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Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

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Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#71
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the shitty tn panels my workplace gives us are already maxed out in that regard. I needed to juice them in order to view a logon form.

And that’s why I replace all the panels on my laptops with proper ones, and only use monitors with good contrast ratios. As low-budget option I can recommend the Fujitsu Siemens P17-2, it’s from 2004, available used around 20 € and has better contrast, brightness, and viewing angles than any TN panel even today. It’s ridiculous that a monitor from 2004 is still better than anything the complainers in this thread are…

I'll bear that in mind but I'm not buying stuff for the office. My home equipment is all dell ultrasharps and they look pretty nice.

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#73
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta-irony at its finest.

What contrast do you want? A billion to one? At some point it's excessive, right? So there's some value less than infinite that you're after. Why is your monitor's maximum contrast the right value?

I was, in fact, making a cheap shot at how hn decreases the contrast on downvoted comments.

I apologize for any intelligent discussion I may have caused.

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#74
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find there's often a high degree of educated comments here on HN. But, when it comes to monitors, readability and the physics of light something happens. #000 on #fff won't burn out your retinas. :)

Monitors or anything backlit are terrible to read from for any length of time. Paper or e-ink is superior. I don't see anything wrong with lowering the contrast of text on a screen to compensate for that fact.

[deleted]

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#75

Oh so that's why monitor makers are fighting the contrast wars...: websites using poor contrast text

Not really, tweak everything you read to have proper contrast but not pure black on pure white, and keep your monitor with max contrast, it's a pure pleasure. Tone down contrast overall and what you get is mud no matter what, giving fatigue with prolonged time in front of the screen.

I find dark mode to help too. Not a black theme, a dark theme. Full contrast screen at its best.

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#76

I recommend people with similar interests take a look at uBlock's filter language (yes, the ad blocker). It's a short and shallow learning curve until you can inject your personal CSS into webpages, and incrementally tweak them. Two small examples: "Show all text on the internet as black" *##*:style(color: black !important) "Show comment text on HN as bold" ycombinator.com##.comment:style(font-weight: bold !important…

Chrome's devtools also has a concept of local overrides. It has limitations, but doesn't require an extension.

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-devtools-65/#overri...

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#77
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between using "soft black" and using low-contrast gray like you're Apple in the 2010s. The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).

> The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness). Can you find a citation for that statement? WCAG 2.1[0] mentions minimum contrast, but not maximum. The success criterion page itself is written in #000 on #fff. :) https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCA…

I'm not the original poster, but here's an academic paper that found that 8:1 luminance contrast is optimal for reading, after which readability actually decreases: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01698...

As far as I can tell based on what I've read, there can be a conflict between users with accessibility needs, where you may want as high contrast as possible, and typical users, where excess contrast may impair readability in some cases. The WCAG minimums are within the realm of reasonable for both sets of users though, so there isn't really an excuse not to meet those minimums.

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#78

I recommend people with similar interests take a look at uBlock's filter language (yes, the ad blocker). It's a short and shallow learning curve until you can inject your personal CSS into webpages, and incrementally tweak them. Two small examples: "Show all text on the internet as black" *##*:style(color: black !important) "Show comment text on HN as bold" ycombinator.com##.comment:style(font-weight: bold !important…

If you want to inject CSS, use a "user styles" manager like Stylus. There's almost no learning curve if you know CSS. You can write entire sheets for all pages, multiple or single domains. For example to make HN legible (basic text, spacing and contrast): @-moz-document domain("ycombinator.com") { :root { --font-size: 1.2rem; --text-color: #333; } .comment { font-size: var(--font-size); line-height: 1.5; } body { fon…

> If you want to inject CSS, use a "user styles" manager like Stylus.

Unfortunately, Firefox on Android only supports a limited number of extensions, and Stylus is not currently one of them.

It's really sad, because I used to have some nice site-specific user styles.

I really don't understand Mozilla's decisions. They destroyed their password security, they destroyed their extension advantage. One wonders what's next — a pivot to Gopher? Oh well, despite all their numerous mistakes, Firefox is still preferable to Chrome.

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#79
Another extension that nukes grey text is BeeLine Reader. But instead of replacing grey text with black, it uses user-configurable color gradients, which wrap between lines and improve visual tracking. Disclosure: I'm the creator.

1: http://www.beelinereader.com

2: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...

3: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/beelinereader...

Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text

#80
Sometimes this works for me. Highlight the text with your mouse, or whatever works on mobile devices. Then the highlight colors are sometimes easier to read.

On this site I get white text on medium brown, not as good as the standard colors for me at least.

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