in dark colors than in light but opaque colors. So, like far too many aspects of our lives, it is merely by happenstance rather than by design or superiority that we traditionally have black words on white background. Certainly when looking at monitors it makes more sense set things up to pick out the bright pixels than to try to instead pick out the dark pixels.
From: David Champion Date: 07:24 on 10 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. I resisted commenting on this the first time, but I now can't keep still. (Which, to close a circle, is another significant part of why I quit usenet.) Maybe it's just because I'm thinking about going to PRINT 05 tomorrow, but I can't let this paper comparison lie. Here's the thing: paper's generally whitish, yes, but it's not because white backgrounds are inherently better. It's because that's what's most practical with the particular technology you're using (i.e., wood pulp and graphite or pigment). So if you want to make arguments about light window backgrounds working better than dark with video technology, help yourself -- at that point it's quite simply a matter of taste -- but the paper argument really doesn't carry you on it because it's not the same thing at all. It's not even the same color model. I like my books on light (preferably not white) paper, and my terminal on a dark (preferably not black) window. Furthermore I like my engravings on basalt or granite, or perhaps limestone, and my tempera on wet plaster. I don't really see this as inconsistent. When someone invents a high-speed digital display medium that works with reflected light and subtractive color, we can revisit it. ObHate: I like how the new Powerbooks have this two-finger scroll action thing in the trackpad. It's nice, especially now that a measurable percentage of the modern life involves scrolling a relatively short but heavily-quilted roll of toilet paper labelled "Intarweb" up and down. Takes a little acclimation, but it's very handy and it didn't take me long to expect it just to work on every laptop I use. Unfortunately that means I use it all the time, instead of keyboarding around. So I'm looking at the PRINT 05 web site, and they have this cute (grr) little scrolling marquee thing to list the highlights, and as I two-finger-scroll down the page, my cursor hovers over the marquee, and suddenly the toilet paper stops moving, dead. To make it go again I have to move my hand to specific places instead of gesticulating vaguely, and that's just not cool since it's quite obvious what I mean. It's not even a div or a frame with a scrollbar -- at least I can understand the conflict of intention that leads to that problem, and normally I can just scroll through the inner scrollbox and get back to the outer, so it's not such a big deal. This is just a box full of text in javascripty motion... right? No, it's a Java applet, so it can steal all my input device functions and replace them with dead nothing. Who honestly thought it was a good plan to lay a wholly distinct UI paradigm right in the middle of another one, hmm? Bloody designers. There's a place in hell for you people among the fraudulent, somewhere between thieves and counterfeiters, which is one circle deeper than where I'll be after I find you and poke little holes in your necks with your own drawing tablet pens. Come to think of it, I'll bet your special place is right there alongside the advertising people I was lambasting this evening in the grocery after spotting "Pure Zer0" on the broad side of a six-pack of Diet Gut Solvent. Somebody tell me what in the name of Ogilvy & Mather "pure zero" is supposed to mean. It doesn't even make me want some, it just mocks the sensibilities of anyone whose semantic skills have developed past the Mesolithic period. Designers! Advertisers! Stop trying to think outside your boxes. I swear this is the kind of "creativity" that destroys civilizations. Apparently I need to get a blog or something. Speaking of mocking semantic skills.
From: Smylers Date: 14:07 on 10 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. David Champion writes: > Here's the thing: paper's generally whitish, yes, but it's not because > white backgrounds are inherently better. Agreed. > ... but the paper argument really doesn't carry you on it because > it's not the same thing at all. It's not even the same color model. It isn't, and if you're dealing with something like a shell command-line or a plain-text e-mail it doesn't really matter which colours you use. But for things such as DTP packages which provide on-screen views of full-colour paper documents, it does make sense for screen background to be white. This also applies to some extent to word processors, web-pages, and a few other things. Enough of them that many windows are going to be dark text on pale backgrounds, so my eyes are going to have to cope with that As such, I find it less hassle to have all my windows using those sorts of colours, rather than some of each. Yes, I see your point that it's stupid to let the limits of a competely different technology to influence my terminal colours, but it makes some sense to me! > I like my books on light (preferably not white) paper, and my terminal > on a dark (preferably not black) window. Furthermore I like my > engravings on basalt or granite, or perhaps limestone, and my tempera > on wet plaster. I like my tempera with noodles. No, that can't be right ... Smylers
From: Darrell Fuhriman Date: 16:12 on 10 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. >>Here's the thing: paper's generally whitish, yes, but it's not >>because white backgrounds are inherently better. >Agreed. Disagree. There's plenty of research which shows that dark words printed on light text are easier on the eyes, especially for long pages. Besides paper is *not* inherently whitish -- we make it that way because we've learned that what works best. However, there is some truth to the idea that paper and screens don't use the same color model, and are therefore shouldn't be compared directly. But then, I hate reading long texts on a screen. I print them out. Darrell
From: David Cantrell Date: 17:25 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 10:51:40AM -0500, sabrina downard wrote: > i hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust my .profile and > .exrc to override all the whiz-bang shiny defaults that all the clever > fifteen year-olds think are required. setting a path? reasonable. > setting up color defaults for everything from ls to vim to my damned > command-line prompt? knock it off! And what *I* hate is that even setting TERM=vt100 or similar, which should turn off all the colour crap what with vt100s being monochrome, generally doesn't because the terminal emulators suck so hard.
From: David Champion Date: 17:39 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. * On 2005.09.09, in <20050909162511.GA11740@xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xx.xx>, * "David Cantrell" <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: > > And what *I* hate is that even setting TERM=vt100 or similar, which > should turn off all the colour crap what with vt100s being monochrome, > generally doesn't because the terminal emulators suck so hard. Not just the emulators. A curses application using vt100 should never emit color codes. So many of them just presume that ANSI sequences are valid. Guiltily,
From: Luke Kanies Date: 19:13 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, David Champion wrote: > Not just the emulators. A curses application using vt100 should never > emit color codes. So many of them just presume that ANSI sequences are > valid. > > Guiltily, /me looks around guiltily Is that how I should determine it? I like colors, and so few people use the code that I write (which is too bad, currently, since I'm running a software startup) that I haven't bothered to handle that appropriately. VT100, huh?
From: David Cantrell Date: 20:58 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 01:13:56PM -0500, Luke Kanies wrote: > On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, David Champion wrote: > > Not just the emulators. A curses application using vt100 should never > > emit color codes. So many of them just presume that ANSI sequences are > > valid. > /me looks around guiltily > Is that how I should determine it? I like colors, and so few people use > the code that I write (which is too bad, currently, since I'm running a > software startup) that I haven't bothered to handle that appropriately. > VT100, huh? Lots and lots of others too. I kinda assumed that the curses library should handle all that, but if I read Brother Champion correctly, it's at least partially up to the application. And if that's the case, some curses library person needs shootin'.
From: David Champion Date: 22:02 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. * On 2005.09.09, in <20050909195846.GC16084@xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xx.xx>, * "David Cantrell" <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: > > Lots and lots of others too. I kinda assumed that the curses library > should handle all that, but if I read Brother Champion correctly, it's > at least partially up to the application. And if that's the case, some > curses library person needs shootin'. Or at least it can be. I suspect you *can* leave this wholly up to the library, but if so, it's not required. I'm no expert on curses, but I've seen more than one app that just blithely prints \033[34m whenever it wants blue, and I know that curses has a set of routines for judging the terminal's color capabilities -- see curs_color(3,3CURSES,3x,etc), and insert a placeholder hate for all the idiot man command variations and the disagreement on what a "section" means. And, yes, guiltily I have written such applications. Why? Because curses is a PITA, and curses from, say, perl even moreso. And nobody uses my code either.
From: Chris Devers
Date: 21:02 on 09 Sep 2005
Subject: Re: Colors Suck.
This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
--0-997035926-1126296152=:10919
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE
On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, sabrina downard wrote:
> i hate logging on to a new system and having to adjust my .profile and=20
> .exrc to override all the whiz-bang shiny defaults that all the clever=20
> fifteen year-olds think are required. setting a path? reasonable.=20
> setting up color defaults for everything from ls to vim to my damned=20
> command-line prompt? knock it off!
Could be worse.
Imagine working for a place where the default .profile specified
alias ls=3D"ls --color=3Dauto"
Or something to that effect.
Now imagine being the support monkey that has to help all the new people=20
figure out why
$ ls -la
doesn't work the way one would expect it to.=20
Hijacking the expected behavior of shell commands is the / of all evil.
(Being told "hey, it works on Debian" did little to quell the=20
frustration for all the non-Debian users, and really, so, great, that's=20
*one* thing that worked on Debian, compared to dozens of well-known &=20
commented-upon glitches that didn't work. Is it really worth it? No.)
Not that I'm bitter or anything... :-)
=20
--=20
Chris Devers
33=C6b=99=A7=9Co1s?=12
--0-997035926-1126296152=:10919--
From: sabrina downard Date: 21:16 on 09 Sep 2005 Subject: Re: Colors Suck. : Not that I'm bitter or anything... :-) here on hates-software, we're not bitter, we're /helpful/! =D
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